Descending into the Wandle Wasteland...

...how a fun family outing turned into a Cormac McCarthy novel...

It's not my fault that the boy has a crossbow. I never wanted him to have one in the first place. And the crossbow that the Vol-in-Law ordered for Buddy turned out to be far more weapon like than toy like. It's black. It's metal. It can zing the little darts quite far and quite hard. But who am I to overlook a fun toy? So on the first warm day of the year, I took the boy and his cross bow down to the Wandle Wildlife Park - or as it actually is..and abandoned, filled in and overgrown wastewater treatment plant which sits underneath a major powerline pathway: the Wandle Wasteland.







We first fired the crossbow at the Ikea bag we'd concealed it in. But soon the boy tired of that and began shooting a wild. A dart went off into the rough. The boy began down some creepy path and soon found an abandoned supermarket trolley. What heaven for a small boy.



We dragged it out into the open and played around some more. Buddy was desperate to take it home. I resisted my natural inclination to bring home 'found goods' and said no. But I let him climb around on it and we shot at it with the crossbow.





At one point, a middle class man walking through the 'park' happened upon our fun (I think I was aiming at some crows) and seemed quite frightened by our manner. I could see him taking in the 'bulldog' t-shirt - purchased in a moment last year when I was feeling quite hopeful about England's World Cup prospects (i.e. before it began), but now looks more appropriate for an English Defense League rally. I could see him taking in the trolley and assuming we'd taken it from Sainsbury's. And the look of derision as he saw me hand the crossbow to they boy....I did feel a slight inward cringe of shame.

But then a couple of old drunks happened by. I would have said they were homeless, but I suspect they weren't. They did have two mutt like dogs with them, but no possessions. The had the tremor and pallor of long-time abusers. They didn't have all their teeth. They smiled at the boy's trolley antics and asked about the cross-bow. The woman asked me where I was from. The man wanted to see the boy fire the crossbow and cheered enthusiastically and Buddy insisted that the man have a try, too. Turns out he was raised in Indiana and had lived in LA for quite some time. He asked me if I'd ever been to Indiana. "Only driven through," I had to reply.

"Tennessee's a beautiful place," he said. "You just can't beat it in the spring or the fall."

And I had to agree.

Small town America and the friendly neighborhood hoochie joint

On the way home, I read an article in the free sheet Evening Standard about a new chain of strip/ lap dancing clubs that are aiming for a different, more 'up-market' clientele. The owner, Simon Warr, says he's setting out to be 'classy'. Generally, in my experience, if you have to use the word classy; it's not.

Warr's challenge is to change perceptions about what goes on inside his clubs. "I want people to have a good time. For women to feel they can come with their boyfriends and not be objectified. It's a fun, upbeat, safe environment. It's a highly charged atmosphere, and booze is important to us, but people will feel entertained. We want to sell an overall experience," he says.

Umm, yeah... And although booze is important to me, too - I can't imagine that I would find this particularly entertaining. But what really got me was this...

In America, lapdancing is mainstream. In some small towns, the local club might really be the best place to get a steak and a cocktail. "Often in the US there won't be a local pub. The club almost fulfils that role in some communities," says Warr.

Really? Really? OK, I know I was raised in the buckle of the Bible Belt...But I've never heard of a small town community where folks all head on down to the neighborhood lap dancing joint for a relaxing family evening of steaks, cocktails, nipple tassels and thumpa-thumpa hoochie music. Someone, please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Citizenship criteria and starting off on the right foot

Although I've lived in the UK for a long time, I'm not a citizen. I've never quite taken the plunge. I've been meaning to, but just never got around to it. The previous Labour government had made it harder to become a citizen - introducing a test on life in the UK and a citizenship ceremony. In essence that can only be a good thing. Citizenship is a big deal and should be treated as such. There should be a moment of celebration where the mutual duties and obligations of state and citizen are marked publicly, rather than just a letter in the post.

And they were about to make it harder still, introducing a kind of 'good citizen' requirement - a probationary period of volunteering. I was against this. Not so much in theory - it's a good thing. And not so much because of personal impact, as I've been serving as a School Governor for almost four years (for American readers, it's kinda like a school board, but without any real power and every school has one) and I've volunteered for a political party which also counts. But I was iffy about it because of the bureaucratic nature of it. How would you prove that you'd done work? Would there be spot checks to make sure there wasn't some kind of weird black market in the volunteering certificates? But these requirements may be scrapped by the new Coalition government (Telegraph)

And apparently there's going to be a shakeup in the quiz, too. Good. Although the Life in the UK was as a big a phone book in a medium sized city and packed full of Battle of Britain and parliamentary procedure and Magna Carta and so forth, the quiz emphasis was on quirky etiquette - What does one do if one spills someone's pint on them in the pub? Offer to duke it out the car park or buy them a new drink? - and navigating the benefits system. Really. Navigating the benefits system. Now, it's good to know that sort of thing I guess, but that's a bit like setting down rules for your matrimonial partner to be on just how much cheating you'll tolerate before you call it a day. I'd like to think that at the beginning of a relationship, there's a slightly rosier view of the role of the productive citizen rather than assuming that they'll be taking more than they'll be contributing.

Voting for expat losers

Are you a bit lame like me? Are you an expat disaffected by this year's election and dilly-dallied until it was almost too late to request your ballot. Having procrastinator's regret? Well, here's what you can do about it.

You can get a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. Sure, your state probably won't count it, but they probably wouldn't have counted your real ballot either. Anyway, doesn't really matter unless it's close - in which case people will be going to court over whether or not to open your ballot. And you wouldn't want to miss out on that kind of excitement. Would you?

And you may NOT have missed your state's ballot request deadline, local conditions vary. Call your local election commission and find out when it is and if you've missed it. If you haven't, request your ballot and then use the FWAB, because your real ballot won't get to you on time. You can then probably sell your real ballot on Ebay to foreigners who are jealous they don't get a voice in electing the leader of the free world. As dim foreigners, they won't know that it's too late to send it in or that you're not even from a swing state.

If you're from the states oft AZ, IA, MT, ND, NE, OR, SC, or WA you can be even lamer and still vote. Just send in the FWAB. I don't really understand the details, but since I've spent almost no time in any of those states except SC and not much there, what do I know? I've barely driven through most of them, only stepped across the Hoover Dam into one of them and three I've never been to at all.

The beauty of the FWAB (besides the fun to say acronym, just say it: fwab) is that you can print it off yourself and just mail it in with your own special envelope. And guess how you make that envelope special? By writing "Security Envelope" on it. Isn't that awesome? I'm not sure, but I think the words need to be written in ink.

You don't even need to know the name of the person you're voting for. Sure, you could use the Internet to look it up, but you could just write Democrat (or presumably Republican or Green or Constitution) and the local election officials will just vote a straight ticket for you. If you're doing the FWAB, it's probably because you're lazy - this one word voting thing should appeal.

Will I be doing the FWAB? No, I will not. Because even though I requested my ballot so late that I probably won't get it in time, I really only did it so that I'd have a souvenir of this historic election. I won't be voting this time. But don't let my total disgust at this electoral cycle deter you. Get your FWAB today.

The embassy is moving

The US Embassy in London is moving from its hideous headquarters in chi-chi Grosvenor Square to my borough! Wandsworth. Hurray for South London! It's about time we got something like that. Hurray for America! Hopefully that awful architectural outpost will no longer be a stain on America's aesthetic honor. I'm sure that our Ambassador Robert Tuttle* will choose a design that's suitably classy. After all, who can you trust in matters of taste more than a car dealer from Southern California?

It' s moving to the Nine Elms area. I hadn't been aware there was a Nine Elms area before, but there you go. I have been there. The Embassy's new neighbours will be the Battersea Power Station development and the Battersea Dogs' and Cats' Home and New Covent Garden.

I'm not sure that it will actually be any more convenient for me, given transport and traffic connections in South London. But should I ever be invited to one of those occasional soirees, like the election night one, the taxi fare home should be considerably less.

____
*That's a bit unfair. I've met the Ambassador and Mrs Tuttle and they were lovely, gracious hosts who sure know how to throw a cocktail party.

- Oh, I've just had a thought. Since Tuttle will likely be leaving his post soon, probably one way or another, there has to be some kind of design consistency. I suggest a panel of worthy citizens. American expats and residents of London, even Wandsworth. People who already know and can work with councillors of Wandsworth. People with impeccable taste. People like me. Sorry, for the jibe Ambassador, I'm ready and willing to serve.

British cuisine in an easy open packet

It amuses me when those American new to these shores are somehow amazed by the vast array of different flavoured crisps (potato chips) in this country. Beyond the fairly normal cheese and onion, salt and vinegar, and even the slightly poncey cracked black pepper and sea salt, there's a wide selection of the unusually flavoured snack food items. Roast Chicken, Worcester sauce (yes, we know it was Worcestershire Sauce), Tomato and Basil, Thai Sweet Chilli, Chinese Five Spice, caramelised onion and mature cheddar, duck and orange - to name but a few. And there are other snack stuffs, too, like the potato based(?) extruded product Hula Hoops - which has a very popular ketchup and bacon flavor. (I'm guessing that's nasty.)

That's not counting the limited edition crisps that Walkers - the market leader - come out with occasionally such as Scampi and lemon, brie and cranberry, lamb and mint, Port and Stilton. Those were all apparently part of a Christmas promotion. Mmmm - nothing says Yuletide fun like the family gathering around a glimmering, oddly flavoured packet of crisps.

Walkers current promotion is called "Do us a flavour" - a contest where you can come up with your own wacky flaves, send them in (along with a picture of your inspiration) and you and five other semi-finalists can see your bizarre creations on the shelves.

We currently have a visitor in our house who is probably more into the junk food than we are and our rather tame suggestions included:

Me: Sweet and sour chicken
Visitor: Been done
Vol-in-Law: Szechuan chicken
Visitor: Been done.

And the conversation died there.

But I've been racking my brain. There is a flavour I'd like to see produced, but I'm going to hold my fire and actually enter it. Realistically, it's probably too tame. But pulling from the array of classic British dishes there might be some potential. How about...

• Jellied eel
• Jugged hare (hare meat is served in a sauce of its blood mixed with port)
• Squab pie
• Brawn (when the first step in the recipe is "cut the cheeks and ears off the pig's head", the rest of the instructions for jellied pigs head isn't worth reading)
• Bath chaps (pig cheeks in bread crumbs - I guess that's what you do on the 2nd day after you've eat the brawn)
• Laver bread (mmm....seaweed and oats)
• Bedfordshire Clanger (scrag end of mutton with kidneys and fruit - does scrag end mean what I think it means?)

Think I have a winner there? Yummy, yummy - this potato chip tastes of scrag. It tastes of scrag and I like it.

(I'm going to kick myself if I see these on the shelves.)

The medals table

The Vol-in-Law, who does not watch much sports, was watching the Olympics this morning. "We've won another medal," he reported.

The British are, apparently, delighted with their medals haul. "We've been doing well," he says. "Now how will we match this performance in 2012?" he wonders.

We. We. We. We.

It occurs to me that he includes me in this we. Like I'm thrilled that Britain's doing well.

Nope. I have to tell him, that though it's true I support the England football team - I don't give a stuff about the Team GB - the ridiculous name for the British Olympic athletes.

It's USA all the way for me, baby. Every medal scored by any other country is just one less medal than we deserve.

One good thing about a McCain presidency

There would be one good thing about a McCain presidency. It would, once and for all, establish the right of my son to seek and hold the highest office in the land (the American land, that is). From an article in Washington Post:

The Senate has unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States.

That is the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, then under U.S. jurisdiction. The bad news is that the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.

Article II of the Constitution states that "no person except a natural born citizen . . . shall be eligible to the office of president."

Of course, Buddy didn't need a Congressional order to be declared a natural born citizen. We've got a piece of paper from the US Embassy to prove that he's an American boy. But the founders never specified what a natural born citizen really is and it's never come up, so it's never been tested by the courts.

But it will be soon, apparently there are three pending law suits disputing McCain's eligibility.

But Sarah H. Duggin, an associate law professor at Catholic University who has studied the "natural born" issue in detail, said the question is "not so simple." While she said McCain would probably prevail in a determined legal challenge to his eligibility to be president, she added that the matter can be fully resolved only by a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court decision.

"The Constitution is ambiguous," Duggin said. "The McCain side has some really good arguments, but ultimately there has never been any real resolution of this issue. Congress cannot legislatively change the meaning of the Constitution.

And apparently, McCain's situation is further complicated because his birth isn't recorded in the consular records (as it should have been).

As I've stated before, I'd rather eat a razor blade than vote for McCain, but I really hope he's eligible to run.




As American as apple pie or baseball

_______
Hat tip: Kleinheider from Post Politics

P'Od

I tell you, I am po'd. Yep, my blood is - if not boiling - is darn right simmering. Dang it. And I'm afraid I'm kinda pissed off at the whole of the UK.

Now British readers, don't take too much offense. This is a natural thing for a foreign resident to feel from time to time. I got hacked off with American culture, too. But listen, what the Brits know about customer service could be pulled out of my ass. No, wait - that's too much.

Let me give you a little bit of management advice. For free.

POLITENESS COSTS NOTHING.

APOLOGISE IF YOU ARE WRONG. Offering an apology for my inconvenience is not an admission of liability. Don't make every customer service interaction a freakin' trial.

And just like the Harvard School of Business does, I will use case studies to illustrate my point.


Case One: The Ikea bookcase

OK, y'all don't start laughing - I know you're thinking. What did you expect? It's Ikea. But really, this experience sank beneath my already low, low expectations.

We loaded up the baby and our measurements and we drove down to Croydon. We bought a bookcase. We already had one like it, so we knew what we were getting into. We thought.

Once we got the thing home, I looked after the baby while the Vol-in-Law assembled the bookcase. He couldn't put it together. Nope. Not at all. He was really struggling. I walked in and said "That's because you've got two right sides and no lefts." Basically there was no way in heck that the bookcase could be put together.

So, we load up the car with our redundant second right bookcase side and go on down to Croydon to change it out. The ViL queues for ages. He gets the third degree, but eventually, and with some effort, we get a left side. We get home. It doesn't fit. It's been machined differently. The holes just don't match up.

So we load up the car with whole bookcase this time and take it down to Croydon. This meant that the ViL had to spend time disassembling the darn thing as well. We queue for freaking ages in the customer service corral. We do get our money back.

But do we get an apology. We do not. Not anything for the time that we've spent driving, the frustration, the anguish, the effort. Not the freakin' 20 questions from the 18 year customer service manager, the looks of disbelief, the "are you sure you had two right sides?" Yes. Yes. We were sure. Your goods were simply not of merchantable quality.

Believe it or not I'm pretty easy going. What would have mollified me was:

I'm sorry the bookcase didn't work out. That must have been very frustrating, sorry you had to wait. Sorry you had to make two trips. Here's your money back.

An apology costs nothing.

Oh, and by the way, I know we told you that we had returned all the screws and washers with the bookcase since you were so concerned about that. But when we got home we found a screw that had rolled under a chair, so nah.

Case Two: The ASDA video game

A note for American readers: ASDA is a grocery store chain owned by WalMart. Like most major groceries in the UK, they've branched out into other retail goods - like clothes and DVDs and lawn chairs and stuff.

The ViL told me that all he wanted for Christmas and his birthday were some Bruce Springstein CDs and a certain computer game. I gave him the CDs for his birthday. Well, apparently I bought the wrong CDs by the Boss, and the ViL bitched and moaned about it most ungraciously. (Really bad form from a guy who often doesn't get me any birthday gift without some serious hint dropping.)

I bought the certain computer game at ASDA. Picked out the case, went to the counter where they keep the actual discs, paid and was on my merry way.

Come Christmas morning the ViL was so happy to receive the right gift. Until he opened it. The ASDA game and music person had put the wrong CDs into the case. She had put the original game (which we already owned) into the case rather than the expansion pack (which we did not own). The ViL noticed it right away. We never even loaded the CDs into the PC.

The ViL did remove the top CD to see if both CDs were the wrong ones. They were. That's all the touching that we did of that game.

So, after Christmas, I go back to ASDA. First checking at the media counter to see if I can make a straight swap. Nope. The correct discs are vanished and there are no others. An apology? Nope. Not even when the guy manning the desks tells me he can't give me my money back there, but I'll have to queue up at the erroneously named customer services desk.

Oh and what a queue. Ahead of me was a woman who was returning a jar of unused Christmas nuts. I guess she didn't get as many guests as she had hoped for over Christmas. Hardly surprising for someone so cheap they would return a jar of unused snacks. And then there were a couple of crazy dudes, without much English, trying to get some kind of rebate on 94 packs of Splenda singles. Ninety-four. And the "customer service" agent was gonna count them up. Crikey.

Once I get to someone, I explain my story. Do I get an apology for my long wait? No. Do I get an apology because my husband's Christmas gift was ruined because they gave us the wrong discs? No. I just get all kinds of palaver about how the CD is scratched and how that means they can't resell it. I just get the third degree, like I'm trying to pull some kind of stunt.

I say I don't care. Just give me my money back.

Case Three: Curry's

Curry's is an electrical retail chain. Everything from headphones to dishwashers.

The ViL buys some kind of cable connecty-thing for our new DVD player. He asked if it didn't work, could he return it. Yep. He does buy the cheapest option.

After tinkering for quite.some.time - he realises that it doesn't work with our system. Whether there's something wrong with the cable or we were sold the wrong thing, I don't know. But it doesn't work.

So we decide to take it back and exchange it for the not-the-cheapest-option. I go to the counter with my new purchase and my return and say this didn't work out.

Instead of oh, that's too bad, or well, I hope this one works better. I get a ten minute freaking lecture on how it has to be returned in its original packaging in a resalable condition. (This isn't true, by the way, the law says otherwise.) We didn't mess up the cable, but the box is a write off - because well, it was one of those all sealed up plastic things that had to be torn into.

I tell the woman I don't want to argue about it, I just want it credited against the cable which I'm buying that costs over twice as much. She goes off to her manager, while I'm left with a fretting baby.

I do get the credit. But do I get an apology? Do I get the slightest little pleasantry. Nope. I get MORE GUFF about how I've returned it the wrong way.

I tell her that her customer services skills are lacking and that politeness costs nothing. I probably should have added that I've spent hundreds and hundreds of pounds in that shop over the years. No more.

BONUS CASE 4: My GPs

Here's another one. Don't insult your clients. Here's what I saw today when I took Buddy to the GP.




I told the GP I saw that as an American, I found it a bit unwelcoming. She laughed at me. Another tip. Don't do that either.

They're still doing it.

Looks like they had quite a shindig going on in London for Democrats Abroad where I could have cast a ballot. Didn't make it because my dad and brother were visiting, but the news coverage made me kinda sad I missed out.

But I'm so grateful for the opportunity to cast my ballot online in the DA Global Primary. Come November, I'll vote in my home state. Hillary won there last night without my vote and this fall she'll win in Tennessee with my vote.

-0-

My brother backs Obama. Tsk, tsk. But he also voted for Nader in 2000, so I think we know how politically wise he is.

Obama could still win and as a good Dem, I'll vote for him, but I tell you I hope he cuts out the backsniping bullshit pronto. That's not helping anyone.

-0-

I've noticed the Hillary Clinton coverage is all spun negative. They're still doing it. In one sentence it's all "Hillary wins more delegates..." in the next it's all "Hillary is struggling, Hillary is losing her advantage..." blah, blah, blah.

Hello, people - she's winning. WTF?

The Tennessee Guerilla Women have a good low down on the misogyny and last night's coverage.

-0-

But you know the weird press coverage is not just about misogyny. John Edwards couldn't have got 30 seconds if he were the man biting a dog. And poor old Mitt Romney had been winning until the media anointed that crazy McCain. And Huckabee? Well, he's getting good coverage, cause he's winning in the snake handling states. (Yeah, I know.... I'm bad.)

Keep on rockin in the free world

Yesterday I got my paper notice about the Global Primary. (If this link doesn't work, don't worry - more info below). Since Buddy is eating paper these days, I wanted to get it on the bulletin board and out of his way. But of course, I forgot and left it dangerously close to the changing area.

Me: Hand me that voting thingy.
Vol-in-Law: Voting thingy?
Me: Yeah, that paper there.
ViL: Oh, your voting thingy. (Extra derisive tone where you see italics).
Me: Yeah, you know the vote the directs activities in the free world.

_________
Living abroad? Want to vote in the primary? Check out the Democrats Abroad site.
Need to register to vote? Check out - www.votefromabroad.org

Beat Bama

It's just a darn shame I don't know any Alabama expat bloggers. When I had the bet going with Chris for the Georgia game, it sure added a little extra sparkle. It would be fantastic to make some Bama baby in England (heck, anywhere in Europe would be fine) wear the beautiful Volunteer orange.

The best part about it was that the Vol-in-Law finally felt like he had a bit of a stake in it - given that his only son might have to wear the red and the black. For once, he listened to the game and said "we" when referring to Tennessee. He's never really seen himself as a fan - merely a Vol-in-Law.

As for Cletus, my husband knows the boy has only one option in the NCAA fandom stakes, on my side it's all UT. In the UK, universities and sports don't really go together - although Cletus will be free to support Daddy's alma mater in the annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race.

How 'bout them Vols?

Well, hey hey - Go Vols. What a fantastic game - (Tennessee wins 35 to 14) Between you and me, I wasn't quite sure they had it in them. Well, I thought the Vols definitely could win, but I wasn't sure they would win and I certainly didn't think they would trample. Phil Fulmer must have found a can of whoopass he'd forgotten about way back in the back of the cupboards.

Or maybe Phil told the Volunteers that there was a little tiny boy across the big, big ocean who would have to wear Georgia kit. Yep, I bet against another expat blogger - a Georgia fan - that if the Bulldogs won I'd dress my boy in Georgia gear.

"Y'all don't want to see that baby Vol wearing red and black!" Coach Fulmer told the assembled kids in the locker room. "Y'all don't want to see that sad baby's face when he sees himself wearing red and black. Men, think of the children."

On the upside, a young boy in Oxford will soon be introduced to beautiful Tennessee orange. His daddy, even posted a Rocky Top mp3 on his Georgia supporting blog. Magnanimous in defeat - I got to admit that's more than I would have done. Rocky Top has hardly ever sounded so good.

sleepy Vol

Shhhhh - the Vol Baby is sleeping.

We've nearly woken him up FOUR TIMES in the first half of the UT - Georgia game. It's hard to keep quiet when you hear Tennessee Touchdown.

Things are looking good for the Vol household in the SEC expat blogging feud.

Keep it up y'all.

Go Vols!

Ratcheting up

Goodness the rhetoric is strengthening in advance of the UT-Georgia game. This expat blogger declares a feud. Well, he might be from the swamps of North Florida, but he's rightly reckoned that folks from the hills can be dangerous, especially when challenged.

And the challenge is getting mean - strong talk from a team with a junkyard mutt as a mascot.

There were strange folk up in the hills, you see - moonshiners, hillbillies, people who didn’t understand the principles of genetics. If you looked at them wrong they would start a feud with you and never rest until your entire family was hunted down. Well, turns out you can take the Vol out of the hills but never the hills out of the Vol.

First off, there's nothing wrong with a little entrepreneurial distillation action, all the folks on Rocky Top get their corn from a jar and it tastes better by far that way.

And as someone who's worked in politically correct England for a while, Chris should know better than to throw around racial epithets like "hillbilly". I'm proud to have been born on a mountain top in Tennessee (technically the ridge running through Fort Sanders affording a beautiful view of the Knoxville campus) - and I prefer the term Appalachian-American, thank you very much. Under the Race Hate Act, you can actually be thrown into jail (gaol) for stirring up cultural hatred - and then who's gonna be wearing the prison orange? But don't worry, I won't be making a complaint - I know it all arises out of pure jealousy from the swamp dweller - for we all know what rolls down hill.

And as for the fighting Volunteer spirit, well hell yeah - bring it on. I don't care if you have raised the stakes. Now that we're calling our stadium Fort Neyland your dawgs will find this a much less hospitable locale.

My boy, myself and my dog will all don orange if by some bizarre act of the devil the Vols and their fat little coach manage to slip past the mighty Dawgs. By accepting this bet, you are succumbing to the inevitable fate of adorning young Cletus, yourself and your little cat in glorious red and black.

Dress my cat? That's just crazy talk. And in red and black? You know how the English feel about animal cruelty. But if by some chance, the puppies squeal through - we'll see what we can do about the cat.

And so honor must be satisfied

Well, well - you can understand why Georgia might be feeling a little confident going into this game what with the bizarre reverse home ground winning streak.

But what this fellow describes is just hubris. Pride goeth before a fall. And to say we've had a decade of bad football in Tennessee is just a lie. Hmmm - we've had a national championship somewhere in the last ten years. Sure, it's now at the outer edges, but still.

And we've got something else, too. Phil Fulmer knows that he can't play choke artist on this one. The Big Orange Army will be taking scalps this Saturday - and they can be from Dawgs or they can be from coaching staff.

The Bet

My brother didn't lose a tooth down in Athens "defending Smokey's honor" just to see his nephew dressed in red and black. But I've been challenged - one expat blogger against another with the ultimate stake: one tiny expat SEC fan against another - his son vs. mine. If the Vols win - little Zach will finally be dressed right - in Tennessee Orange. If Georgia wins, and though it sickens me to write this, poor old Cletus will have to don Bulldog colors.

Which would be a shame, because as we all know, my boy looks so good in orange.



I do note that like a wily, welching Georgia fan Chris has already laid the foundation for a get-out clause.

Would it be inappropriate to use our sons in a bet? Son of losing fan wears colors of the winning team? Or will our respective better halves step in…

Mine sure won't. Although he's from Northern Ireland and doesn't even much care for college football, he perversely likes to see Tennessee squirm. (Grounds for divorce, I know) Although even he can appreciate a win like the thumpin' we gave the Dawgs last year.

So here's what I propose. Losing team's fan dresses son in winning team's colors - for real. With team logo (this can be photoshopped, since NCAA baby gear is impossible to source in the UK). Photo to be posted on the loser's blog by Wednesday. First in a post, then kept in the sidebar for a week.

Go Vols

talkin expat trash

This week I'd like to highlight the blog of a fellow American expat, Chris Della Vedova. His blog is pretty, it has music clips and interesting posts about science and politics and sports and stuff.

We have some other things in common besides our nationality. He has a brand new baby boy, too. He's also a recovering smoker. He thinks Steve Earle isn't quite so good since he got so politically bitter. I don't know for sure, but I bet he thinks the SEC is the toughest football conference in the nation. Anyway, that's where his heart is.

And that's where the similarities end. You see last week he combed the baby clothing aisles of Oxford (England, not Mississippi) for suitable team colors for his little Zach. But instead of choosing a beautiful golden orange, he chose red and black.

He's raising that kid to support Georgia. And to my mind, that's just bad parenting.

Hey Chris, I hope the sound of your bitter wailing come Saturday night when Tennessee woops your Dawgs doesn't wake up your baby.

UPDATE: I'm challenged, and I accept.

Cross cultural comparisons

A Tri-Cities area chicken farmer featured in the latest round of the US version of Survivor. It was filmed in China. And here's how Steve "Chicken" Morris summed up his observations.

“There’s no biscuits and gravy, and there’s no cornbread and beans. And not too many front porches,” he said. “A very unusual culture it is.”

Well, there you go. Genius. You could say the same about England. And Steve - you should see what they do to ice tea here!

(Of course, I do some pretty darn good cornbread and beans - if I do say so myself.)

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Hat tip to Big Orange Michael's TV coverage at Music City Bloggers.

It's not about the next election

I'm still not blogging about the 2008 Presidential election until, ya know, it's an election year. But this is about the process, so it doesn't count. John H hits on the forever backwards creeping primary dates in post entitled

In a blazing round of ‘Who’s on First’, Tennessee proclaims its Presidential Primary to start RIGHT NOW

and says:

If Tennessee could somehow become an actual meaningful primary instead of the afterthought of the backwash and therefore often ignored or taken for granted (nice job AL!) by moving the primary up a bit, I guess I wouldn’t object.

I didn't vote in the Tennessee primary last time. Partly cause I never registered with a party (yes, I know you don't have to in Tennessee, but you do if you want to receive a meaningful primary absentee ballot), but also because I gave up my vote so I could participate in the UK Democratic caucus with hundreds of other American expats. It was so much fun I'd advise everyone to move to Iowa for one electoral cycle (or here, or Paris whose caucus attendance numbers we beat, so a hearty yah boo to the Americans in Paris) Seriously, it was like a big ol' grown up pep rally

We've got spirit, yes we do
We've got spirit, how 'bout you?

But in place of spirit plug in, rational foreign policy and non-punitive tax code for expatriates (we deserve it - after all just who do you think is minding the empire?)

So maybe Tennessee should get a caucus - or since we're such a great online community, why not a blog-cus. The candidates with the biggest online word counts win*. What do you bet we'd be the only contest to return two native sons who aren't even running.

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*written by registered TN voters, of course

What does your garden grow?

I like to have a container grown tomato crop. I always forget how big they get, though. But you know what they say...there's just two things in life that money can't buy...and that's love and home grown tomatoes.

I can usually do OK with tomatoes, but my garden is tiny and sometimes our summers here are a little too damp and cool and we're absolutely overrun with snails and slugs. Sure, there are crops that I could grow - like rhubarb which need more cool and which wouldn't do so well in Tennessee. But isn't rhubarb Yankee food? It's a weed. And while I'm all over eating weeds and garbage fish (e.g. catfish) and other peasant grub - I really only ever crave my own soul food. I guess that's the point of soul food.

Sometimes I fantasize about the veggies that I would grow if I had more space, more heat and more blazing sun - i.e. if I were gardening in the South. I would grow tomatoes (lots of them), yellow crook-neck squash, cucumbers, zuchinni, okra and peppers. I might grow asparagus, too - the foliage is so pretty. Maybe I'd grow onions and tomatillos, too.