On California

5 Things You Will Learn About California, or Maybe Just LA

- that there are tarantulas in the wild here. Have I seen them? Sure. Seen 'em on the internet. That's the only reason I'm not on the slow boat back to England right now.

- that if you take the 8 to Westwood and the 302 to Hollywood and push your way to the front of a crowd of people at a star-unveiling ceremony, you may 'accidentally' run into Colin Firth. He will be wearing more make-up than you. What are the odds?

- that eventually, and much to everyone's relief, you will be able to say 'Santa Monica Boulevard' without taking 10 seconds to sing '...Until the su-un co-omes up over San-na-Mon-ica Boulevard'. Ditto for omitting 'Straight Outta' when referring to 'Compton', saying 'LAPD' without the urge to shout 'FREEZE' afterwards, and not appending 'Inglewood' with 'In da hood, up to no good': all verbal tics likely to get a white British girl punched off the bus.

- that you should never put your zipcode into the LA Times Homicide Report. 

(Back in Europe, you are strangely comfortable with a farmhouse where multiple generations of your family have breathed their first and last, a college room adjacent to the site of historic burnings-at-the-stake, and a German residence which was possibly bombed by your own grandfather...

...Here, you will become hysterical upon learning that someone was stabbed to death in your apartment building several years ago. In the early hours, you will imagine his ghost wandering the communal corridors, as translucent blue as the night-lit swimming pool.)

- that people will compliment you on your charming accent and then be unable to understand anything you say; also, that bringing back your Somerset accent will improve comprehensibility 90%:

"Oh waitress, may I have a glahs of wahtuh?"
"What?"
"I mean, oilav a glasss'o'waderr, moy love."
"Sure."

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Return of Dr Strangename

Dr Strangename returned from San Francisco on Friday night, filled with the joys of all-expenses-paid taxi rides and Chinese dinners.

Why is your husband called Dr Strangename?

Because a) here, no one can spell it, and b) there, no one can pronounce it.

'Here' being America: there's a Z in Strangename (obviously), and I can never remember if it's a Zed or a Zee; by the time I've got it right, someone has already written it down wrong.

'There' being my rural hometown in England: the people prefer a surname that's been intermarrying in the neighbourhood for a few hundred years, and so, after a mere decade, my family still ask 'how's... how's... your feller?'. (In their defense, it took me a while to get it right, and two years ago I infamously spelt it wrong on our own doorbell.)

Although Dr Strangename claims his name is not at all strange back in his native Birmingham, it has tended towards creating various preconceptions about his nationality, religion, mother-tongue and skin colour. One of my former bosses in England once gave a confused Indonesian man an effusive greeting and tour of the facilities, under the impression that he was my exotic spouse, while my actual spouse waited politely in Reception reading the sports section. 

Should you ever be called to fetch Dr Strangename from Reception,  it may help to know that the genetic combination of Turkish, English and Irish ancestry has resulted in him looking inexplicably like a pre-Hare Krishna George Harrison. My own genetic combination of Anglo, Saxon and Farmer has resulted in me looking like a round-faced milkmaid type almost guaranteed to go sharply downhill after thirty. We are hoping my genes are the recessive type.

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