This is for all the people in the USA and the UK who have never been to the 'other' place – you know if you've never crossed the Atlantic.
I wrote the other day about working in 'rep' in the theatre and somebody pointed out to me something that was pointed out to me years ago. In the UK when you do one play after another in the theatre it is called in repertory. If you do one play a week, a fortnight or a month it's still the same in repertory.
If you do – shall we say – three plays in the one week every week those are said to be in repertoire; just like a musician or a singer has so many songs or pieces of music in repertoire.
In the USA that is not so; they call doing plays consecutively, one after the other, in repertoire and the three plays that gets done each week all the way through the season in repertory. Now I don't argue with the other things they say and their phrases but this time they have got it wrong.
There are lots of other things you will notice – well you might not – and the first thing I noticed was the traffic lights; they're great. When you come to the traffic lights and the lights are on red and there's no other traffic there you are allowed to nip around the corner; you can't go straight ahead or turn across the road but you can nip around the corner. Now don't you think that is absolutely fantastic? You have to stop first or you'll get a ticket but it's saves fuel and time.
I find it amazing that nobody has been over here from Europe and taken that idea back as it seems the most sensible of things.
The other thing that has always fascinated me is why things here are opposite from the things over there.
I have always known, from the movies, that when the Americans put the light on they click the switch up; in Britain to turn on the light you click the switch down. It doesn't matter does it really so why do they do it? Or we do it? Why do the two things have to be opposite?
You will know about the driving on a different side of the road and the driving position in the car being opposite but did you know that in America the back brake on a bicycle is on the right handlebar. That's something I didn't know till relatively recently.
I did worry that the controls inside a car might have been the other way around but I needn't have worried – they're the same although most of the cars are automatic.
When I first came here fifteen years ago they didn't use or even know what the word queue meant; they would use line. Not may people knew or even know now what a fortnight is.
My pal bet me that nobody in a crowded bar would even know what a spanner is – I took the bet and went around the bar asking – and lost.
So maybe George Bernard Shaw was right when he said Britain and America were two countries separated by a common language.
I wrote the other day about working in 'rep' in the theatre and somebody pointed out to me something that was pointed out to me years ago. In the UK when you do one play after another in the theatre it is called in repertory. If you do one play a week, a fortnight or a month it's still the same in repertory.
If you do – shall we say – three plays in the one week every week those are said to be in repertoire; just like a musician or a singer has so many songs or pieces of music in repertoire.
In the USA that is not so; they call doing plays consecutively, one after the other, in repertoire and the three plays that gets done each week all the way through the season in repertory. Now I don't argue with the other things they say and their phrases but this time they have got it wrong.
There are lots of other things you will notice – well you might not – and the first thing I noticed was the traffic lights; they're great. When you come to the traffic lights and the lights are on red and there's no other traffic there you are allowed to nip around the corner; you can't go straight ahead or turn across the road but you can nip around the corner. Now don't you think that is absolutely fantastic? You have to stop first or you'll get a ticket but it's saves fuel and time.
I find it amazing that nobody has been over here from Europe and taken that idea back as it seems the most sensible of things.
The other thing that has always fascinated me is why things here are opposite from the things over there.
I have always known, from the movies, that when the Americans put the light on they click the switch up; in Britain to turn on the light you click the switch down. It doesn't matter does it really so why do they do it? Or we do it? Why do the two things have to be opposite?
You will know about the driving on a different side of the road and the driving position in the car being opposite but did you know that in America the back brake on a bicycle is on the right handlebar. That's something I didn't know till relatively recently.
I did worry that the controls inside a car might have been the other way around but I needn't have worried – they're the same although most of the cars are automatic.
When I first came here fifteen years ago they didn't use or even know what the word queue meant; they would use line. Not may people knew or even know now what a fortnight is.
My pal bet me that nobody in a crowded bar would even know what a spanner is – I took the bet and went around the bar asking – and lost.
So maybe George Bernard Shaw was right when he said Britain and America were two countries separated by a common language.
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