November 2006 Archives

Quite a few of my European colleagues like to take the micky out of anything related to America, thus I am not surprised that someone has compiled the list below. That said, some are quite funny! However, I am sure we could find people from all nationalities who make similar darf statements.

Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel

The following are actual stories provided by travel agents:

I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. "Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Capecod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map."

Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay over in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

I am pleased to see that my readership is diversifying. A year ago its was mostly Americans. Of course, not that there is anything wrong with that!

I know a few American expats here in London whose monthly salary is paid in US dollars. And as the US dollar continues to weaken against the British pound, thank goodness I am not one of them. London is wicked expensive that even if you make a good salary in US dollars, once you coverted your money each month, you would be taking a serious hit. For every Britsh pound, you would only get about 50 cents. That is pretty harsh!

Sterling flirts with 14-year high against dollar
Financial Times, By Peter Garnham
Published: November 29 2006 11:37 | Last updated: November 29 2006 14:26

Sterling hit a two-year peak against the dollar and came within touching distance of its strongest level for 14 years early on Wednesday, as traders continued to put pressure on the beleaguered US currency.

The pound traded as high as $1.9545 against the dollar in early trade. A break higher than $1.9548 would send the pound to its highest level against the greenback since its ejection from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in September 1992.

So called family and friends sometimes treat me like an ATM. They are always looking to make a withdrawal but never make any deposits. This is pissing me off to no end. Thus from now on the f#$king bank is closed.

I get ticked off every time I read reports about the number of people in Britain living off the state. Now, if you are an elderly person, single mother with young children or truly disabled -- not just faking it, I have no problem with the government providing a helping hand.

But 5.4million out of a population of 60.4 million is just a bit too high and I can’t help but think that a lot of these people are just being lazy. And this annoys me to no end every time I look at my monthly pay slip and realize that the government is taking up to 40% of my earnings to give to these yahoos!

Even more annoying are rich or middle class people who cheat the state. As such, something has got to be done. No government should be encouraging their citizens to be on welfare and Britian seems to be doing that big time!

Rich claim benefits in 'Welfare nation' as millions remain trapped in poverty
London Times, Anthony Browne, Chief Political Correspondent, November 27 2006

The Government is spending more on welfare than on education or law and order, but the vast sums are doing little to relieve poverty, according to a think-tank.

A study entitled Reforming Welfare says that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has constructed an expensive welfare and benefits system that is “not fit for purpose” and requires a radical overhaul.

The study is by the right-of-centre think-tank Reform, which promotes the liberalisation of public services and extended choice. It claims that Labour has created a benefits nation, with two in five households — including many of the richest — claiming handouts.

Rather than encouraging people to work, the benefits often end up punishing those who want to better themselves. Britain must start a national debate on the failings of its welfare system, according to the think-tank.

The welfare state cost £79 billion last year, more than is spent on the entire education system, twice as much as on law and order and almost as much as on the NHS. It totals nearly £3,000 a household a year.There are 51 different benefits, with 39 per cent of households claiming one or more. Although the Chancellor often boasts about his record on unemployment, there are 5.4 million people of working age who are out of work and living on benefits. Many of those are registered disabled; Britain has more long-term sick than any European country besides Poland.

The benefits system has become so generous that being “on welfare” is no longer a mark of even relative poverty. Households with incomes of up to £66,350 — which puts them in the richest fifth — can be entitled to welfare.

I just spent a good hour watching a rugby union game and still can't make heads or tails of the rules. It seems to be a bastardised version of American football -- or perhaps it’s the other way around. Either way, it is the gayest sport ever. The men wear the tightest shortest shorts and just run around falling and grabbing all over each other.

I felt a bit melancholy on Thanksgiving. I suppose I am missing America and the various festivities at this time of year. Of course, if I am being really honest with myself, I would admit that I would probably feel this way even if I was still living in Chicago. Mainly because after my Mom died in 1994, Thanksgiving and Christmas have never really been the same and this time of year is really hard for me. I often feel lonelier than I do the other months. That said, I do still miss celebrating Thanksgiving.

Here in London, it was business as usual so I went to work. A few co-workers said Happy Thanksgivings which was nice. I also went to St Paul's Cathedral Thanksgiving Day Service. It has been an annual tradition since the mid 1970s and it is definitely the place for American expats to congregate. There was the American Ambassador Robert Tuttle and various other members of the diplomatic core. In addition, there were American blue bloods, ladies who lunch, middle class worker bees like myself as well as students and tourists who found themselves in London on Thanksgiving. The cathedral was quite packed. More importantly, the hour long service was quite moving and so would recommend to any American who finds themselves in London on Thanksgiving.

I sometimes feel invisible. People see me, yet they don't see me. How sad.

Yesterday I spoke with an Australian colleague who now lives in Chicago who is going to celebrate her first Thanksgiving. She indicated that she wasn't going to defrost the turkey but cook it frozen. Has anyone heard of this? I told her she needed to call butterball for advice, but I'm just curious if anyone has cooked a turkey this way.

I was suppose to host a Thanksgiving theme dinner party on Sunday for about 12 people. But my co-host convinced me to call it off because I'm still suffering from acute bronchitis. Now I'm feeling a lot better and feeling really depressed about canceling. Granted I was a bit stressed about the whole thing as I had no energy to shop and I was worried about how everything would fit into my tiny British oven, but I really was looking forward to playing host. Oh well! There is always next year.

Yesterday, I was on a high. Today, I'm feeling a bit low. I guess its because I have come to realize that if I wait long enough, every family member I put my trust in, will ultimately betray me. Sad, But true.

If I ever brave the world of dating again via personal ads or any of the online services, for laughs, I just might put an ad in the London Review of Books. The ads as you will see from a sampling in the New York Times, totally embrace the British sense of humor.

So why would I post an ad such as these which would point out up front flaws in my looks or character? Well, earlier attempts focused only on the positive and they got me no where. So it would be interesting to see what happened via this method.

Book Lovers Seek Lovers, Buttered or Plain
By SARAH LYALL, New York Times, Published: November 21, 2006

LONDON, Nov. 20 — Perhaps only someone from Britain could genuinely believe that a personal ad beginning, “Baste me in butter and call me Slappy,” might lead to romance with an actual, nonincarcerated person.
Mr. Rose’s book lifts some of the stranger ads, which highlight the English obsession with self-deprecation and fear of unironic sentiment.

But in the strange alternate universe that is the personals column in the London Review of Books, a fetish for even the naughtiest dairy product is considered a perfectly reasonable basis for a relationship. Rejecting the earnest self-promotion of most personal ads, the correspondents in the London Review column tend instead to present themselves as idiosyncratic, even actively repellent.

In so many ways, too. The magazine’s lonely hearts have described themselves over the years as shallow, flatulent, obsessive, incontinent, hypertensive, hostile, older than 100, paranoid, pasty, plaid-festooned, sinister-looking, advantage-taking, amphetamine-fueled, and as residents of mental institutions.

They have announced that they are suffering from liver disease, from drug addiction, from asthma, from compulsive gambling, from unclassified skin complaints and from reduced sperm counts. They have insulted prospective partners. As one ad starts, “I’ve divorced better men than you.”

The subtlety (if that is what it is) of these courtship techniques may well be lost on people used to American-model personal ads, in which stunning, good-sense-of-humored characters seek soul mates for walks in the rain and cuddles by the fire. But while the ads in the London Review, a twice-monthly literary journal favored by the British intelligentsia, are weird in the extreme, they are also peculiarly English. This is a country where open bragging is considered rude and unironic sentiment makes people cringe with embarrassment.

A sure sign that I am on the path to recovery, I made a spur of the moment decision on the way home from work yesterday to buy flowers. They don't make the prettiest bouquet, but lovely nonetheless. So definitely have to do this more often.

My horoscope for the day:

Even if you have been pretty stressed out lately, your emotional health is strong. You may feel so supported at home that you cannot hide your inner happiness. Don't be afraid to look back into your past so you can see how good you have it now. There's no need to be fearful of what's next, for you are at the top of your game and will make the best out of your current circumstances no matter how challenging.

Yeah, I think that's about right!

Chris Partridge, a reporter with the London Times thinks that vast majority of weblogs are rubbish. He might have a point. However, I'd like to think that my blog doesn't fit into that category, but hey you never know. After almost 4 years, my readership is still somewhat low. Of course, I attribute this to the fact that besides the initial write-up in the Chicago Tribune, I have been a bit media shy when it comes to promoting my blog.

Why? Well as I've alluded to before, in that I am blogging under my real name, I am conscious of the fact that what I write here has the potential to affect my personal and professional life in a postive as well as negative manner. So for awhile I was self editing. Since this sort of defeats one of the main reasons for blogging, I have decided to continue documenting my personal history in full via the blog, but not publish those entries which contain information that I am not yet ready to disclose. In fact, if you have been with me a while and you go back through the archives, you will find a few entries that weren't there before.

Why blogs don’t have to be bad for business
The Times, Chris Partridge, November 21, 2006

A year ago only internet ad- dicts knew what a blog was, but now everybody from district nurses (lifeinthenhs.wordpress.com) to farmers’ wives (farmerwife.blogspot.com) have them. Even politicians (sadiqkhan.org.uk/blog/sadiqblog) are blogging, although it appears that some may have the odd helper. In case you are just back from Planet Zorg, a blog is a weblog — an online diary or journal. Blogging sites, such as myspace.com, blogger.com, typepad.com and wordpress.com are easy to use and typically free, enabling anyone who has the urge to put their experiences online for all to read. Blogs are rapidly attracting large amounts of advertising and serious attention from the traditional media and lawyers. Society is having to come to terms with the new ability of everybody to announce to the world what, previously, would have been shared only with the regulars in the Angler’s Rest.

Bloggers are also beginning to realise that the flipside to being able to freely broadcast their views is that they can be held to account for allegations and opinions found to be spurious or libellous.

I love living in the UK, but the article below highlights yet another stupid decision by the state. Specifically, they have threatened to cut research funding to the top universities if they don't admit more students from poor families. Now really, how is that going to solve the education crisis this country is facing? Granted a few more economically disadvantaged students might get to go to Cambridge or Oxford, but that's not going to solve the problems within the educational system. In fact, it might make some schools less competitive while at the same time increasing hostilities between the classes. As such, the government really needs to look for ways to improve the educational system at all levels so that students from lower economic standings get to university based on merit and are not just given token admittance.

Universities to get extra money for giving places to the poor
The London Times, November 21, 2006 , Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent

Britain’s elite research universities were warned last night that they could forfeit millions of pounds in a shake-up of higher education.

David Eastwood, head of England’s university funding council, told The Times that, in future, universities that admit a large number of students from poor backgrounds were likely to receive as much public funding as those that concentrate on research. The shift will make it harder for middle-class students to get places at university.

At present almost a third (32 per cent) of all research funding goes to just five institutions: Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Imperial and University College London. These admit among the lowest number of students from poor backgrounds. They said last night that they feared they would have to fight harder for fewer funds and would struggle to compete with competitors, particularly in America.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) spends £6.7 billion on teaching and research in universities. Of this, £1.6 billion goes on research, £332 million on raising the number of working-class students attending university and £118 million on developing regional business links.

If you left a comment on my blog that wasn't posted, much apologies. I just realized that quite a few real comments were sitting in my junk folder. As such, I spent the last half hour going through the 3000+ plus comments in that folder and recovered about 10 real comments. Unfortunately, if your comment was left over 30 days ago, it may be lost. For that I apologize. Now that I know, I'll be sure to check the junk folder more often. With that, so much for me getting a complex about the limited number of comments.

Michigan's defeat by 3 points last night had the potential to send me into a depression. Mainly because I am far away from home and the hype surrounding the game made me nostalgic about my 4 years at Michigan. Sort of sad really since my university years are now 10+ years behind me, but still, my Michigan days were some of the best ever.

That said, since their defeat, I can't stop thinking how true it is "that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Now I know that a lot of people don't like the sentiments in this quote as it epitomizes the competitiveness in American sports at all levels, but it's so true. Years after a major sporting event has happened, except for the true fanatic, most people will forget the loosing side. And if they do remember the loosing team, it's only in the context of who beat them.

More importantly, let’s face it, losers are hardly ever rewarded. You need to keep winning to maintain your standing a top the leader board. Plus if you are a university sports team, it’s not just about school pride or bragging rights. You need to keep winning so that your games continue to be broadcast which in turn helps bring in the revenue but also plays a role in recruiting future players and even regular students. As whenever a school wins a national championship in say football or basketball, the following years, student applications usually increase. This in turn helps to make the school more selective and may even help them climb up the academic ranking charts. More importantly, it reminds alums like myself about the good times we had at the school which in turn makes us more receptive to fundraising drives to increase the school’s endowment.

So my friend’s you see – winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing! So maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a rematch for the National Championship. Ohio State and Michigan are definitely the two top teams in the country and deserve to play for the title. So what they are in the same conference.

The trouble with being a spectator to a sporting event is that you have no control over the outcome. Thus, no matter how much you yell and scream, it is all down to the players on the field. And even when the team you are supporting does their best, it is sometimes not good enough which is really difficult for a fanatic to accept.

Thus I've told myself time and time again that I'm not going to get sucked in by Michigan sporting events. Yet, I somehow found myself in that trap leading up to the Michigan v Ohio State football game. Maybe because the game had national title implications. Maybe it had something to do with all the people that kept emailing me asking where they could watch the game. Whatever it was, I felt a bit of sadness last night as Michigan lost. They played a great game, but in the end, it just wasn’t good enough. Maybe next time.

It is good to see that Prime Minister Blair is starting to be honest about the situation in Iraq. Maybe now that he and President Bush are publicly owning up the reality of the situation over there, something will be done to bring this war to an end.

I am not advocating that the US and British military pull out anytime soon, but they need to redefine the mission based on the current state of affairs. Plus they need to do what is necessary to help the Iraq government be more stable and thus accountable for running their own country again. If that unfortunately means allocating more money and sending more troops in the short run, I'm all for that. But maintaining the status quo, is simply not ideal. Things just seem to be going from bad to worse.

Blair admits Iraq is 'pretty much a disaster'
By Philip Webster, Political Editor of The Times

Tony Blair went close last night to admitting that the invasion of Iraq had been disastrous. Challenged in an interview on Al-Jazeera’s new English-language channel that the Western intervention in Iraq had “so far been pretty much of a disaster”, he gave a brief agreement before swiftly moving on.

He said: “It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It is not difficult because of some accident in planning, it is difficult because there is a deliberate strategy, al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other, to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war.”

This is just too hilarious! I mean, dare I say that Star Wars after all is just a movie. That said, may the force be with them.

Pair Use The Force For Jedi Religion
Thursday November 16, 10:29 AM

Two self-styled Jedi Knights are stepping up an intergalactic campaign for formal recognition. Umada and Yunyun, also known as John Wilkinson and Charlotte Law, want the UN to acknowledge "The Force" is worthy of being called a religion. The couple claim to be part of the UK's fourth largest religious group, after 400,000 people recorded their faith as "Jedi" in the 2001 Census.

They say that as a religion, they deserve tolerance and respect. November the 16th is the annual International
Day of Tolerance.

And as part of a global battle worthy of Luke Skywalker's efforts against the Empire, the band of self-styled Jedis want the UN to re-name the day as Interstellar Day of Tolerance.

More people claim their religion to be Jedi in England and Wales than those who follow Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism. And the cause has global support.

There are also 70,000 Jedi knights in Australia, 53,000 in New Zealand, and 20,000 in Canada.

Hmm, I wonder how many there are in America. Anyone know?

So I email a friend I haven't spoken with in a while and ask him what's going on in his life. He writes back, "oh nothing much exciting happening except for an incredibly hot 7-person orgy...."

Arrh, excuse me! 7-person orgy? Goodness! I had no idea that people (especially my friend) still did those sorts of things. Personally, 7 is a bit much, but hey, live and let live.

The only good thing about having acute bronchitis is that I have lost my appetite. So drinking lots of liquids and the meal of choice is soup. The result is that I've lost close to 5lbs in the last two weeks. I know the weight will probably come back once I start eating regularly again, but thinking I might use this as inspiration to jump start my last ditch attempt to loose weight before I go home for the holidays.

No, not to America, but to Montserrat where it will hopefully be hot and sunny! London isn’t that cold – in fact it hasn’t really snowed since I moved here, but the continued dampest has not been good for my health. Thus, I am in desperate need of sunshine and good weather.

Plus, it will be good to see my great Aunt and the rest of the older generation who have no desire to leave Montserrat even after the volcano 10 years ago covered 2/3rd of this 40 square mile island in volcanic ash.

It has been 20+ years since I've been back, but they tell me the island known as the Emerald Isle "due to a combination of historical Irish influences and the lush greenness of the landscape" is making a serious comeback, so I’m looking forward to being there away from the hustle and bustle of big city living.

The North American Sports Network has finally come to their f@$king senses and will broadcast the Michigan v Ohio State football game today. I don't know what they were thinking when they originally decided on another college football game. Heck, even if you didn't go to Michigan or Ohio State, if you are a genuine college football fan, you'll be watching the game. Thus, I am quite pleased and thinking so will the other Michigan fans who have been flooding my inbox in the last few weeks trying to figure out where to watch the game.

With this change, I myself will be staying home. Until about an hour ago, the plan was to watch at the The Sports Cafe, but with acute bronchitis I am in no condition to be standing up in a smokey bar in London for 3 hours watching the game. Thus, it pleases me to no end. With that, GO BLUE! May the words and memories of Michigan’s greatest coach – Bo Schembechler lead us to VICTORY!

Regardless of where you stand on the Iraq War, there is no justifiable reason for disabled veterans who served their country with honor to be homeless. So shame on the United States government for letting even one veteran fall through the cracks.

Goodness! Did we not learn anything from Vietnam? Hmmm. Maybe not! After all, if we did, we wouldn’t be in the middle of such a hot mess. I mean, lets face it, poor decisions in the early days of the war by people like Donald Rumsfeld who have finally being shown the door has turned the early victory into a near defeat. Thus, it just confirms that the neocons in charge didn’t fully understand or know the enemy. If they did, we wouldn’t be where we are today in Iraq. Such a shame, because as Sun Tzu wrote a zillion years ago in The Art of War,

"if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

With that, here's hoping that after three years the Unites States government with its coalition (really just the British), has finally begun to understand the enemy. If not, we are in continued danger of loosing a lot more than Iraq.

I have fond memories of going to Michigan football games at The Big House on Saturday mornings during football season from 1988 to 1992. Bo Schembechler is big part of my memory from those early days. Plus I remember how crushed we all were when he retired. He is a legend who will be greatly missed.

Football Legend Bo Schembechler Passes Away
November 17th 2006

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Legendary football coach Bo Schembechler passed away Friday morning (Nov. 17) due to heart failure at Detroit Providence Hospital at the age of 77.

As the winningest head coach in Michigan football history, Bo Schembechler’s teams won or tied for an impressive 13 Big Ten championships during his 21-year tenure. Under Schembechler’s guidance, Michigan’s 96-10-3 regular season record through the decade of the 1970s was the nation’s best. He guided 17 teams to postseason bowl games – including 10 Rose Bowls – and another 17 to top 10 finishes in the final wire service polls (AP and/or UPI).

In his 27 years of coaching, Schembechler’s teams never had a losing season. Upon stepping down after the 1989 season, Bo retired as the winningest active coach in the nation (234-65-8) and fifth on the all-time list, behind only coaching legends Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glen ‘Pop’ Warner and Woody Hayes. In addition to his coaching responsibilities, Schembechler served as Michigan’s Director of Athletics between 1988-90, and is a past president of the American Football Coaches Association.

I collect more things that I care to admit to, and if I had the time, I might just sign up to Squirl which allows you to catalog not just books like LibraryThings but pretty much anything. For insurance purposes, this would be a good thing, but I haven't got the time to catalog everything beyond what I did with Intelliscanner when I moved some 19months ago and truth be told, I don't want to. I like being organised but when it comes to stuff like this, a little disorganization is not a bad thing. Particularly is you don't want to really know how much you are really spending on the junk collectibles you've purchased.

More and more single women are seeking out and accepting international assignments. I know I shouldn't be surprised since I moved abroad alone, but in some ways I am. Maybe because most of the expats I've met since moving to London are partnered up. Either way, its good to hear that there are other women out there who are willing to move abroad for a job without a spouse.

More females sent on international assignment than ever before, survey finds
Mercer Consulting, London, 12 October 2006

More females are being sent on international assignments than ever before, but they are far less likely to be accompanied by a partner than male assignees, according to a new survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The global survey covers over 100 multinational companies with nearly 17,000 male and female international assignees.

Companies in Asia-Pacific said they have 16 times more females on assignment this year than they did in 2001. Companies in North America have nearly four times as many while those in Europe have over twice as many.

“The huge growth in the number of females sent on assignment by Asia-Pacific companies reflects the fact that businesses in this region, particularly in China, are becoming increasingly global,” said Yvonne Sonsino, Principal at Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

Over half of the companies (55%) expect the number of female assignees to continue to increase steadily over the next five years, while 35% believe the number will remain the same. Just 4% believe it will decline.

Stay away from neuvo rich people who talk excessively about their money. It's just vulgar. And no, it's not because I'm jealous. There just really is no need to start every sentence alluding to ones wealth or lack thereof for that matter. Call me pretentious, but its just not good manners.

Sometimes I think the British have lost the plot or at least gone weak in the knees. Case in point, is news article below indicating that close to 200 prisons are likely to receive compensation for being forced to give up drugs cold turkey once in prison. Apparently their human rights were breached. Personally, I think this sets a dangerous precedent. Now I'm all for protecting people’s human rights, but when they are taking illegal substances and most likely engaging in other criminal activates to feed their drug habit, something has to be done and giving them compensation is not it. Heck, hell would probably freeze over before this happened in America.

Payouts for prison drug addicts
The London Times, By Dominic Kennedy

Up to 198 inmates could get compensation for being forced to go through withdrawal too quickly, our correspondent writes
Comment Central: Is going cold turkey actually all that hard?

PRISONERS are to get undisclosed compensation payouts from the Home Office because they were forced to stop taking drugs in jail.

The drugs charity DrugScope said that the group of six inmates and former inmates who used heroin and other opiates were on the verge of settling out of court with the Prison Service.

The case, alleging that the “cold turkey” withdrawal treatment they were forced to undergo amounted to assault, was scheduled to start at the High Court today.

The size of the payouts under discussion has not been revealed, but the compensation levels are due to be finalised tomorrow or on Wednesday, legal sources said.

Mr Justice Langstaff gave the go-ahead in the High Court in May for a full hearing of the case. It focused on six test cases chosen from a pool of 198 claimants.

When finally resolved this week, all 198 may be handed compensation by the Prison Service, with sums running potentially into tens of thousands of pounds.

I meant to post this picture some time ago, but never got around to. In any event, here is the updated version of the previously offensive billboard close to my house.

So guess the rumors were correct. Billboard was an advertisement for UK TV Channel 5. I myself haven't watched the network. Heck besides the recent US midterm election coverage, I haven't watched much television at all. Thus it just goes to show that once you go without something for awhile, if you really commit, you can move on and do other things with your time.

So it's not just a cold. I have acute bronchitis again. According to my doctor, in that I'm foreign born and not use to the damp climate in England, I'm highly susceptible. I know, lucky me for getting it twice in one year.

In any event, I'm spending a lot of time at home as the coughing has intensified and is a bit much when I go out. So thought I'd go through the last few boxes that I haven't sorted since the move to London. Within one were documents from University. Why I still have some of them is a wonder, but the treasure within was my honors thesis document titled: Race as an Issue in the Race for the Senate: A Comparative Analysis of Media Coverage of the 1984 Helm-Hunt and 1990 Helms-Gantt Senate Campaigns. Almost 80 pages long, it’s a real thriller. Ok, maybe not a real political thriller, but I’m still proud of it as it is well written and it is based on my own original research and analysis. Heck, I had to hire someone to code the articles in my sample and then learn SPSS to mine the data. Thus, it makes me feel nostalgic for the days when I was consumed by American politics.

Oh don't get me wrong, I still pay attention to what is happening in Washington. In fact, I spent many hours this past Tuesday watching the election coverage on CNN. However, it's not the same when you are in a foreign country. Back in the US I could flick between the networks and cable stations covering the election. Here it's just CNN and a bit of the BBC. Oh well! I suppose it's better than nothing. More importantly, I'm glad to see that the Democrats were able to capitalize and actually win back the Congress. So here's hoping they don't squander the opportunity.

No, not really. Just busy with a personal project and the new job. Plus I've once again come down with a cold. I'd been fighting it off for weeks, but it all caught up with me this past Sunday.