Back to blogging.
We've had a major rewrite of our website going on at work, which has meant lots of rewriting of content and agonising over synonyms. I just haven't felt like writing in my time away from work in those circumstances.
Working for a business that is American in its parentage means that it is at these times that the "two nations divided by a common language" becomes most evident. Words that sound fine ("just fine", perhaps) from the mouths of my US colleagues sound "folksy" to British ears. Or, the fifth time you have to make the same change, they sound "shite".
So, having finished that job on Tuesday last, it's taken until today before I can face words again. I am doing what one traditionally does on this Bank Holiday; watching snooker, trying to avoid watching snooker and moaning about our horribly asymmetrical distribution of bank holidays. The US seems to have a public holiday every six week or so. Aren't they fortunate that their big events occurred with such a distribution through the year?
They are helped by their comparative official atheism. First amendment issues mean Easter isn't a holiday, and Christmas is limited to one day, with Thanksgiving and Independence Day (which commemorates the US special effects industry) being the big ones. Whereas once May is out, we find ourselves thinking that August is the only one left in the year (given that the business year stops about December 20th).
The kids like this bank holiday though. Its the only one they notice - the rest all falling in a holiday week. (I guess it is the same for teachers though I had never thought about it - they get so much holiday they probably don't notice*).
Three weeks from today I will be on a train back from Edinburgh where I will have been doing some concerts with Voxcetera. If you are up there, look us up and come along. Which means I have two and a half weeks to learn some French lyrics, a task that would have been helped by not leaving my folder behind at the rehearsal venue last week. But that still leaves me time to blog and annoy you further.
And it's handy that the same timeframe will see the European and (for Londoners) local elections, to ensure I have plenty to blog about. If you are looking for frothy talk about the comparative public holidays of the US and UK, come back in June.
We are starting to get electoral leaflets through the door - though the Tories and Labour are only talking about local issues, whilst the Greens and UKIP have a more European focus. Of the Libdems, there has been only silence.
I don't really understand the appeal of UKIP, though I don't think many do in multicultural inner London. Farage went to school locally to me (at Dulwich College) but hasn't really made his presence felt here. So we are a bit bemused about why his party gets so much TV time, or how that squares with the BBC's institutional left-wing bias.
The European elections give us all a chance to vote tactically - voting for parties in a multi-member constituency means that a vote for a fringe party (like the Lib-Dems#) can have value. I'm not sure if that explains the relative quiet from the big two. They may just be embarrassed about Europe I guess.
So stay tuned for some feisty political blogging.
* A good friend, on reading a post I had made on Facebook said to me, "you do realise that some people don't always get humour?" If there is no set-up or pay-off (I think drum-rolls or a boom-tish) they assume you are being earnest. So here goes: that was not a serious comment - I do not think teachers get too much holiday, and think they deserve a medal, more money and lots of holidays. Educating the next generation is the most important task. Go on, hug a teacher.
# similar comments. Go on, hug Nick Clegg. Or Lembit Opek if you must. Mike Hancokc, hmm, not so sure.
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