So everything is turning orange....

So we are coming up to Halloween - it will actually be my second since moving to the US but I have to say this English Girl is still amazed how the Americans really do take this event to their hearts.  In England, kids of course dress up and play trick and treat on neighbouring houses on All Hallows Eve, but nothing prepared me for the extent of the American love and embrace for everything Halloween related.  Maybe it's because it is described as the first of the of the three big "holidays" that gets them all excited - although the holiday tag tricks you as amazingly for America there is no actually public holiday (a.k.a day off work) attached.   

Seriously - the build up to Halloween is like the English greeting card's assault on Christmas beginning in early September.  For nearly two months now we have been orange tinted, pumpkins adorn every store front, whole Halloween stores open up dedicated to the provision of Halloween costumes, toys, tricks and every Halloween related treats you can imagine.  "Pumpkin Patches" appear -for kids to actually go and choose their own pumpkin right from the earth or any other vacant lot - my favorite being on an disused car sales lot on Wilshire.... Grocery stores import every size shape and style of pumpkin known to man and all pre-packaged cakes and biscuits seem to have orange icing or be shaped like and believe me everything from a latte to pies are all flavoured with pumpkin.  And try to find a pack of snickers bars or any other treat that has not been reduced to "funsize" packaging for the "treaters" is to be honest exhausting!

Medusa at the 2009 Parade

That's not to say this English girls hasn't got caught up in the frenzy - as anyone who knows me knows I am partial to a spot of fancy dress like the next woman.  And with that in mind - The Annual West Hollywood Fancy Dress Parade is it has to be said awesome - the creativity and thought that goes into the costumes which are paraded up and down Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood is a definite sight to be seen and probably where this English Girl will end up this years Halloween's evening too.  Although after last year's choice of costume had many random women stranger asking my better half (who was dressed as Zorro) for pictures with him every two minutes - I may relegate his costume to a more conventional zombie one.....!

Hope to see you there - Just don't even think about giving me another slice of pumpkin pie.

"We all adore a Kia-Ora" - just not including America

I think I have mentioned previously that it is the weird things about England that this English Girl misses the most.  However since moving to Los Angeles I have been actually amazed by some of things that you just cannot get in this country.  It's not just quirky English stuff, but there are some things lacking and I just don't understand.  For example orange squash in fact any squash be it lemon blackcurrant (mmm Ribena....) or even mixed fruit.  It's just not available here. 

Huge cartons of concentrate - check.  Powder you mix with water in the realm of Tang (creates something like squash but not really and they don't have any normal flavors) - check!  Vats of Iced Tea - check.  But good old orange or lemon squash which you mix the requisite parts with water - nada.  The question really is how can the mum's of America go without it - admittedly the nutritional benefits (or after effects) of all the E numbers consumed by children of the Generation Y is still likely under scrutiny by some European scientists somewhere but then again that's another story.   This English Girl just can't recall a birthday party, school race day or day of my life in England where you couldn't get an orange squash if you wanted one.    Now don't feel too sorry for me as all is not completely bleak here as you can obtain (stashed next to the tequila in US supermarket chains) Rose's lime cordial.    Although the checkout girl in the local Ralph's probably thinks I probably make the weakest margarita's considering my purchasing regularity of a bottle most weeks. 

To me this is one grocery item's unavailability that makes no sense - the ease of making a soft drink, the relative inexpensiveness - all would seem to be an easy marketing play here in the US of A - but sadly no.  However, all may be forgiven since this is the country of the invention of the Tide pen - which is yet to arrive on UK shore and which is something I now cannot live without.  Somehow this English Girl needs to work out how to start an import business as I know for sure that this English Girl's friends back home would love them to bits. 

Of course they would be especially useful for getting those spots of Ribena off a white top!  

No offense but we're all just foreigners.

Okay so it's stating the blatantly obvious but being an English Girl, I am classified as a foreigner in this town.  Even worse than that I am described for all official purposes as an alien  - but that's another story.    Obviously I know this and,  as I have alluded to, I try to prepare the general public when I am out and about in my new adopted town.  However, from time to time, I forget that I speak "a bit funny" in the minds of the general Los Angeleno population. 

So, for those of you who don't know me, I don't have a strong regional accent, in fact I don't really have an accent other than an English one - and admittedly I smile when I'm told that they "love my accent it's so cute"!  But imagine my surprise when, quite often and usually when I am being my most polite, whoever I am speaking to looks at me quizzically.  Seriously!  I don't know if anyone else from my homeland finds this but, more often that not I could be speaking the language of the martian (that I am categorised as) rather than the good old Queen's English.   It has even got to the point where I have had to ask my better half to translate in order to get a glass of water.  True story and I think I can manage to order that in most European languages.

Whilst occasionally annoying that I can't make myself understood when speaking English in America, it does slightly amuse me, especially as I have mentioned that I am trying to keep as much of my English language and accent as possible.   However what makes me laugh out loud is the responses I get when I am asked where I come from.  For some reason Americans love to make a guess.  Often, as I am sure others are, this English Girl is asked whether she's from Australia.  Now don't get me wrong, I have lots of Aussie mates and am by far from offended that someone would think I am from the glorious land down-under.  But after I shake my head and am just about to confirm my Englishness, it's the next guess that gets me:  

"No - Oh you must be German then!"  

Giant things.....

So one of this English Girl's obsessions is about visiting all things big!   It started with the Giant Lobster near murry river in South Australia when I visited my friend Jenni in Oz and she took me on a road trip to Mundala!  Since then there's been the giant pineapple, mango, and giant Wellington boot in Australia and of course the giant thermometer on the way to Vegas!   One of my faves is the giant donut at Randy's drice thru donut - what's not to love.  Giant donuts.  But it was in the elevator at work that I found out about the giant "fork in the road" in Pasadena.  Looks like this English Girl has a detour on the way to the office!

Is a Donut the ultimate accolade?

So one of the things which America does well and which this English Girl has taken to her heart (and unfortunately my calorie intake) are doughnuts.  In England we welcomed the krispy kreme kiosks with its red light informing of a freshly made batch, but even so my favorites remained the hot freshly made sugared donuts you can acquired along any English seafront closely followed by the Bevan's bakery sugared raspberry jam filled version of my teenage years.

But in America it is a different story.  There are whole shops dedicated to the deep fried doughy treat and this English Girl unfortunately lives within walking distance of the Stan's corner donut shop which it self proclaims is the "World's Best".  At this institutional hole in the wall the varieties are endless and are proudly served in a bright pink box which heralds your purchase to the public.  The choice of fillings, icings, shape and size however make the decision a time consuming process.  Will it be a heart stopping artery thickening cherry cheese donut (stuffed with creme cheese and topped with cherry pie filling if you are interested); my better half's favourite of the peanut butter and jelly with chocolate chips or just a plain old-fashioned glazed. 

Randy's Donuts - just off the 405



The self sell is worthy - Stan's store sells pretty good donuts - rivalled possibly in this English Girl's opinion only by Randy's (being advertised by the iconic 10 meter tall fibreglass donut on the drive-through stores roof gets an extra point - see picture below).  With all this donut choice though, it has to be said this English Girl stick to the basics and generally gets the raspberry jam filled style treat - although at Stan's the glazed variety is renamed the Marilyn Lewis after the Queen of the Hamburger Hamlet.   In this town it's probably the ultimate accolade to have a doughnut named after you - now that gives this English Girl something to aim for!

Note:  Bevan's Bakery is a village bakery based in Hemsby, Norfolk. 

Doggies everywhere except outside

I have to admit that when this Englishgirl moved to LA I found it very strange to be wandering around Bloomingdales or other clothing stores and see people with their dogs.  That would never happen in England where dogs are routinely left sitting tied up outside stores.  

However after becoming the proud doggy parent to the gorgeous and very regal Jackson I thought why not join them.  All went well with my pup trotting alongside me that I even went ahead and tried on some shoes.  Big mistake.  Jackson decided he too would try something on for size - and decided the furry earmuffs sitting at his eye height were for him - promptly sinking his teeth into the cream and certainly expensive item.  

Whoops.  

Grabbing them out of his mouth and putting them back on the shelf, I legged it to the exit - just hoping that no one noticed.  That's one store Jackson now doesn't get to come too - and any time I see some cream furry ear muffs on.one of the Beverly Hills ladies - I do wonder with a wry smile whether they are the ones Jackson decided he liked too.  

Expanding my vocabulary - a lesson learned at Ralphs!

I always knew that there were some vocabulary differences between English and American English - you say tomato I say tomato and all that.  However, since moving here I have tried to retain as much of my usage of the English words as possible - although I do admit that I Americanise my language so as to avoid general confusion and my better half any embarrassment when I am asking for directions to the "loo". 

It is, however, the supermarket that has given me the most trouble.  When utilising the self service checkouts I have found that my English educated vocabulary was lacking on the names of everyday fresh produce.  Now living here in LA I quickly worked out that coriander is called cilantro on this side of the ocean and of course most of Europe also call a courgette, zucchini but other things have really got me stumped.  I am pretty sure the checkout assistant thought he had a wild one when I asked holding a swede what the vegetable was called.  Even after scrolling through the pictures I hadn't managed to guess it was rutabaga.  

Hugely embarrassed but not willing to be defeated into complete Americanisation and starting to talk about trash, I have noticed some of my Englishisms have been wearing off on those around me.  My better half has recently felt poorly and my boss told me he used the phrase "all hands to the pump" in a client meeting.    My one-English girl fight to retain her Englishness is making some impact on America - one step at a time.

Pangs for an English national treasure!

Since moving to the US, it is the weird things that this English Girl misses about England.  They are generally unexpected pangs for unobtainable food items - they come at you from nowhere.  For example in most recent memory, I got pangs for a chocolate biscuit called "Breakaway" which I probably hadn't eaten since I was 12 and they probably don't make anymore; mushy peas - another blindsider - which are only consumed with fish & chips or when we were little at fire works nights in cold muddy fields in England with mint sauce.  But the thing I have found I missed the most has been custard. 

Now probably like any other kid from my age group, custard was a staple part of my childhood.  My mother would make at least three hot pudding desserts a week when we were little - always accompanied by a large jug of steaming yellow custard.  I am not sure how she did it but my mother's custard was always perfect - never too runny, never any lumps and never enough for me and my brothers to fight over.  However since growing up and moving out of home I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have personally made a dessert with custard - not to say that when I go home for the usual celebrations that I don't twist my mum's arm to make some.   

Therefore imagine my surprise when my custard yearning arrived and I couldn't find anywhere in Los Angeles county that sold the wondrous powder required to make custard worthy of my mother's.   It just isn't sold anywhere.  I can't believe that the American childhood is not filled with the desserts I remember so fondly - bananas and custard; steamed pudding and custard; even apple pie with custard - each and many more "afters" were slathered with custard and are as part of English foods  as meat pie, roast beef dinner and English breakfast.   Just one instance of that which I call our cultural divide with Americans - but they just don't know what they are missing! 

As a side note.  I made a request of Cost Plus World Market to order some custard powder.  I am pleased to report that they have begun stocking it.  Unfortunately, for Cost Plus, after receiving enough to sink a battleship from a recent import from my cousin, of not one but three cans, I am unlikely to be relieving them of any of their stock until about say 2020.

Does the "check" have to be that quick?

In England as with the rest of Europe we tend to like to loiter over a meal; enjoying pauses between courses and an after dinner coffee which could well turn into another glass of something or okay why not bring a dessert after all.... But here in America it's different.    Before you have even finished one course, oftentimes the next course has arrived and for the most times, no I haven't decided whether I want a desert whilst still enjoying the last few mouthfuls of my main course.  These irritations are however not my biggest gripes with food service in Los Angeles.  

Now I love food and I love going out to eat but there are two things which impact on that enjoyment at restaurants in Los Angeles - I also know I am not the only one.  American wait staff in Los Angeles insist on removing the tableware of my fellow dinners whilst others are still "working on it"! Then within (and I mean it) milliseconds of the final dinner plate being whisked away the check is usually left for us to deal with when we are ready.  Dessert, coffee, a breath?

Now don't get me wrong some restaurants do not do this, but they are the exception rather than the rule.  Being an English Girl I don't understand the rush to have the bill given out whilst I am still chewing on my last mouthful.  Certainly I have not been able to assess whether a small slice of something chocolaty would go down a treat or not.   For once I think service could take some pointers from the Europeans and that I don't say often but I am a firm believer that a meal should be savoured and enjoyed preferably with a good bottle of Californian wine.

What is it with driving in the rain?

So having woken up this morning to the grey coloured skies and the drizzle of what is the first really wet day of this years autumn in Los Angeles, it reminded me that in this city where everyone drives, when it rains no-one knows how to.  For some reason, the sight of some damp splotches on the windscreen sends the residents of Los Angeles into driving meltdown.  Is it the use of the windscreen wipers simultaneously with the blinkers?

Not a chance as in order to survive on these roads you have to know the SoCal highway code and that does not include the use of the indicator. It seems to me that indicating on roads is like a rag to a bull and rather than allow someone to make the manoeuvre indicated the drivers here will do everything in their power to prevent it.  Unbelievable but maybe understandable as Los Angeles roads are renowned for being bad - the daily bumper to bumper gridlock on the city's freeways in rush hour is something this English Girl couldn't believe until she saw it.  The road systems here are obviously going to make people more aggravated - especially if they spent the best part of an hour on the parking lot which is the I-405 trying to get to work or home depending on the time of day.  Seriously the evening rush hour in this town begins at 2.30 pm and don't get me started on the potholes! 

Residents of Los Angeles talk about traffic and freeway numbers like the English talk about the weather.  But when the weather turns on the drivers of this city it seems that everyone forgets how to mechanically drive their cars.    At least in England we are always prepared for the rain so maybe its the utter surprise that rain too falls in the Golden State that causes this phenomenon as there seems to this English Girl to be a direct correlation between the amount of rainfall and driving ability in this city. 

Now where did I leave my car keys?

UGG Boots and Daisy Dukes

Since moving to Los Angeles I have not had to wear a winter coat - well not whilst being in California itself.   So it makes sense that I haven't had to wear snow shoes, fake-fur lined boots, nor anything vaguely resembling a wellington boot since moving here.  In fact the whole of my normal everyday London wardrobe pretty much remains redundant at this point. 

But everywhere I go in Los Angeles I see girls in UGG boots - generally pared with a pair of cut-off jean shorts.  This fashion statement I just don't get.  If it's hot enough to be wearing shorts (which admittedly it is most of the time in SoCal), its probably too hot to be wearing a sheepskin lined boot. 

 

I admit, okay that I probably have a slightly skewered view of the world with a lot of my friends emanating from Australia - the home of the UGG boot - where Aussie girls would never deign to wear an indoor shoe outside but the Daisy duke - UGG boot pairing is (sorry girls) one I just do not understand - although if based on the numbers I have seen just this weekend, UGG probably have become the biggest Australian export since Kylie Minogue.

I know - Kylie who?

The Social Network and other Social Phenomenom

So being part of the Facebook age with, a not too shabby, 258 friends, my better half and I were keen to see the Social Network; the story of the phenomenon which has influenced means of communication and keeping in touch with friends for the recent past. 

Having acquired my television from my grandmother's upgrade, anyone who knows me is unsurprised that I was slow to get onto the technology roller coaster.  Unsurprisingly, therefore, I came late to social networking; having missed the trends of myspace and probably just wasn't cool enough for the invitation to a small world.  Facebook with its functionality which enabled "cyber-stalking" of ex-boyfriends and voyeuristic assessment of people's lives through shared photo's and status updates came just as the city was stalling with the onset of the global financial crisis.  For me, having more free time whilst being sat in front of a computer screen was the impetus needed to beginning a life including Facebook.

So having digressed slightly - back to the film - the Social Network.  Now the cinemas that my better half and I prefer tend to be in an area which is highly populated by students so unsurprisingly on opening night of the Social Network we find ourselves in a theatre populated by mainly UCLA Bruins.  My better half whispers a query as to whether I thought we were the oldest couple in the theatre.  This question actually required me to do a full 360 degree check of our fellow film attendees to confirm that actually we were not - but not by many years.  Surprised - probably not - Facebook was created for college networking (and indeed a good few years after I had left the hallowed university halls), at our mid thirties we are probably the higher age end of the medium spectrum of users.   So feeling already slightly like I had inadvertently got a ticket to a Justin Beiber concert, I then overheard one young lady saying how she's become a member of facebook in 2006 - great I thought same year as me until I looked at her and realised she was probably 19 at most and quickly doing the maths realized she was 15 at most when joining.... mmmmm.  Thankfully before I could ponder my uncomfortableness further the lights went down and the picture began.

Now this is not a column about film reviews I do not intend to reveal anything about the movie itself other than I thought it was an inherently watchable film about the creation of Facebook and how the phenomenon has become part of everyday life for anyone who has or even have not got access to the Internet.    A good film not a great film but due to the impact of social networking on our lives and the viral impact of status updates and reviews is probably going to vie for the most watched film of the year.

Now to the real social phenomenon and the point of this entry; as the film comes to an end and the credits begin to roll, the movie-watchers erupt in a cheer and applause as if attending a live show.  I am pretty sure this spontaneous clapping, which this English Girl has only encountered in Los Angeles, is not to give credit to the projectionist for his showing of the film. Signs of appreciation in England are not rare - from the rattling of jewelery at the back in the Beatles sixties, clapping a 'good show old boy' whether in sport or entertainment is part of our heritage too.   However, for an English girl used to filing silently out of film showings in London, this group appreciation for cinematic films seems out of place to me - do these young and enthusiastic tweens clap as they watched the conclusion to an episode of the latest network shows at home too.

This burst of applause reminded me about another time when group applause seems out of place if not completely inappropriate; the Europeans (particularly the Germans and Spanish) always clap the pilot following a successful landing of a flight - that just makes me wonder what were they thinking was the alternative!

300 days of summer

Whilst last week Los Angelenos were wilting in the Indian Summer heat; we are now undergoing the threat of intense thunderstorms with hail storms imminent; it got me thinking about the summer I have seen whilst working in Santa Monica.

When my better half ("BH") and I were considering moving to Los Angeles from London, he promised me sunshine for at least 300 days a year.  Coming from London where you can't arrange an outdoor barbecue in August without a rain stop play plan this was always going to be attractive to me and this was one of the major reasons BH was over his time in London and couldn't wait to get back to SoCal.  Now you also have to understand that I am also the girl that bad weather follows.  I hiked Machu Picchu and managed to get into a freak snow storm; when I visited Australia for the first time in the midst of their nine year drought hurricane storms swept across the continent bringing the first rains in some regions for over nine years.  So believe me I didn't drink the cool-aid without some research and reassurance from my better half.

So this summer, each morning I would set off down Wilshire Boulevard with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky with my sunglasses on to get within 8 blocks of the beach before the marine layer would begin, the temperature would significantly drop  and I would shivver my way into my office in my sundress.  This heavy fog would settle in for the day surrounding the building I worked.  Now I understand the concept of June gloom but this year June gloom lasted until September.  I also understand that to add salt to the wound, the fog basically only sat in the area between the Palisades and LAX for about an eight block width from the beach.  So anyone outside of this stretch of coastline has had a wonderful summer.

I can therefore only apologise to all for the poor weather along the beach communities this year - you can blame me and my bad weather magnetism.

Never enough for an English Girl ...

So in taking to a life in Los Angeles - the city of dreams - I have decided to investigate a career change  - if not here then where - into the entertainment industry.     It got me thinking as to how to progress my foray into film and television and so I decided to start this blog to write about my experiences in LA, Hollywood and the US generally.   

When discussing this idea with my better half  he asked why don't you twitter - I explained to him that twitter was limited to a number of words/characters and with a resigned sigh, he said "no, that would never be enough for the English Girl!"

So here it is - the start of my general observations about making a life here in Los Angeles - from trivial day to day mussings to trying to break into the world of entertainment - all from the perspective of an English Girl.