Brown looks to Bezos

Wow...how often does working on a retail website give you the opportunity to influence public policy?

People in England will get more online powers to rate GPs, police, childcare and councils, Gordon Brown has said. He said it was wrong that consumer websites such as Amazon...had "higher standards of transparency" than those for public services.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7934042.stm

Takeaway: always do your best...you never know who may be watching!

Walking clubs

Going for a walk in England has been surprisingly different from walking in the United States. Of course, you still have to pick up one foot, move it forward, set it down, pick up the other foot, move it forward, set it down, and repeat as often as needed to get to your destination. Some things don't change when you cross an ocean. The difference is where you walk. In the US, typically I would go walking along residential streets or on the bike/pedestrian path beside the main road. In the England, people typically go walking over public paths (such as the Green Way) that lead you over open fields and natural areas. Sometimes these paths cross private lands that have a public right of way, which means the public has a right to free passage across private land, provided the public doesn't damage the private land in any way. This means that, even though we live close to the center of town, we have wide open natural areas very close at hand.

I've recently been on organized walks with two different groups. The advantage to these groups is that someone usually knows where he/she is going, has a map, and has probably been over the territory before. For me, this avoids the possibility of having to call the emergency rescue people on my cell phone. With the Thames Valley American Women's Club, I enjoyed a hike that included Hellfire Caves, the family (I forget which one) mausoleum, a lovely old church, and green rolling hills as far as the eye could see. We traveled along several rights of way, one of which took us through a pasture past some rather puzzled horses. Our leader also goes geo-caching, so we searched for and found a cache near the mausoleum. The box of treasure was hidden under some fallen branches, so it really took some digging through leaves -- which I would never have done in Florida, the home of fire ants, poisonous snakes, cockroaches, and every other creepy creature imaginable.

The second trip out and about was with the Wesley Walkers from the Methodist church. On this trip, I was the distantly youngest person; most of my fellow hikers were old enough to be my parents! But this did not slow any of them down. We crossed stiles and trudged through muddy fields over a four or five mile trail. Sometimes the trail resembled a slightly shorter path through the grassy fields, so I was glad someone had a map on this trip. Happily, this walk ended at a nearby pub!

Time on my Hands

Since we moved into our house in early December, we emplaced our furniture around a variety of holiday decorations, including a Christmas tree. After those decorations came down (eventually :-), we determined there was a distinct gap in the dining room where the tree had once gone, and which none of our existing furniture adequately resolved.

Therefore, our Valentine's Day gift to the family was a grandfather clock, which filled the space marvelously without breaking the bank (trust us to find a pressboard grandfather clock!)

Oh, and for your BBC English lesson of the day, particle board is called "chipboard" in the UK :-)

Poster Boy

When the ladies at church heard that I was "good with computers", one of them promptly decided that I would make a suitable graphic artist to replace the fellow who used to generate posters for their monthly "Arts Café" -- after all, he did the work on computers, and I worked with computers...right? Anyway, I was able to produce a couple of sample designs for this month's gig ("the best that PowerPoint provides!"), and it's actually kinda cool to see them posted up around town:

Shool Shedules

Yes, I have heard some people call pronounce "school" as "shool" or "shole", rather than the American "skool" :-) But pronunciation wasn't the only educational surprise -- not by a long shot!

One of Jonathan's greatest transitions has been adapting to the Desborough academic calendar. Even though he's in his 8th year (what Americans would call 7th grade (Brits count Kindergarten...but note that 6th year has nothing to do with the crucially important 6th form, which doesn't kick-in until his 12th year...you got all that?)...anyway, even though he's only 13, his diary (that's calendar here) looks a lot like a typical day in college:

• Mon: P.E., history, VoTech, English, maths
• Tue: religion, art, English, science, Spanish
• Wed: music, science, maths, VoTech, Spanish
• Thr: computers, geography, Spanish, P.E., English
• Fri: science, Spanish, maths, geography, English

But that's just for week "A"! In week "B", he goes to VoTech on Tuesday, history on Wednesday, German on Thursday, and drama and "social education" on Friday! So that's a total of 15 different subjects (including two foreign languages), in which classes continually change positions from day-to-day both physically and temporally (e.g., science occurs in period 1, 2, 4 or 5 on different days).

Being understandably bewildered by all of this, and often unsure of just where he was to be at any given time, Jonathan took to carrying his materials for all possible subjects with him every day (they don't have lockers or any personal storage areas), adding a 10-kilo rucksack to his worries.

Fortunately, after a month of accommodation, it seems we're gradually adapting to the educational climate, figuring out what needs to be packed when, comprehending their homework, discipline, and reporting policies, etc. It's been quite an adaptation, and probably hardest for Jonathan, whose school seems to have one leg very firmly planted in the "grammar-school" tradition of England's past (versus modern "comprehensive" schools, which are structured very similarly to the American institution).

Oxford

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful, so we thought it would be a good day to finally take the train up to Oxford. I take trains running "to" Oxford just about every day (I come home each evening on the Paddington-to-Oxford line), but typically get off after one or two stops.

We packed our usual rucksack of sandwiches and snacks, then headed up for the great explore:

Pancake Day

In many parts of the world, Tuesday was Mardi Gras -- the big party before Lent begins and we all have to focus on being better people. In the Maidenhead and the rest of the United Kingdom, Pancake Day was celebrated. Why pancakes? Well, the tradition is that butter, eggs, sugar, and other tasty ingredients are forbidden during Lent, so people had to use up these ingredients before confession time on Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday) to prepare for Ash Wednesday. The legend is that one woman was so involved in making her pancakes that she didn't realize it was time for the church service. She hurried to church but forgot she still had the frying pan -- complete with pancake -- still in her hand. And so we have Pancake Day! (For US people, these pancakes will look a lot more like crepes than the type of thing that you get at IHOP, Denny's, or Waffle House. Even so, I bought a ham and cheese filled pancake at the booth before the race. Still delicious.)

On Pancake Day, many towns have Pancake Races. In Maidenhead, teams of two from local businesses had relay races down King Street. The first participant had to flip the pancake twice while running and hand off the skillet to a second participant, who also had to run and flip the pancake twice. If the pancake flipped out of the pan, the runner had to pick up the pancake before continuing. Fancy dress was optional, but one team earned an award for coming dressed as a sword-wielding pirate and a construction worker in a hardhat. Fifteen teams entered this year, including the defending champions from Saisbury's, a local grocery store and sponsor of the event. Unfortunately for them, on one flip, the pancake flopped out of the pan, and one of the Wargraves' teams sprinted to victory.

Shevanigans

So the takeaway is: don't ship a US vehicle to England...it's just not worth the fuss!

This was the tally of things which were "wrong" with our 2004 Ford Freestar and had to be physically repaired or replaced before it could be legally driven in the U.K.:

• Front position lamps are a colour other than white
• Offside headlamp aim too high (welcome to the U.K...aim low! yuk yuk)
• No rear fog lamp system fitted
• Rear indicators area colour other than amber
• Front position lamps do not show steady light with indicators/hazards activated
• Rear stop lamps do not show steady light when indicators/hazards are activated (e.g., they flash...isn't that what you'd want hazards to do?)
• Front indicators do not meet the required angles of visibility (side repeaters required)

That last one was interesting...they ended up drilling holes in both sides of the van and mounting 6-bulb LED star projectors that shine every which way. And I'd wondered how they would do the license plate, since British license numbers are rather longer than US versions, and I doubted a wide plate would fit within the beveled recess on our bumper. Their solution was simplicity itself: turn on word-wrap! The final plates (fore and aft) ended up being two lines high, fitting both legal and physical requirements.

Sadly, none of this was cheap...or fast...or convenient...or to be honest, pleasant in any respect, or even necessary at the end of the day (since after four months' time in country, we've learned to get by quite well using public transport). By the time all was said and done, I'd have been about as happy to roll the thing off the cliffs of Dover and have done with it.

Snow Day!

The kids have missed school before due to plenty of Hurricane Days, but this is the first time we've ever had school called off on account of snow!

Seeing

I was invited to the arts group that is sponsored by the church we’ve been attending, so I gladly went along. I took along some small projects I’d been working on and some ideas for a story I’d been needing to get on paper. When I arrived, I found women working on paintings and drawings (not writing or crafting). They all smiled and nodded at me politely, but one friend asked if I wouldn’t like to try some drawing. Well, why not? This whole trip is supposed to be about trying new things.

When I arrived, one lady was studying a piece of wood with moss and lichen growing on it with a magnifying glass. She had picked up the wood on a trip to Scotland and was delighted to find so many beautiful things in one place. Then other ladies gathered around, equally amazed at the blooms and interesting textures. Then my friend set me up with drawing pencils, paper, and a mug, and instructed me to “draw what you see, not what you think is there.” A zen moment, if I ever heard one. After an hour and a half of “drawing you see” I felt relaxed and happy that I took the time to see the wonders around me.