Definition of the Day

Cricket (n): Game in which spectators, all of whom have paid between $100 and $1000 for their ticket, cheer ecstatically when the umpires stop play for bad light.

Thoughts on Katrina

Will Hurricane Katrina turn out to be a blessing in disguise?

Since the end of the Civil War, Louisiana and Mississippi have consistently ranked amongst the most impoverished states in the Union. Almost one in five of their residents live below the officially defined poverty line. One third fail to complete high school, and almost two thirds lack the minimum literacy standards considered necessary to function in society. Prisons are overflowing, unemployment and teenage pregnancy are norms in many areas, and much of the housing stock is so antiquated and decrepit that, if it wasn't for the ubiquitous pick up trucks and fast food joints, you would think you had been timewarped back into the Reconstruction era.
Poor though these states are, I doubt any state would be able to cope adequately in the immediate aftermath of a disaster like Katrina: when hospitals and shelters are underwater, roads and bridges are shattered, all electricity and communications are wiped out; nor do I think that any other states would have been able to prevent such a catastrophe occurring in the first place: there is only so much concrete it is viable to pour at an extreme and hypothetical risk.

But the scenes and stories from New Orleans and Biloxi are remarkable - compared to, for example, the smaller scale but equally personally devastating hurricane damage we have seen so often before in Florida and the Carolinas - because they spotlight the region's economic and psychological inability to cope with rebounding from disaster. In Florida, widescale looting and rape doesn't happen after a hurricane. Armed gangs don't roam the streets. Families made homeless by hurricanes in Florida have a good cry, then file an insurance claim and start rebuilding. But what incentives do the poor, uninsured and desperate residents of Louisiana have to rebuild their hopeless lives in a calm and orderly fashion?

It's difficult to allocate blame for the miserable state of this region and its people. The streets of New Orleans were notoriously lawless even back when the city was under French and Spanish control, before the United States bought Louisiana in 1804. The failure of federal Reconstruction in the Deep South following the Civil War condemned the black majority to decades of disenfranchisement and poverty: and even now, the fiercely guarded doctrine of states rights means that federal government has limited remit to poke their noses into the way the Governors and legislatures of Mississippi and Louisiana run their affairs. Federally-initiated programs such as No Child Left Behind are well-intended, but their success nevertheless largely depends on the competence and will of the local people responsible for executing these programs. And given that endemic fraudulence and corruption on the part of politicians and officials in these states has been modus operandi for much of the last 150 years, it's no wonder the federal goverment has historically been reluctant to hand over huge blank checks for these states to spend entirely as they please.

I'd prefer not to waste time trying to allocate blame for the disgraceful poverty and economic stagnation of Louisiana and Mississippi, but focus on what opportunities may arise from the disaster. If the Mayor of New Orleans has broken down and begged for large scale federal intervention to resuscitate his city, maybe that's no bad thing. If the long term reconstruction of roads, schools and factories creates thousands of jobs and provides a much needed boost to the local economy, then that could be a great thing. And if thousands of decaying swamp-edge wooden hovels with no air conditioning and inadequate sanitation have been washed away by Katrina, their former residents might even be relieved.

As one black woman from Louisiana, who had been evacuated to Texas with her husband after losing their home and all their meagre possessions, said on Radio 4 over the weekend: "My outlook on life has got so much better in the last couple of days since we arrived here. I hated our life where we were: this is a chance for a fresh start."

Bank Holiday Truths

1) If the temperature rises over 75 degrees, a) every paper will run a picture of a model in a bikini on Brighton beach on its front page, and b) the weathermen on TV will do a sharp intake of breath and say "It was a scorcher!"

2) The fattest, juiciest blackberry lurks behind the most vicious clump of stinging nettles.

3) Even if you only brush against them very fast, nettles will still sting.

4) The litre bottle of Pimms at the village fete tombola will be won by a six year old boy. If you are lucky, you will win a slightly dented can of Baked Beans.

5) The last slice of cake at the tea stall will be sold just as you approach the front of the queue.

6) Noone has ever Bashed The Rat. That's why there are never any prizes on display.

7) The children's Egg and Spoon race will be won by a suspiciously muscular ten year old wearing a buzzcut and a Real Madrid shirt.

8) There is no correlation between the presence of numerous attractive hanging baskets outside public houses and the attractiveness of the clientele within.

9) Barmaids wait until they have already pulled you three pints of Woodpecker before mentioning the landlord has a delectable limited edition local scrumpy out the back.

testing

blah blah blah I do hope we get another wicket

Unfamiliar Waters

Last night I went to a dinner party, in the midst of which, all the other five attendees lit up. Sure, it wasn't my house, we had the french doors open and I was heavily out numbered, so I didn't feel I had the right to be enormously offended - but I was quite shocked. I couldn't think of a single mate in the US who smokes (well, on second thoughts, there's BobB, but these days he seems to be sticking to the Lucky Dip (chewing tobacco)).

The other disconcerting thing was the sheer amount of alcohol drunk. Doing a quick count at the end of the night, there were ten green bottles up against the wall: three bottles of sparkling rose and seven of red wine, plus a couple of random beer bottles and a bit of gin. I am pleased to say I held my end up OK, especially since I'm still getting up to speed after coming back from the US and drinking on average one and a quarter light beers a week. The only that saved me from getting trolleyed was that I ate a SuperSize-Me amount of food (scallops, rack of lamb, orange chocolate pudding and cheese, since you ask....)

But in case anyone thinks that Americans don't live the high life, I should point out there was present a skeletal, very well groomed, American expat there who ate two spoonfuls of rice, smoked an entire pack of fags, and by the end of the evening was doing an excellent impersonation of Tara Reid on a particularly rough night. She eventually ended up going home with one of the other guests, whom she'd met for the first time in her life that evening.

Conclusion: in matters of partying, there is a great deal of evidence to point to Nurture winning out over Nature...

Back now, hen the wiser

Three years in the US of A had forgotten me that Cricket was so exciting.

I became extremely attached to my radio on the drive to Newmarket races on Saturday for part of The Future Mrs Archer's Hen Weekend, and was very disgruntled on arriving to discover that there was not one single TV screen on the entire racecourse showing the Cricket (2nd Ashes Test). I just can't understand why they didn't put a big screen up like Windsor did - it was very selfish of the Authorities. I am certain that oohing and aahing over the luscious newly-blue-haired KP and Ashley Gillo would have been a much better lubricant for a Hen Afternoon than the runners and riders for the 2.45 at Haydock Park.

My mood did not improve when, despite betting £2 on a horse in claret and blue colours, then a horse with the name Shepton Villa, and finally a horse that was allegedly trained in Lichfield (where in Lichfield?? Round the station car park? ), I won zilch.

Nevertheless, the races were fun, mainly because of the decent bunch of girls there. I am extremely wary of hen weekends, as they can be excruciating, particularly when you don't know most of the other hens. We also got v good goodie bags, consisting of:

1 Super Slimmers food diary
1 miniature of Archers Peach Schnapps
1 bright pink fluffy hairslide
1 bright pink fluffy fan (as used by strippers)
1 biscuit in the shape of a lunchbox, if you follow my drift
1 Future Mrs Archer dogtag.

I was sad to see them head back in their minibus. But the rest of the weekend beckoned, and I had to get back on the road to deepest Suffolk to see lurkingricardo, Jane and wee Robbie (my godson). It was a big weekend for Robbie: his First Paddle (in rather cold North Sea), his First Chips (the beginning of the end) and best of all, his First Victorious Ashes Test.

I am determined that his first word will be "Wicket!"

Where's Ya Trolley?

Just got back from pre season friendly no2 (if you think this going a bit far, my mother is going all the way to Utrecht in Holland for no3 on Saturday...), this time against Walsall who play two divisions below the Villa.

It started off a lovely warm evening, still light until 8.30 or so. I like going to games at this time of year, when you can just wear your Villa shirt without fourteen layers of fleece over the top, five pairs of socks, and a balaclava. (Of course, it began to tip down with rain with thirty minutes to go, but what do you expect? This is England.)

Anyway, Walsall is a cute but tiny ground: the Away section is right behind the goal, so close to the pitch you could actually smell the Ralgex on the players as they warmed up. Attendance was about 8,000, about half of whom were Villa fans. Very long queue for pre-game pies and Bovril.Game was OK - it would have been very embarrassing if Villa had been beaten by Walsall again, as they were this time last year, but fortunately Villa were 2-0 up at half time so fans could indulge in some reasonably optimistic singing: "Gavin McCann, he's better than Zidane..."

But the highlight of the evening was when an old man in a red t-shirt came sprinting along the narrow walkway between the front row of the stand and the pitch... pushing a shopping trolley full of orange juice. He was probably the fastest mover on the pitch all night, so of course the whole stand told David O'Leary to "Sign him up" (And when later spotted, sans trolley, the whole stand roared in unison, "Where's Ya Trolley?"....)

At Home With The Dingles: A Soccer Story

Yesterday I went to the first football of the season: a "friendly" between derby rivals Villa and Wolves, at Wolves.

Though I've been to many Villa games, I had never been to a pre-season before, and was vaguely expecting three men and a dog and a gentle kick about.

But we show up at Molyneux and there are about 3,000 extremely vocal Villa fans queued up at the Away supporters' turnstiles, and another 10,000 Wolves fans waiting for us inside the ground. Rather ridiculously, there are only two turnstiles open, and one steward is trying to do full body searches of everyone in both queues. Realizing there were only seven minutes to go before kick off, the authorities decide to open two more turnstiles, with no body searches, at which point everyone in possession of drugs or offensive weapons charges over to those.

Going through the turnstiles into an Away End is quite terrifying. The turnstiles themselves are incredibly claustrophobic: tiny and virtually airtight, designed to ensure zero possibility of anyone without a ticket getting in. You feel rather like a sheep going into a pen at the slaughter house. (They would be impossible in America, of course - one third of the population would not be able to wedge their backsides through.)

Anyway, you finally squeeze through and out into the concourse under the stadium. Coming in from the outdoors, it's immediately dark, noisy and disorienting: like how one might imagine a Victorian Bedlam to have been (it also reminds me of the rioting prison Tally Atwater reports from in Up Close and Personal). Random howls and curses bounce off unfinished concrete floors and pillars and bare grey brick walls, and there is a permanent smell of stale cigarette smoke and lager.

Away End concourses are invaribly more cramped than the Home supporters' facilities, possibly only fifteen feet wide in some places, so to reach your section you must barge along through the hooded, tracksuited and be-trainered crowds, doing your best to dodge cigarette burn incursions onto your jeans, or pints of lager down your neck.

It is clear today that the lower Steve Bull Stand, and much of the upper, is going to be jammed full of Away support (so much for the three men and a dog). Supporters travelling away tend to be vocal and diehard anyway, and most of them have been drinking steadily since opening time, if the queue outside the Gents is anything to go by. The more hygenic, warm-up chants are first up: "Villa! Villa! Villa!" "D'Lo-s Claret and Blue Army" and "We're the Greatest Football Team..."Then the crowd move on to more dubious fare, most of it not even aimed at the Wolves but at "The Blue-Nosed Scum", aka Birmingham City: " ..walking in a Villa Wonderland; (s******g on the 'City as we go - oh) and "My old man said, be a Birmingham City fan and I said b******s., you're a...".

The singing gets a whole lot quieter when Villa (a Premiership team) go two easy ones down after only fifteen minutes to Wolves (only a Div 1/"Championship") team. Two men two rows in front of us start chain smoking. The fug drifts straight back into my face. I look round for a steward: at Villa Park smoking is strictly banned in the stands and I assume it's the case at Molyneux. But the steward is pretending to take no notice: he is, quite frankly, an even worse fat slob than the two smokers, but about six inches shorter.

Halftime comes: an unbelievable crush in the concourse as a ten-deep crowd fights its way to the bar to load up on more lager. There's no chance of me making it down the other end to the place where they sell Bovril, the traditional Midlands football beverage (which conveniently has no caffeine, alcohol or calories: maybe that's why it seems to be going out of fashion).

The crowd jammed into the narrow concrete corridor, with no place to go, starts singing again, to the tune of Yellow Submarine: Wolves Came Up But Went Straight Back Down , and also, mysteriously, Tracy Andrews Is Our Friend. (Later at home I consult my dictionary of football chants and discover it's about a battered wife called Tracy Andrews who killed her violent, Blue Nose, husband).

Back for the second half. The Villa fans around me are in a more contemplative mood. Villa are 2-1 down, and looking highly unlikely to score any more, so the singing has more or less stopped and the chat is beginning in earnest.

I should explain at this point that Villa fans are officially graded by the police - who are connoisseurs of these things - as being remarkably non-violent. Compared to most fans, they are a placid, low-key, pessimistic bunch: despite all their chanting they don't really ever expect to win. In fact, win, lose or draw they tend to leave the stadium with their heads down, trundling quietly home, flicking through their programmes and making the occasional quiet comment to their mates about how Hendrie was crap and O'Leary ought to get rid of him.

Whilst harboring no sincere expectations of their team's ability to win, however, Villa fans are possessed with a absolute conviction that Villa is the only club in the Midlands with a modicum of intelligence and class. In their view, Bluenoses are all thieving wife-beaters: either in jail, or just got out. The Baggies (West Bromwich Albion) are thick and useless. And Wolves are the Dingles, in reference to the ignorant, criminal family of Emmerdale fame. Here is a typical Villa fan conversation when it is quite clear their team is going down to the local rivals and there is nothing they can do about it...

Villa fan one: "God, the Dingles are soooo unbelievably stupid. It's the inbreeding, you know."
Villa fan two: "Yeah, you ask a yam [alternate descriptor of a Wolverhampton resident] for directions and it just looks at you with a dumb expression. They don't even know their way round their own f******g ground."
Villa fan one: "Can you imagine one on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"
Villa fan two [laughing bitterly]: "Yeah, I'd love to hear Tarrant go "Sorry, you ignorant inbred Dingle, but you can't have £100."

And so on....

News From Charlottesville

Now Opened:

Target!
Bodo's On the Corner!!
World Market (though it's crap)

Closed For Ever:

Sloans!!!

Leaving

Dawna Clarke! (head of admissions, defecting to Tuck)
Mark Parry!! (going somewhere bizarre like North Dakota)

Potential New Dean?

Susan Ashford, OB professor at Michigan - reputedly in serious talks with "management"

Team Pimms 

Leaving party.. winding down 

Doing Sapphire... 

Hot as Hades

It is so hot (41 degrees in the shade, closer to 45 in the sun according to the weather gauge) that I have, in a fit of environmental consciousness, taken to having solar powered showers (ie from the garden hose on the deck). But today the water in the hose was SO hot that I was almost scalded: I might have to have a rethink.

***
American TV is so unsubtle. Whereas in the UK we disguise our hard hitting documentaries under generic titles like "One Story" or "The Visit" etc etc, here no punches are pulled to drag in an audience. Perfect example last night: "The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off".

GFY

My mum thinks I look a mess and that I'll never catch a man unless I cut my fringe and brush my hair properly before I go out. Her comments are chicken feed compared to the devastating critiques on this blog: my new favourite website. No-one is safe.

***

I sat in Club World on the way out to DC on Thursday. I nearly didn't get to fly at all because I was on standby and the plane was full: but then at the eleventh hour, just as I was beginning to despair, a business class passenger failed to show up. Actually, there ended up being one more spare seat in Club. Someone went missing in the terminal, and we sat around waiting while they rummaged round in the hold to remove his bags. I always wonder why/how that happens so often. Where do they go? Do they fall asleep on the loo? I wasn't complaining though. I drank kir royales, watched Ocean's Twelve twice, and accidentally dropped two biros into the machinery that makes the seat convert to a bed...

***

A nice lady from Nielsen phoned up today to ask if the household would like to participate in the national TV ratings. My former flatmate Ann and Ann's former husband Pete work for Nielsen in the UK, and I was always begging them to let me be one of their sample, so I was pretty excited to be asked at last. But while in the UK they register what you watch with an electronic set top monitoring device, in the US it turns out that you actually have to use a real pencil to write everything down in a diary, which is a bit of a bore.

The lady wanted to know how many TVs were in the house. Four, I thought. She said they would be sending four diaries, one for each TV. But I will be in the house alone, I protested: not even I can be in more than one room at a time. Unless they are interested in what the cats are watching? She was unmoved. Four diaries. If the cats can't write, I'm allowed to do it for them.

Postal Mania

I am not altogether sure about the status of the US Post Office and US Mail service. What with all the tax forms and uniforms, and the general administrative feel of an actual US post office building it strikes me as being a government thing: even though it seems counter-intuitive that in capitalist free market America it would be.

In the UK, the Post Office is one of the few businesses still technically owned by the government. It's strange to remember that as recently as 1979 the UK government still owned and controlled everything from car and pharmaceutical manufacturers to gas stations, airlines, hotels, travel agencies, railways and shipyards, not to mention having a complete monopoly on gas, water, electricity, and telecoms. All of these have now been sold off to the private sector. Virtually the only businesses that remain in state hands are the poor old Post Office and Royal Mail.

But that is not for want of trying. The government would no doubt love to get rid off it: if only it could. The Post Office loses massive amounts of money every year. But closing all of its uneconomic branches in rural parts of the UK would provoke the most enormous public uprising since it was discovered that Sunny Delight is just sugar flavoured water. The Post Office is an integral part of the community in the UK: in every village there is a joint general store/post office where people can buy their newspaper and a pint of milk and at the same time post a letter, apply for a passport, or make deposits into their Post Office savings account.

City and town Post Offices of course have always been a little different: not dissimilar like a US Post Office, with multiple counters, a business like air, and definitely no milk for sale. (Although most British Post Offices are luxuriously carpeted in a most ungovernmental fashion - why is that?) I have noticed that recent attempts to boost profitability have expanded their product range a bit further than their transatlantic cousins however: UK Post Offices now sell phone cards, foreign currency, life insurance, and travel insurance over the counter: and, no doubt, the Royal Mail Mortgage will be coming to our letter boxes soon.

It seems I had not quite appreciated how far this diversification has gone, however. This week, I went into the Post Office in Hereford (a very small city near the England/Wales border) to post a card to the Darden librarians of Hereford Cathedral's famous Chained Library, which dates from the time of James I. (This was meant to be an extremely subtle hint about the shortage of reserve copies for the second year Reading Seminar electives - which on reflection I think may have been a bit too subtle as it is now over a year since I graduated and I think they probably only remember me as the girl who once asked Frank Wilmot to help her research bra size demographics and got her thumb stuck in the microfiche machine).

Anyway, I went into to Hereford and I was struck all of a heap. If it hadn't been for the red and yellow Post Office sign above the door I would not have known where I was. The place looked like a cross between a Walmart and a dollar store (or at least it would have done except that you can't buy anything in the UK for a dollar, not even a post card stamp) So much for travel insurance and holiday Euros: there were boxes of electric fans piled up, a bargain at only £19.99 - and propped up on each counter were a big stack of - wait for it... disposable mini barbecues (£1.99 a throw).

I just can't believe the Americans haven't already thought of this. It's a brilliant idea.

Horrors

There were several cringing moments at the wedding festivities yesterday (including the moment when my father realized I had carried out my threat to sign the official register with my nom de plume if I was forced into being one of their witnesses at the last minute in front of a room full of people; or the moment when me and my sister realized we had been left out of his speech at the reception, in which he had thanked every other member of his extended family present, up to and including his stepson's girlfriend and his elder brother's second wife.)

But for me, the most cringing moment had to be when I went back into the kitchens at the reception venue (a local golf club) to supervise the wrapping up of the remains of the wedding cake.

The waitress looked at me slightly strangely. Where are you from then?

For once in my life, the answer was quite truthfully "here". I was puzzled though, because as I spent most of my childhood in the ten miles radius of where we were standing at that moment, I couldn't really explain away the question to regional dialectal differences.

She looked a bit embarrassed. It's just that, she said, your accent... I thought you were American...

Intermittent Service Has Resumed (With Leaves On The Line)

Well. Back in England at last. Apart from the fact that things are indeed so expensive here that all I can afford to do is to sit very still in a chair with my arms straight down by my sides, things are well.

Apologies for the recent downtime, it's taken me five days to get online properly. Sorry Mum, but you still do live in the dark ages as far as these things go: a dial up line which can only be used after 6pm and which cuts off if anyone picks up the telephone. I guess I have been spoiled by wireless broadband laptoppery for too long.

***

I was recently reading Bill Bryson's Note from A Large Incontinent (or something of that sort) which is all about how he found life in America after moving back there from 20 years living in England. My move is clearly much less dramatic, as I can't really claim, as Bill does, that I don't know the British name for things like Band Aids or such like. Plus, moving from a country which has 400 TV channels to a country with essentially only five is much less of a culture shock than the other way round.

The things I have noticed in the first five days since getting back have been rather peculiar.
1) The fact that the Channel Four TV in-between programmes announcer said yesterday And now for Big Brother: be warned the programme contains strong language and God knows what else...
2) The way the mention of putting the kettle on literally turned my mum's carpet fitters into spaniels (idiot grins and tongues hanging out). The British really do have a strong belief that a cup of tea is the answer in every situation.
3) The fact there was NO NEWS yesterday. None. Honestly one wonders why they bother devoting an hour to the news if there is no news to be related. (If you don't believe me: the lead story at six o'clock yesterday was that someone had scratched his name onto the bull statue outside the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham.) They should do what they used to do on the radio back in the Thirties: the BBC announcer would come on, announce there was no news, and that they would be playing relaxing music instead.
4) the way that the British always refer to the US as "The 'States". I must hereby confess that one of the carpet fitters seemed to think that Canada was part of The 'States too. The other carpet fitter thought that Michael Jackson was just "behaving like a father does naturally with his son".
5)going back to the subject of news, the way that a very large proportion of British news is about minor celebrities who are only famous for getting their tits out. If it wasn't for Page Three Girls, I honestly don't think that our very small country would be able to sustain ten national daily newspapers as it does. Perhaps McKinsey ought to make this point to all the US publishing groups they are currently advising about the dire state of their industry.
6) the impression I have, following a visit to its Walsall store, that IKEA has become the British Wal-Mart. More on this another time.
7) the general fabulousness of the British supermarket. Even the local Morrison's - which in the pecking order in England is pretty close to the bottom, only just above Budgens and the Co-op, has a massive banner outside reading "Fresh Pasta Retailer of the Year 2004". I don't think Food Lion even sells fresh pasta, let alone competes on the national stage.

Last Day Pharmaceutical Blur

Last Day Stats

Boxes packed (total): 41
Total weight of cargo packed: 644kg
Net increase since shipping it out here three years ago: 140kg (the weight of knowledge gleaned from MBA, I like to think)
Hours spent building excel optimization model to allocate boxes between sea and air consignments: 4.5

***

I've just spent my Last Evening in 'Nowheresville, and after a bit more packing of the two largest Nigerian-style suitcases I could find, am about to go to bed for my Last Night. I fly out tomorrow evening at 9.55pm from Dulles.

Fortunately, though - just in time - the weather has turned utterly rubbish and rainy so it's not like one's last day on holiday, where one can hardly drag oneself away from the beach. In my case, I will be dragging myself away from last minute missions to CVS.

Mother requests: silvery can of hair spray stuff, individual false eyelashes. Once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen.
Sister requests: Reese's candy, beef jerky (biltong).
Father requests: Teeth whitening strips. Unbelievably my father has discovered vanity aged 60, and has spent the last month diligently applying teeth whitening strips to his gnashers. I assume this has something to do with getting married next weekend, but one can never tell...

***

For the benefit of any people in the UK planning on going to the US in the reasonably near future, here are my top ten tips on what to buy in US chemists (CVS, Walgreens, Eckerds etc):

1) Wet n, Wild lip pencils. Very good, very long, and only 99 cents each.
2) Beer. Yes, pharmacies in the US sell beer (and wine, and cigarettes).
3) Melatonin tablets (meant to induce sleep, counter jetlag).. not legal to buy in the UK.
4) ELA-Max cream (LMX-4), an OTC topical analgesic for use before 5)..
5) Surgiwax's Complete Brazilian Waxing System. Comes complete with stencils.
6) Copy of the National Enquirer, to read about how Camilla Is An Alien, while waxing.
7) Tooth whitening items. You can get triple strength ones now which do the job in seven days.
8) PowerDeet insect repellent wipes, industrial strength, for "backwoodsmen".
9) Jessica Simpson's Dessert Treats Deliciously Kissable Whipped Cream with Candy Sprinkles Banana Split. According to the label, this is not a food item.
10) Peanut Butter Twix bars

***

I am not sure when I will next be able to blog as may not have access to proper electronic communications for a while. Please bear with me while normal service is restored....

Memorial Day BBQ

Dave and EnglishHelen's BBQ survivors...

99.9% of attendees at Dave and EnglishHelen's BBQ on Memorial Day believe that Tom n' Katie are faking it. It is surprising how many highly educated people with power jobs in the Richmond area read US Weekly magazine.

There was hospitality galore at Crown Prince Circle on Monday. Dave and EnglishHelen had gone to town: highlights were the daiquiris emerging from the blender, a different flavour every half hour; and the brownies made with Reese's peanut butter cups, a recipe which I would have liked to have taken credit for, but shamefully could not.

I clearly had too many daiquiris for at some stage I announced that Dave needed to clean out his fountain, and if he wouldn't do it, I would. This is not optimal guest behaviour, I admit, although to be fair, his fountain is really just a small barrel filled with stagnant, brown, mosquito breeding water - which is actually illegal in most towns in the state of Virginia.

The original, compromise, solution reached was to reinstall the fountain's pump, which turned out, for some reason, to be resident in the shed. The previous owner had spun Dave some sort of line about why he had dismantled the pump and hidden it in the shed, and Dave had believed it. Needless to say, there were no signs of life in this pump, after a good deal of testing. By now, my hands were rather brown and sludgy, though they dried quickly under the hot sun: I still maintain that anyone could have mistaken the dried sludge for brownie mixture.


 
NSD licking sludge off her paws.

Candy Shop

I've always been sceptical about Tom Cruise's relationship in and with the media. But having seen La Cruise's recent interviews on Oprah and Access Hollywood I am now deeply suspicious.

And apparently I am not the only one who is. Check out this (shades of jim-jam) http://liquidgeneration.com/poptoons/tomcruise_katieholmes.asp

Long Day's Drive

Yesterday I drove to New York and back (a 650 mile round trip). And if that wasn't bad enough, yesterday was the beginning of Memorial Day holiday weekend, the official beginning of summer in the US, and a day on which when 31 million Americans are meant to be on the road going somewhere.

Most of the 31 million seemed to be lining up at the toll booths on the I-95. There are an obscene number of tollbooths on the I-95, which is the main road which runs up from Washington DC through Baltimore, past Philadelphia, through New Jersey and onto New York City. Some parts of it have so many tolls that you have only just wound up your window from the last toll before you are winding it down again for the next.

At the Holland Tunnel, which goes under the Hudson and emerges on the west side of Manhattan, you have to pay a toll of six bucks for a trip of less than one mile. It took about an hour to travel that one mile, though, so I suppose I got a lot of time for my money. (And just after I came out of the tunnel, I did see that trapeze thing in Battery Park that SJP goes on in the fifth season of SATC. )

I also made a point at stopping at as many service stations as possible on my trip. I can confirm that they are mostly just as horrendous as UK ones, except perhaps (surprisingly?) much smaller. And there is a great emphasis on the sale of NYPD t-shirts and fried chicken, and much less emphasis on all day breakfasts, newspapers (I saw only one newspaper the whole day, a solitary USA Today at the McDonalds in Gainesville, VA on the way home) and amusement arcades.

The only detour I did was in New Jersey. Having taken 2 hours to go 30 miles, I decided to leave the turnpike and have a look to see what else was in New Jersey, apart from gas stations where they won't let you pour your own gas or look at maps. The New Jersey I have known to date is mainly the bit near NYC which is one of the greatest holes on the planet: ad hoardings for discount jewellery, grim motels, and industrial wastelands belching smoke. Hotels around Newark airport actually have to hire off duty police to stand guard in the lobby all night. There are areas near Newark, NJ where you are advised never to stop your car and get out, not even if the car on fire and you are choking on toxic smoke from the polyester fluff on your dice. Perhaps this is why in NJ you are not allowed to pour your own gas.

The NJ I found off the turnpike, however, was like fairytale America. Rural: with fields that looked like they were growing things (central and northern Virginia does not have any of these), and a village that claimed to have been founded in 1697 but I still believe may have been a Disney film location dating from 1997. Every house was perfect, with red white and blue rosettes outside, a perfect village church, a village tavern, a village pond, and village post office. All that was missing was a village green with a cricket match in progress.

In case I was overwhelmed by this perfection I was reassured, however, when the vicious little man with bloodshot eyes at the BP gas station refused to let me look at one of the maps to see where the village was. He said I was not even allowed to look at the cover of the map unless I bought it first.

***

On the radio I heard about a striking worker in West Virginia who has been on the picket line outside his employer's plant since November last year. This week he was arrested for turning up on the picket line in a Grinch outfit, complete with mask. Apparently in many states, including W. Va, it is illegal to wear a mask if you are over 12 years old and it is not for health and safety reasons, and so this guy could be locked up for several months.

Last one out, turn off the lights

Peter Farqhuar is leaving Darden after only one year.
Yiorgos is leaving, allegedly on a two year break but methinks once he tastes the bright lights and big city he won't be back.
Mark Parry is leaving, for a mid western school.
Joe Harder is leaving, though he will be coming back to teach Spirit of the New Workplace and exec ed.
And of course the Dean is leaving. In the light of the seemingly failed search, they must be wishing they hadn't been quite so hasty to get rid of him.

PS the latest rumour is that Horniman is going to take over as Dean. Horniman has been on the search committee so this may be a rumour he started himself, however one must remember that his wife is a Very Important Person at UVA, knows Casteen and Block etc. It's not out of the realm of the possible. Like a sort of Benedict XVI appointment.

Time immemorial

Boxes packed today: it's only midday, but my target for this afternoon is 8.
Weather: cold, damp, and grungy, as has been and is forecast to be all week. Almost like I am being conditioned for going back to England.
People definitely coming to my Leaving Event so far: 5
Target attendance at my Leaving Event: 6

***

So I scored a semi big victory yesterday. My sometime evilemployers in NYC have agreed, after two weeks of badgering, to let me write a case about them. Now I just need to find a competition to enter it into. Winning competitions pays so much better than the actual writing of the cases.

Bizarrely, in the last few days I have had a whole load of folks offering congrats about my Page Society case competition prize. It's a bit odd because it was announced way back in early March. Just goes to show how slowly time moves in academia, I guess.

Talking of which, the search for a new Darden Dean is no longer running in slow motion: it appears to have stopped altogether. Originally the headhunters said they wanted to find someone by March to start in July. Then the search committee issued various flaky pronouncements about how they had hundreds of leads and were busy pursuing them. Then absolutely nothing. And now, although Gene Block, the Provost of the University and President Casteen's chief henchman, has done an impressive job enforcing secrecy during the search with his ceremonial truncheon, there are still enough Deep Throats round school for word to have leaked out that all three of the shortlisted candidates have turned the job down, including the first choice, Paul Danos, who is current Dean of Tuck.

The thing is, the rules of academic cricket say that anyone moving to a new university needs to resign from their old institution by April 1 of the previous academic year. And we are almost into June now, so it looks like we can't get a Dean from academia until September 2007.
Anyone know Carly's cellphone number?

***

I haven't written anything about graduation, which was on Sunday. It was fun being an observer, rather than a participant. However I was reminded once again of my major gripe from last year about the disgusting colour of the b-school and McEntire school mortar board tassels and hood linings. The medics get Robin Hood green, the lawyers, regal purple, the engineers, cheerful orange, and the architects, a sexy "blue violet" (ie, pink). What do we get? Sludge brown. Revolting. It would be better if we had red or black, depending on whether Darden was running a surplus or deficit that year.

***

In other graduation news, I worked the Second Year Pig Roast Graduation Picnic for the third year running on Saturday. I was chief parking superintendent, with a little pork shoulder carving on the side. It was kind of amusing having well meaning parents coming up to me to say don't worry, it will be your turn [to be a second year and have first years wait on you] next year. If only they knew.

I arrived at 2.30 to help set up, and was surprised to see that BFR was there with the GirlFromAcrossTheCreek. BFR apparently thought that his new girlfriend - who's not connected in any way with Darden and who knows no-one - would enjoy a date spent working the pig roast. They had been there since 12pm, and she was still lugging black plastic trash sacks back and forth when I left at 8pm.

I also managed to freak out David Perdue III's dad. David Perdue II is the CEO of a company called Dollar General, which runs those stores where you can buy anything for a dollar. My only previous acquaintance with Perdue pere was from a class he once sat in that I was in, and even then I barely recognized him. However, the Duncanadian introduced us, and I said hello, and then without thinking, blurted: gosh, it must be a busy week for you, what with your son graduating tomorrow and your first quarter results out on Thursday.

Now Dollar General is not a huge company by US standards (c$8bn market cap) and is neither famous or glamorous. The poor man just could not understand why a random girl at a BBQ in a stetson and pork grease stained t-shirt was so intimately familiar with his financial calendar.

Standing next to his super high achieving son, who is shortly off to Goldman Sachs in New York, I was not about to confess the truth, which is that my own evilemployers in New York were looking for someone to proofread the transcript of Dollar General's earnings conference call on Thursday.*

*A great opportunity I was unable to take advantage of, owing to my expired visa status.

In moderation

Boxes packed today: 2.5 (would have been more but ran out of packing tape)

***

While in the garage packing today, I was listening as usual to NPR. Alex Chadwick's show ran a report on the fact that apparently, scientists have found, sunshine may actually prevent cancer. It seems that our bodies rely on the vitamin D they produce from exposure to sunlight to fight a whole host of cancers, including, bizarrely, skin cancer. So seriously is this new study being taken, that the powers that be are apparently reviewing their guidance on staying out of the sun. The eventual advice, as with anything government feels the need to poke its nose into and decree upon, like eating carrots and burned toast or hunting bears, is likely to be "in moderation is OK".

But as a reporter on Chadwick's show alluded to, America is not about moderation. Immigrants to this country do not come with dreams of living moderately. (Britain, or Holland, are probably better places for doing that.) America is all about Monster ThickBurgers and Hummers; it is a land where the average wedding has ten groomsmen and ten bridesmaids and even trailer homes have multi-door refrigerators and 470 cable channels. What's the point of Las Vegas Lite?

Which is why the feds could have save a lot of tax payers' money not bothering to redesign their food pyramid or reconsider their advice on sun bathing.

Moving thoughts

Top 10 Reasons I am not going to be popular in London

1) I won't concur when gratuitously nasty things are said about Bush or the Republicans
2) I will keep exclaiming over the price of things.
3) I will say "like" a lot.
4) I may be heard to say "trash", "gas" and "elevator".
5) I will wear cowboy boots and listen to country music.
6) When not in cowboy boots, I dress like Barbie.
7) In restaurants, I will request iced water, menu substitutions, and dressing on the side.
8) I drive too slowly.
9) I split my infinitives.
10) My favourite phrase is "yes, may-yam"

The Single Reason why I will be popular in London

1) I've learned to always tip 20%

***

Today some people who I'd applied to about a job asked me for a writing sample. Normally when this happens I send off one of my cases or something. But this time I sent Vince's obituary. It was a job in New Jersey, and it seems appropriate that his name be known throughout his home state.

***

I heard today that there are some people who are bored by my blog. To these people, I would say, 1) you know where the Post Comment button is and 2) if you really don't like it, please do yourself a favour and stop reading.

Odd Tunes

Boxes packed today = 0, it was looking like rain.

***

So I was just on my way home from the bank, when I heard a song on the car radio which sounded rather unusual. Now I was tuned to 99.7, a country music station, and admittedly an awful lot of country songs are either a) depressing b) very depressing or c) about a woman on death row about to die from lethal injection (viz Loretta Lynn on Van Lear Rose, complete with Mr Cheerful Jack White Stripes on guitar). But here is a brief taste of the lyrics to this one:

I hear people saying we don't need this war/I say there's some things worth fighting for/What about our freedom and this piece of ground?/We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down

CHORUS Have you forgotten how it felt that day/To see your homeland under fire/And her people blown away?/Have you forgotten when those towers fell?/We had neighbors still inside/Going through a living hell/And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden/Have you forgotten?

Music has got very odd. I think people are running out of possible word combinations.

***

Today I applied for a(nother) job I don't want to do, in a place I don't want to live; however I am perfectly well qualified to do it.

***
I have nothing more to say today. There is nothing left to say.

In and out

Good news: got an unexpected - miraculous - even, tax refund check in the mail this morning.

Bad news: ... the dentist's receptionist rang this afternoon to say they want me in for my first three fillings at 9am tomorrow... and the bill will be $570 (ie, all my tax refund plus some...)

*

Good news: a cute, fun, very intelligent guy bought me lunch today

Bad news: ... he wanted to talk business (all right, and some gossip: but mostly business)

*

Good news: someone is buying Pat's car

Bad news: ... I am not confident it will start.

*

Good news: I'm going to the Graduation Pig Roast on Saturday...

Bad news: ... as chief parking supervisor.

*

Good news: somebody told me I looked hot today

Bad news: ...it was Barbara Millar

Goodbye, Sofa

Boxes packed = 0
Temperature = 65 degrees, unspectacular.
Suitcases the Czech ladies managed to wedge into my car going to the airport today = 9
Factoid of the day = Virginia is the 35th biggest state in the Union by square mileage, and 80% of it is forest.

***

Just got back from my weekend excursion to Richmond (Virginia, not on-Thames, though the two are apparently twin towns: that must create some interesting exchange trips..), home of the Confederacy, NASCAR, large tobacco companies, Ella Fitgerald, Warren Beatty, and as of Saturday, my furniture.

When I arrived in the US three years ago, I spent my very first night in Richmond. The following morning I was escorted by my local guide round the key sights of Richmond: namely, Home Depot, Target and CostCo.

This was quite an appropriate initiation, given that most Darden people only went to Richmond - which is about 65 miles away - for one of two reasons: 1) to interview at Circuit City or Capital One (both HQ'ed there); or 2) to shop at Target. I am definitely guilty on the second count, and indictable on the first, on the grounds that even I have taken the CapOne King's shilling when I did some consulting for them earlier this year.

But now there are additional reasons to visit. Just under one trillion of my classmates landed jobs at C1 or Circuit City in Richmond, and most of them are now happily ensconced in luxurious houses in leafy suburbs, with a choice of luxury spare bedrooms for me to sleep in. One of these houses is owned by Dave and EnglishHelen: and is now the new home of the little bits and pieces of furniture I have accumulated since I've been in the US.

Fortunately what could have been a sad day turned into a fun weekend. I had a few brief moments communing with my bed and sofa for the very last time, but Dave and EnglishHelen kept me far too busy trying to identify the mystery plants in their yard, splashing our clothes with bleach for a trendy 1980s look, and gambling on how many hours late Bob The Dawg was going to be for dinner.

***

BobTheDawg was on fine form (hi Bob). He was actually only 45 minutes late, which was a world record. Five minutes before he is due somewhere, BobTheDawg has this peculiar habit of deciding to clean a carburettor, paint someone's house, or rewire his stereo. Knowing this, I had promised to clean SapphireTheCat's litter box out with my bare hands if he showed up before 8, and he very nearly called me on it.

The food was great at the place we went out to: ate half a dozen Virginia oysters (factoid: the oyster is the state mollusc of Virginia - yeah, I know I said it was the clam yesterday but I looked it up and I was wrong) and a whole trout (the state fish) with herbs. Although I drew the line at accompanying this feast with milk (the state beverage), this outburst of Virginia patriotism must have overwhelmed me because I managed to leave my purse behind at the restaurant, complete with all my ID, credit cards, ATM card, everything. I didn't realize until I got back to Middleofnowheresville and went to the bank this afternoon.

guilty pleasures

Boxes packed today: 1 (full of stuff to give to Dave and EnglishHelen).
Temperature: 73 degrees, and hopefully rising.

***

Went to the End of the World party yesterday, traditionally held on the night after the last exam of the year. This was the third End of the World party I've been to, which is rather sad: but on the other hand it has helped me to realize that leaving Darden is maybe not literally the End of the World.

Because of the free bar, the place was heaving like a rugby scrum. I would not have lasted long had it not been for running into the Duncanadian. It was nice to see him. He's just got back from an exchange to a b-school in Barcelona for a quarter, and was telling us about the "Multi-Culti" they have there: their equivalent of Darden's International Food Festival.

I should explain that Darden's IFF, as with virtually every Darden social event, is sadly handicapped by the very heavy handed rules at UVA about alcohol consumption. It is rare for alcohol to be permitted anywhere on university owned grounds (even though we are all over 21) and those that are, are limited to plastic cups of watery Budweiser and Miller Lite, served by the director of student affairs and her sidekick. In fact, there was a major witchhunt following an IFF two years ago when an unidentified guy was seen allegedly urinating over a wall into the grass. With the tact and finesse we have come to expect from Darden, the school threatened to ban all alcohol from all school events ever again.

Barcelona's "Multi-Culti" however, is all about the booze. The Mexican table had tequila, the Croatian had a backpack full of grappa, and apparently the Spanish had a dartboard. The area your dart landed in dictated what bizarre regional drinking feat you would be challenged to complete. In the Duncanadian's case, this was drinking cider out of a five feet long tube. If this had been at Darden, it would have been iced tea...

***

PubHound's blog is all about guilty pleasures this week. Let's get them all out into the open. Here are my top five.

1) Watching six or more Dawson's Creek episodes back to back on DVD.
2) Lounging round in bed at the weekends cackling at This American Life on the radio.
3) Ordering nice underwear online.
4) Eating an entire bag of lychees in one go.
5) Reading a whole book in one go, no stopping for anything.

And yours?

Pimms, Scourge of the Innocent

Temperature: 64 degrees, looking like rain
Boxes packed = 0
Attempts to inject insulin into squirming cat = 2
Number of times student loan company called before breakfast = 1

***

BTW don't think that I haven't noticed that, with just a couple of honourable exceptions, no-one comments on my blog. Why is this? I know that lots of people are reading it, and I can't believe that everyone agrees with every word I say. You do realize that you can use a pseudonym?

***

This week, after a few days of hot weather and the arrival of new garden umbrellas, it seemed time to get the Pimms evangelism going again. Pimms, for the uninitiated, has been described by some as alcoholic fruit salad, but that is grossly undervaluing this fabulous concoction. It consists of gin and lots of top secret essences and extracts of god knows what, to which one adds ice, fizzy lemonade or ginger ale, and slices of lemon, mint, cucumber, strawberries, and apple. The beauty of this is that you can make it as strong or as weak as you like, according to taste and stamina. It is deceptive, however, particularly when the sun is strong. You can knock back several glasses as if it were iced tea, and then find that your legs give way when you try to stand up.

NB, this is not a cocktail. Pimms is a drink which should only ever be drunk in daylight hours, between the months of May and September, and god forbid you should ever add a cocktail umbrella or a cherry to proceedings. In fact, even in the bars of the Stewards' Enclosure at the Henley Royal Regatta it is only served by the pintful, in big fat beer mugs (going rate: about $15 a pint last time I looked, but I guess that's the price of doing business at Henley...)

***

Anyway, I started off on LandladyLynn. After practicing our syringe wielding technique at the vet yesterday afternoon, she looked like she could use a stiff drink. She said she liked it, but as a sample of one that was definitely not statistically relevant. So later I took all my Pimms paraphenalia with me to BigMouthLloyd and BostonKate's (for what I hope will be the first of many 222blonde-is-leaving-boo-hoo BBQs).

Now, people not born and raised on Pimms are always a little suspicious. While in the UK, it is drunk everywhere during the summer - in pubs or at home, at weddings or informal back garden BBQs, on college lawns in Oxford and Cambridge, or in splendour at Henley, Wimbledon and Ascot - in America it's not an easy drink to label, or be labelled by, either chemically or socially.

For American men, in particular, whose masculinity and self image seems entirely dependent on the tone of voice in which they order a Bud Light, the prospect of sipping a tall glass with strawberries and cucumber floating around in it is absolutely horrific.

And fear is catching. Even the women seem nervous. There is hard liquor (gin - mother's ruin) in the Pimms concentrate - most unladylike. Will it be too strong: will it reduce them to dancing on tables flashing their knickers after a couple of swigs?

***

My audience last night was semi impressed. TheSplash - clad in pink and white striped seersucker pants from J Crew which a more insecure heterosexual would surely have balked at - made some convincing sounding appreciative noises, it is true. And the others made polite efforts. But as we were half way down the drive departing for home, BigMouthLloyd came sprinting down the lawn with the perfectly good 2/3rds full Pimms bottle, insisting I take it home with me. This confirmed my worst suspicions. Pimms is a tough sell to the Yanks.

Far to Go

Boxes packed today = 0 (but have v good excuse)
Temperature = 86 degrees F
Number of tumours or cysts I have in my jaw = 0 (that's the good news I suppose)
Number of fillings the numero uno dentist in town says I have to have new or replaced = 12
Amount of money he charged me for this information = $329

***

Major exciting thing today.... Digs came round with a bulldozer and dug up the septic tank.

This is my cast iron (literally) excuse for not doing any packing today. The septic tank is right under the spot where I drag all my boxes out to be packed. Official announcement: all packing - not that there has been much of it going on this week anyway) is therefore suspended until Sunday.


Unearthed after twenty years: one septic tank.

***

I must say, American dentists are expensive and this one in particular is v v expensive, but to use a soccer analogy, they are Chelsea compared to the British NHS's Grimsby Town. All the mags in the waiting room are this week's latest. The furniture is mahogany, there are fresh flowers everywhere and the bedside manner of the dentist himself is breathtaking in its smoothness. Everything (well, I suppose they haven't started on the really bad stuff yet, but even so) is done with novacaine patches, TV cameras, lasers and ultrasonic water jets, to the sound of smooth jazz in the background.

I almost gave myself away at one point. I asked what metal they would use in my fillings. The Smoothdentist looked at me as if I was mad and said he hadn't used metal fillings for ten years. I am not sure if this is the case in the UK or not, seeing it is - horrible and exclusive internet confession here - well over fifteen years since I ran away from my last dentist's surgery.

My last dentist, in the UK, was a friend of my fathers (vaguely) so I have to watch what I say here. However, the long and short of it was that he told my mother that my wisdom teeth were out of whack and that I would need immediate surgery in hospital to dig them out before they grew backwards into my brain. The sixteen year old me decided I would sooner die of wisdom teeth in the brain than go to hospital. So I ran away from the dentist.

In case you are all thinking to yourselves, that explains a lot about the way her brain works: there are eight large teeth where the common sense should be, may I just say that the sixteen year old me was perhaps not so dizzy after all. Left to their own devices, the wisdom teeth grew in two years later, perfectly straight and healthy.

Wednesday's Child

Number of boxes packed today: 0
Temperature: 83 degrees F.

***

Technically today should be full of woe, because it's Wednesday. But tomorrow looks like it is the candidate of woeful day of the week.

The first bad thing that is happening tomorrow is that I am going to the dentist. I cannot remember the last time I went to the dentist: I am ashamed to confess that we're talking years not months. However, I do have several excellent excuses:

1) Shortly after I moved to Nowheresville, I was tricked into accompanying TheDentist as his date to the Annual Nowheresville Dentists Association Christmas Party. What I saw there did not hasten my signing up to a local dentist.
2) I find it extremely disconcerting to be prevented from talking in anxious situations.
3) I had a lot of bad experiences as a child (NHS dentistry was never known for its compassion or artistry).
4) I am British, and everyone knows we have bad teeth (look at Tony Blair, KiltGuy, etc)

Anyway, I finally succumbed to making an appointment with a dentist in March when I learned that LandladyLynn is a patient of the Numero Uno dentist in town. His name is Larry Brannon, and he was not at the Dentists Christmas Party. Officially he will not take new patients, but LandladyLynn has been a patient of his for 14 years and she got me in to see him. I've only had to wait two and a half months for my appointment: I suppose in that respect it is comfortingly reminiscent of home. What will NOT be reminiscent of home is that this guy is expensive. You may go home with great teeth, but you will be missing an arm and a leg.

***

The other reason tomorrow is a woeful day is that SapphiretheCat has been diagnosed with diabetes. He is due to go to the vet for his initiation into what will be a twice daily regime of insulin shots. Poor LandladyLynn is terribly upset. However, given that the alternative diagnosis would have been kidney failure, I guess it could be a lot worse.

The Stones They Are A-Comin

Just imagine: Mick here... on 6 October. (photo is Scott Stadium in early November: note t-shirts and shorts...)

DMB

Number of boxes packed today: 0
Number of boxes packed yesterday: 0 (was in DC most of the day)

Number of slices of Czech apple strudel eaten yesterday: 5
Number of friends wearing orange trousers yesterday: 1

***

Who? I can hear all my British friends saying. The DMB?

I could not leave Middleofnowheresville without explaining.

Without a doubt, Dave Matthews is the biggest man in Nowheresville. Not because he has enjoyed remarkable success in competitive funnel cake eating contests, although the residents of Nowheresville naturally believe that if he had time to enter he would surely sweep all before him.

Dave Matthews is everywhere in town. He and/or his business manager (a shadowy figure named Coran Capshaw; it is common to see black clad men lurking around town at night muttering into cellphones "Coran is very clear about what needs to be done here..." ) own just about every decent eatery, music venue, and prime piece of real estate in town; run an internet retailing company, bankroll 28 local charities, and are probably, directly or indirectly, Nowheresville' second biggest employer after UVA itself.

But that's not his biggest claim to fame. Dave Matthews, Nowheresville's favourite son, is the front man of one of America's biggest "alternative" rock groups, The Dave Matthews Band, aka DMB). To put this in perspective: piece of evidence number one: the DMB over the last eight to ten years has been one of the highest earning bands in the US: they can apparently sell out stadiums of 100,000 people. Piece of evidence number 2: the other day in the South Street Brewery, we saw a Nowheresville girl who had persuaded the great man to sign her shoulder blade, and then had it tattooed in for posterity, complete with a Wall Street Journal esque portrait of The Dave etched alongside.

***

Q. Is this man good looking? Is he a sex god? Is he Simon Le Bon? Er.. no. He looks like a completely anonymous bloke, pudgy cheeks, balding on top, but with a sort of pained artistic expression on his face.

Q. Is his music any good? Taking my life into my hands here, I would hazard to say that to my ears it is unrecognizable and instantly forgettable, almost dirge like. But then what do I know, I'm not a native daughter of Nowheresville. Someone, politer than I, described his stuff today as "laid back, so laid back you don't notice it's there".

Q. Why is the DMB totally unknown in the UK? Well, see above. Though, I would not be entirely surprised if I learned The Dave and his band did not possess passports.

***

HUGE NEWS hot off the press: the Rolling Stones are going to play Scott Stadium (ie, the UVA football field) in 'Nowheresville this summer. Coran Capshaw (naturally) is already being given the credit for setting it up.

The advantages of Paddington Travel

I need to take a leaf out of P. Bear's book.

Travelling with only a hatful of marmalade sandwiches and a small attache case makes a whole lot of sense.

I, however, came to the US with 21 boxes of air freight, weighing just over 500kg. At the time, it seemed to make sense - paying for storage in London was, unbelievably, going to cost more than my sister's discounted BA cargo charge, and that's not counting all the money I would have had to spend buying new bedding and dishes etc when I got to the US.

But things are never that simple. All 21 boxes were "accidentally" put on a plane to New York, instead of Washington where they were meant to go. Then, in a brilliant flash of inspiration, BA put all 21 boxes back on a plane to London, where they were reloaded onto a flight out to Washington. Only 20 boxes, however, were released to me when I was eventually called to collect them at DC. One was missing: the one containing all my underwear...

***

It is hardly surprising that I have been resisting returning to the UK. The prospect of repeating this little adventure is not appealing. And although I've been doing my best to "bequest" or donate or plain throw away as much stuff as I can, it seems likely that I will have even more boxes to take back with me.

So for the last week, I've been in the garage, trying to sort out and repack this mass of stuff. It's an Operations problem that would tax even the mighty Ed Davis, so much so that today I seriously considered trying to write an optimization spreadsheet that would tell me how to divide up stuff between air freight and surface (a function of handling limits, $ cost, cubic feet, weight, urgency of need of the contents, the price of New York crude oil for June delivery and the number of cardboard cuts on my fingers).

Bridget Jones liked to keep track of cigarettes, calories and National Lottery scratchcards. I, contrast, will be keeping daily and cumulative total of number of boxes packed from now on on this blog.

Today's magic number: 17.

Partayed Out

This partying-like-it's-1999 business is getting tiring.

Buddhist Biker, South Street, Bang (where, I realized this evening, with the exception of the tuna sashimi pizza, I have now eaten every single thing on the menu), Rapture, ZoCaLo, Wild Wings, West Main...

- I am known to every bouncer in town, and then some. I have a variety of quips in my back pocket for when they take one look at my face and say it won't be necessary to see my ID.

- I know which places you need to take your own toilet paper to.

- I know how to wedge the Explorer into the very last free parking spot in town, often to the applause of an awed audience of passers by who obviously have never lived in London.

- I know precisely which Darden people will be there, no matter where it is we go or how hard we might try to escape them: NoCatDan, WeirdTallDarren, SouthernTallGuy and the perennial DaveRouse.

- I know where the cops wait on the R250 to pick up late night speeders and DUI on the way home.

***

Tonight was a bit unusual because it turned out that a bunch of Darden acquaintances were in town for a wedding: John Garofalo's, at Farmington. John Carr, Andy Sidford and Breeze Taylor(now dating), and Justin Zandri. And where else did they decide to have their prewedding party but the upstairs bar at Rapture?

JohnG was one of those Darden guys who always dated really attractive women from out of town. He's ended up marrying one too, rather conveniently. Anyhow, any satisfaction I was feeling at being able to fit into my not-so-large 7 jeans right now was completely dashed when we went upstairs to join the party and saw all these tiny women in size 2 pants, gold sandals, immaculate blown out hair and painted-on freckles. It makes one wonder why one bothers.

Election 05

Dear American Friends,

How The British Cover Their Elections 101: a short video .

I should explain by way of a bit of context that the man being interviewed was a Labour MP who liked to go on all expenses paid friendship missions to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Kinda like Hanoi Jane, but without the looks. He has also been quoted as saying the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.

Anyway, after Britain went to war in Iraq, this guy was kicked out of the Labour Party (for, among other things, suggesting that British soldiers should disobey their orders). He then became leader of RESPECT (the Socialist Worker Party rebranded for the 21st century) and moved to a very poor, very multi-ethnic area of east London to run for election there.

So, maybe not a guy that most people in the UK have a whole lot of sympathy for, whatever their views on Iraq.

However, bizarrely, in this interview he ends up coming out as the sane one. Go figure.

Cinco de mayo

Big day today: Visa Expiry Day, Last Day of Classes (for second years), the DRC end of year BBQ, the UK general election, and of course, Cinco de Mayo.

(Cinco de Mayo, for all my English friends, is an anniversary of an obscure battle between the Mexicans and the French, which even in Mexico itself is celebrated in only one province. However, in the United States, it's used as an excuse for a party by everyone who's ever even tried to spell Mexico. Sombreros and alcohol and jalapeno pepper eating contests are much in evidence.)

Anyway, my big day ended with me propped up on a kitchen stool talking to ASM's roommate at 1.30am. ASM's roommate is a peculiar colour: very pale, as if he never gets outside. He's also not much of a party animal: in fact ASM's friend Cherbs thought she might even take him on in an Evelyn/Adam sort of of project to liven him up a bit. However, he got a whole lot more interesting this evening when I found out that he is actually a serving Navy officer, and better still, when he graduates from Virginia Law he is going to transfer into JAG... we all know that those uniforms are totally hot.

***

The rowing club BBQ went well - surprisingly superlative burgers (courtesy of BFR, who is in love with the girl across the creek, and excellent sausages and beer (courtesy of the CFYRG). The only people missing were TheSplash and SmoothMike. Unfortunately we got evilAaron instead. When asked for something towards BigMouthLloyd's leaving present, evilAaron lied and said he had already contributed. If the CFYRG had not restrained me (and he does seem to have a peculiar ability to defuse such circumstances) I would have gone over and probably got myself in a major fight with the nasty little s**t.

Anyway, a much nicer thing that happened was that TallPete came to the BBQ with his little daughter - maybe four or five years old. Just before they went home, TallPete brought her over to where I was sitting, and she boldly asked me if I was a princess. Ahhh. I can only attribute her confusion to the fact I was wearing pink and white and had pigtails in my hair.

***

In some ways, it has occurred to me, my visa being up is a good thing. For starters, it means I don't have to do any more slave labor for my EvilTaskmasters in NYC, because it is no longer legal. What a great excuse.

The 'Crew

Not crew as in rowing, no.

I decided to make a start on my To Do Before Leaving List.

I went down to Fashion Square (site of the John Grisham Charlottesville massacre scene) to have a little chat with the manager of J Crew. I had hoped he would see reason.

After all, I have been an excellent customer, as are increasing numbers of my British friends. Only a month ago, I sent a parcel of JC goodies onto PubShy in London, and last week the CRM was unceremoniously dispatched there to buy a pair of Foxfield worthy pants.

I had not bargained with the fact that the J Crew manager is a pathetic corporate amoeba. He said he would have to ask head office permission before he could post stuff from his store to England. Even if it was paid for in advance by a US-issued credit card? Yes.

The game, I knew, was up.

***

Of course, head office said no. I could have told him they would say that, and saved the price of an out of area phone call.

We had a brief and lively (on my side) debate. His side of the conversation involved repeating the words "corporate policy, corporate policy, corporate policy" over and over again until he became a Distinctly Boring Corporate Amoeba.

***

I went home, determined not to give in. I rang J Crew's customer service center, just down the road in Lynchburg, Virginia, and politely asked if someone could tell me the reason for the corporate policy that J Crew do not want any overseas customers.

The girl, astonishingly, went to find out.

"Well ma'am. The reason is that there is not enough demand."

"No demand??? How do you know?"

She went to find out.

"Our New York office does surveys of our customers."

"And these would be customers in the United States?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Do you see any logical flaws in this argument?"

***

I dictated a long message to her to pass onto these people in New York.

Mr Big

This isn't going to be a long one, 'cause it's 3am and I had too many Mr Bigs (powerful white cranberry cocktails from Bang) tonight and need to go to bed.

I must say we underestimated SouthernTallGuy. We all thought he was a bit of a dork, you know: shy, not competent with women, keeps his J Crew polo shirt buttoned up all the way to his neck etc.

But it turns out he is a veritable fiend when it comes to undergraduates. Even applying an 85% discount rate to his claims of having scored 10 women this academic year, that's an impressive number, given that most Darden men who try to pull undergraduates get their egos shattered in record time.

In fact, one reason there weren't too many guys at SSB tonight was because a bunch of Darden men were having an "I'm hot, you're rich" social with the Theta sorority. We're talking about a bunch of fat, balding, humorless 29 year olds pursuing 19 year old undergraduettes here. It ain't a pretty sight.

Four days and counting

Technically I have four days before my visa expires. Plus a few days (non-working) grace to leave the country.

It feels timely to try and compile a list of Good Things About Going Back to England.

1) See more of my mum
2) Go to Villa games (combined, conveniently, with 1) above)
3) See more of family (and friends, those who remain) in general
4) Supermarket food
5) Curry houses
6) um....

Now, a list of Things I Need to Do before I Go:

1) Have Quiet Word with manager of local J Crew store (about sending me care packages.. cause J Crew don't normally ship outside the US)
2) Buy large bottle of Kentucky bourbon
3) Eat Fried Chicken for last time
4) Tell Mark Reisler to stuff himself
5) Take back that library book I took out in 2002

... andA List of Things I Probably Won't Get to Do But Wish I Had Done

1) Found a Virginia wine worth drinking
2) Been to Williamsburg
3) Been to beach
4) Skied
5) Been more Charitable ( community good deeds)
6) Mastered the 3-turn

Foxfield

The great day of Foxfield finally arrived at last. (Those who read TSD will know something about it already. For those who don't, Foxfield consists of an enormous field on the side of a hill, with a steeplechase track round the outside and about five thousand people in sundresses, chinos and various stages of drunkness on the inside.)

I've been looking forward to Foxfield for ages, and I've been watching the weather forecast like a hawk for two weeks, with a view to giving the dress I had lined up for my father's wedding a trial run. But the forecast was looking increasingly dodgy all week, and this morning when I got up at 7.30 (on a Saturday, oh woe, because Vince's memorial service was happening at school at 9am) the weather was unbelievably - almost Britishly - bad: had been raining all night and was misty, damp, grey and cold. Somehow a red, pink and white halter neck just didn't seem to fit the bill.

I sadly switched to black and white from the back of the closet, nothing fancy, and it seemed to be appropriate for Vince's service as well as the tres miserable weather. Actually, as I discovered later, the mud and the cold didn't seem to deter everyone within a 100 mile radius between the age of 16 and 32 from showing up at Foxfield dressed straight out of this spring's J Crew catalogue, in pastel cotton strapless sundresses and mud. It was quite an awe inspiring sight: in fact I was not the only one to note that it looked like a cross between Henley and Glastonbury.

***

Both of the last two years I got tickets for Foxfield and never went. The first year I seem to remember the weather looked too dodgy; the second year my cab never arrived (Airport Cab Company, if you are reading this - I am still waiting....)

But really those are just poor excuses for the fact that FF, like TNDC, was the sort of thing that induced severe social anxiety syndrome in me. I absolutely would dread turning up to something like that for fear there would be no one there I recognised and I would have noone to talk to.

This year, despite the crap weather, and the mud, and the fact I was a bit emotionally wrung out (having gotten a little tearful speaking at Vince's memorial service earlier on), I ended up having such a good time that I had to be literally dragged away from my spot in a '04 v '05 flipcup tournament to go home.

One reason was probably my unplanned but excellent strategy of knocking back a couple of Mint Juleps early in proceedings. Mint Juleps are the traditional drink of the Kentucky Derby. The horseraces at Foxfield are no Kentucky Derby, but still. They consist of bourbon, sugar solution, mint leaves and ice. Yum. Guaranteed to cheer the spirits within 25 minutes.

Then, at risk of rapidly descending into the sort of Jennifer's Diary column that is only of interest to the people mentioned, of course there were a whole bunch of other people that I haven't seen for ages and probably, visa issues being as they are, will never see again. Lots of Class of 04: most of the "local" gang, plus healthy contingents from Boston, NYC, Baltimore, and DC and some brave souls who'd even flown in on the red eye from San Francisco: Chris Cooper, Chris duP_ (of whom see more on TSD...), Rebecca Gordon, Todd Whiting, Sarah Spiewak, Dave Lee, Riley O' Brien, DaveRouse, Jim Wininger, AsianStudiesMeredith, Chris Borunda (wearing a very fetching pair of J Crew green critter pants), Derek Dickey, Katherine Neebe, Abby Rohman, Leslie Curry, Dennis Ortiz, Jose Salinas, Jorge Palet (aka el orso a Paddington hombre) and probably even more people I've forgotten or more likely never knew the names of anyway...

Plus, of course there were those who skipped FF but went to Vince's: Chantal Chellar, Marcus Kritzler, EnglishNeil, Emily Chen, Uday Gupta and Bob Bell; and of course absolutely pots of FYs and SYs: Mac, Marcie, MarriedSpencer, "Spanish"Bastien, Walt Leddy, NickTheBrit, CBL, Tom Hunter and so on.

***

It was nice, but kind of sad to see everyone. I really should have been feeling this way this time last year, when everyone else was partying like it was 1999. But my wildly social/sentimental spell seems to be happening now, a year after graduation. Not even TNDC can faze me. A roomful of FYs I don't know? Bring 'em on.

***

Gossip postscript:

1) who did I see but rowingMelissa? (the fourth member of my ladies four from last year, the other two being ArmyLisa and CanadianHockeyAnna) And, who was she with but Tom Hunter? That guy has such persistence, I am delighted for him. He was sharking her 18 months ago and she would hardly give him the time of day. Now they are dating with a capital D.

2) DaveBertelli and EnglishHelen have bought a house in Richmond, their first home they've owned, all v exciting.

3) And kind of unrelated, as he wasn't actually THERE, Matt Scharf and Rebecca just had a baby girl called Olivia.

Paddington Comes to Nowheresville

At some point during my Darden experience, I was talking to a Peruvian student about Peru.

"My knowledge of Peru," I confessed, "is confined to three things."

The Peruvian looked excited. (Apparently three is quite a high number).

"Guinea pig eating."

Oh yes, he said, a very great delicacy indeed, you should try one.

"The Inca Trail."

He nodded. Very beautiful.

"And, of course, Paddington Bear," I concluded,

The Peruvian looked bewildered. What?

"Paddington Bear. He's from Peru."

The Peruvian shook his head, clearly trying to recall the P section of his English/Spanish dictionary. I'm sorry, I don't know this 'Partington Bare'. What? Are you sure you are not thinking of another country?

"No," I replied firmly, confident of my ground here. "Paddington Bear is definitely from Peru. Darkest Peru. You must know that. He was found at Paddington station with marmalade sandwiches under his hat. "

***

Many months later, the Peruvian approached me again, this time with a broad smile on his face.

You know, he said, now I know this Paddington. I have some friends who live in England visit me and they also tell me about this Paddington Bear. I say, it is not from Peru. But they say, yes, English people believe it is so. So I say, OK, it's from Peru.

***

I remembered this story today when I realised that in the last week my diet has consisted almost entirely of marmalade sandwiches.

(To Americans, of course, this may not seem unusual: it is not that dissimilar from PB&J sandwiches, but without the PB. But for me, this is unusual )

For the most part, my marmalade sandwich diet is financially driven. I discovered a large unopened jar of Coopers Original Oxford Coarse Cut Seville marmalade in one of my boxes while I was packing last week, and it seemed a shame not to eat it rather than go out and buy more food from El Gigante with dollars I don't really have. And, it turns out, marmalade eaten in sufficient quantities has the unexpected but welcome side-effect of being an excellent appetite suppressant.

If anyone sees me hanging round the AmTrak station in a duffle coat, please don't tell my mother.

***

I don't have much more to say today except to lament the weather forecast for Foxfield on Saturday, ie totally crap: thunderstorms, wind and 80% chance of rain. Fabuloso.

The incredible disappearing Canadian

Once more a quick gossip update: KeithZ is getting married, in July! Apparently he proposed having already booked the church and reception: a brave man. And Noelle and Vikas are also apparently getting married, god help their children.

***

Went to Tuesday Night Drinking Club last night. For some reason, Tuesday NDC is always a lot more fun than the traditional Thursday NDC. Maybe it's because the Tuesday version is always in South Street Brewery, which is a relatively decent joint, compared to the absolute dives which always get picked to play host to TNDC. The SSB at least has reasonably clean floors, serves beer in real glasses not plastics, and the music is low enough you can hear yourself shout.

Over dinner with AsianStudiesMeredith, KeithZ (who out of the blue announced he was getting married and moving to Syracuse) and an extremely entertaining Asian American FY called Mac, we were trying to pick out nice looking guys in the bar for ASM to go up and talk to.

ASM looked gloomy.

"There's no point," she said. "I'm moving to San Francisco soon."

(Now I am hardly an expert in how to approach people in bars - even people who aren't strangers: the Irish Bar in Philly was very definitely an aberration. So it was perhaps a bit disingenuous of me to persist. But it all seems so much easier when you're giving advice to someone else.)

"Rubbish!" I piped gaily, gesturing at an inoffensive blond guy in a green striped shirt having a quiet drink with his mate. "Look! I bet that man there is visiting from San Francisco, and he's thinking, there's no point talking to any of these girls, because I'm not around for long."

ASM did not look convinced.

However here comes the weird part.

I got up to go looking for my Canadian friends at the other end of the bar, and just as I passed the GreenstripedshirtGuy, I heard him say.. "... and I just arrived from California three days ago."

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Are you from San Francisco?"

"Yes."

Ha.

***

He turned out to be the new chief of staff of radiology at UVA. OK, so he isn't going back to Stanford any time soon, but hey, the moral victory was all mine.

***

But I digress, onto the main business of the evening. I was also meant to be meeting my Canadian friend HockeyAnnaMac, who I hadn't seen for aeons. Not since we went on a girls weekend to DC last summer, I don't think. She's been doing a PhD in psychology at UVA, and rowed in my four last year.

Anyway, I almost didn't recognize her. She had lost so much weight- well over 20 pounds, she said. And this is someone who was only 5' 5 in the first place, and who played sport (ice hockey and rowing) several times a week. I was completely amazed, almost to the point of forgetting my manners. It did give me hope, however. She used to have a chest the same size as mine, and now there is hardly anything left. So it just shows that it can be done.

But there was more big news to come from the incredible disappearing Canadian. She is literally disappearing, in the sense that she is dropping out of the PhD program. She's got her masters, and reckons that she can get just as good a market research job with that than sticking around for another three or four years in academia...

It's all happening down at the SSB.


***

Last of all I must say welcome to all the new readers kindly directed here by Lloyd over the course of the DRC's trip to Philly. Thanks Lloyd. Your new name, effective immediately, is BigMouthGuy!

The Condemned Woman

Gossip wise, the scoop is that someone terribly famous (although I am 100% certain that when we are told who it is, we'll all say "errr, who??") has been offered the Dean's job. An update is due mid this week. We may have a new Dean lined up by the weekend!

***

It finally occurred to me what has been going on. My eyes keep tearing up at the most inconvenient moments, you see: today, in one of the academic assistant's offices; yesterday, walking down the Downtown Mall; driving on the R250 all the time; and on Friday, about a dozen times while I was updating EnglishJustin and Nathalie on what I have been up to lately.

I remind myself of the final episode of Dawson's Creek, when everyone discovers that Jen is suffering from a mysterious illness and only has days to live.

I feel as if I had only days to live.

People talk about things that will be happening later this summer- even I talk about things that will happen later this summer - and then I suddenly remember that I will not be here, and these things will be happening without me.

Yesterday I was repacking my possessions into new moving boxes, and kept finding things I wanted to give away to people: bequests, if you will. ScaryCzechLady is getting a lovely green pair of shoes from Nine West that I bought myself as a graduation present last year, but never wore. TheSplash is to be the lucky recipient of a book from the UK (ex libris) about Investment Banking in Europe that I never read. LandladyLynn will be getting my Japanese tree, my lemon mint plant, and all my fairy lights. EnglishJustin I gave my collection of smuggled-in Twinings tea. And CFYRG is going to receive my treasured copy of Steve Redgrave's Guide to Rowing, c 1991.

***

I did find a few interesting things in my boxes, including some old rowing photographs I forgot I had. This reminded me of my claim to fame (other than being the elder daughter of Miss Aston Villa 1970, that is). Tim Rawle, of Cambridge Portfolio photography fame, mainly takes pictures of architecture and landscapes. He has, however, published precisely two rowing pictures in his career, and I am in one of them. Literally thousands of people own calendars and diaries featuring my busily rowing mugshot (under June, because obviously the May Bumps are in June). If you want to check me out, go to

http://www.cambridge-portfolio.co.uk/cppl/imageinfo.asp?caller=imagelist.asp&id=1051&seq=0

Aren't we well sat?

Bourdain's Beef Stew

For those who are interested, HotTubRon has just got engaged to a vet and is getting married in October. Ladies of Nowheresville, weep your hearts out.

***

I decided to make something new last night for the English who were coming round for dinner: boeuf bourguignon. I am usually not impressed with the results when I try to cook stews and the like. For some reason the meat and liquid never quite bond to form a mellifluous whole. My curries have the same problem. So I normally pin all my hopes on pudding and hope people manage to choke down the main course as best they can.

This time, the recipe I used came from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles book. He is the guy who wrote the scary book Kitchen Confidential, which describes how and why most chefs in NYC are ex-con cokeheads. His recipes are also quite scary: things like tripe, or civet of wild boar, with about fourteen zillion ingredients. Of one recipe, he says, "it isn't very difficult and won't take too much time if you spread the work over three days."

The boeuf bourguignon was one of the less intimidating choices in the book a) because its ingredient list was mercifully short b) there was no offal involved and c) the cooking time was only about three hours, as opposed to one week.

The major problem turned out to be finding the beef: a very particular cut from the shoulder which the French call paleron, and (some) Americans know as chicken steak. (Chicken steak is not to be confused, in Jessica-Simpson fashion, with chicken, chicken of the sea, chicken-fried steak, or chicken tied to a stake.)

I visited five supermarkets looking for it. The conversations I had in each were almost identical, whether it was the high fallutin' Whole Foods, Anderson's the alledgely expert butcher or the really dodgy Reed's:

Me, wearily: "Do you have any chicken steak please?"
Meat Lady: "Chicken? It's over there ma'am."
Me: "Not chicken. Chicken steak."
Meat Lady: "Chicken fried steak?"
Me: "Not chicken fried steak, chicken steak. It's a cut from the shoulder of a cow that once went moo. It is lean but not too tough, just right for a stew that only simmers for two hours."
Meat Lady, blankly: "Don't know about that, ma'am. But how about a nice bit of sirloin?"
Me: "Er, no."

Finally, on the fifth and last supermarket (the much maligned El Gigante on the way home) I struck gold. The master butcher overheard the above conversation with the Meat Lady and escorted me straight to the gold@ Chickensteak, on special offer, only $1.80 a pound. I LOVE El Gigante.

***

At first I was a little worried. As it was cooking it looked sort of grey and insipid. Not exactly appetising, and nothing remotely resembling the picture in the book. But it got a lot better, and anyway, we ate on the screened in porch after it had got dark, so noone could see what color their food was. And it actually tasted rather good.

So here, with acknowledgements to AB, is how you make it.

Ingredients: 2lb of chickensteak (or in the UK, chuck steak rounds), cut into 1.5 inch pieces. 4 onions thinly sliced, 6 carrots cut into 1 inch pieces, one garlic clove, quarter of a bottle of red Burgundy wine, 3 tablespoons of demiglace, a bit of flour, olive oil, bouquet garni (bay leaf, fresh thyme and parsley) and parsley to finish.

Serves four hungry people, or six thin ones.

1) Season and fry meat off, in batches in a big pot, until golden brown. Not grey.
2) Take meat out, turn down heat to medium low, and cook onions in the pot for 10 minutes until soft and golden brown.
3) Add 2 tablespoons of flour and cook for 5 minutes, stirring. Add wine, being sure to scrape up brown bits from bottom of pan. Add meat, carrots, garlic and bouquet garni.
4) Add demiglace, and enough water to cover the meat by one third. Bring to boil then reduce to simmer.
5) Cook for about 2 hours until meat is tender. You will need to stir it well every 15-120 minutes.

Eat, with mashed potatoes and with a bit of parsley on top.

***
Of course, things didn't go entirely well. I was so excited about the beef that I forgot to take pudding out of the oven. My friends were forced to eat, in true Bridget Jones fashion, burnt marmalade pudding. Nathalie and the CRM speculated generously as to what it would have tasted like if it hadn't stayed in the oven over twice as long as it should have, while EnglishJustin merely confined himself to the observation that it was "chewy". Oh well, you can't win em all.