Arresting Development

A few things have developed recently:

Number 1: In a turn of events that would shatter the foundations of all people know and believe about me; I am turning into a country music fan. Not the sad 'got-my-face-kicked-in-by-the-cows-on-the-farm' shitty stuff, but the happy, yodel-tastic 'hackey-sackin-by-the-swamp' stuff. In particular Keith Urban. That guy shits all over the genre; in a lovely way. Does this mark the official beginning of my convergence to all things yank (yeah yeah I know; Keith is technically Antipodean)? I don't think so, so I wouldn't wet your pants just yet. It'll be a bit of Kool Keith to lighten the mood then swiftly followed by Frank Turner profaning with his signature poetic eloquence about the merits of being English.

Number 2: I find myself now really hamming up my English accent, talkin' all proper an' that in an effort to remain interesting and exotic. My US buds seem to love it, and I remain the (probably misguided) authority on the ways of the Brits, teaching the yanks of our excellent ways so that our cultures may co-exist peacefully in the warm glow of understanding. I have proffered knowledge on everything from how the royal family works and the prevalence of London gangs down to why we call 'panties' knickers and 'graham crackers' digestive biscuits (a revelation that has horrified my house mates, though from a purely semantic standpoint 'biscuit' is far more appropriate than cracker, crackers are SAVOURY for God's sake). I do worry that the novelty of my accent is wearing off though, so I have (somewhat desperately) started to swear in an overtly British manner. "Shitting fucksticks" and "bellend" are particular favourites. You may glean from this that I'm just as classy in the States as I am at home...

I am witty here in the ol' U.S. of A. Honest. More so than I feel I am in the UK. The other day I even made an excellent pharma-related joke about strawpedo-ing (we were having a work happy hour out on our terrace by the canal - so it wasn't just me being my usual booze-obsessed self). Needless to say to an audience of fellow pharma-marketers I believe it was a great success. Though it could just be my narcissism flaring up again.

Actually an odd thing happened the other day. My desk is outside the CEO's office, and I was innocently having a jovial chat with one of my colleagues. The CEO came out and told me that he was listening to me talk, and that I reminded him of Brynn (aka Matt Lucas's half-witted sister) from Bridesmaids. I wasn't entirely sure how to take that. I pray that he wasn't drawing any physical comparisons. Otherwise I might have returned home and impaled myself on one of the Stars and Stripes lanterns we have stuck in the ground in our front garden. On the flip side; even if he was referring only to the way in which I spoke, I wondered if; from my conversational manner, he was simply drawing the conclusion that I am a flaming imbecile and was too polite to state it outright.

Number 3: I am becoming increasingly and more intensively distraught by having to conform to American grammar and spelling in the workplace. It just feels wrong, and dirty. No, Microsoft I DON'T want to exchange my 's' for a 'z'. Yes, technically it is more phonetically-friendly but we English are cleverer than having to resort to spelling words as they sound. No, Microsoft 'humour' has a 'u' in it. I don't give a shit what you say, stop being afraid of real orthography and trying to dictate my life with it! *sob* *bash head on desk*. But unfortunately, my internal protestations are in vain. I write for a US audience, thus I must bend over and take it. Metaphorically speaking...

Well, off to battle some more with my inner grammar Nazi; you know, write 'er' instead of 're' , turn aluminium into a four-syllable word; the usjj... (if you see on the news that a British girl has thrown herself into the Potomac river, you'll know why.)

Baiii xx