Britain Update

It's almost stranger to be back in Britain than it ever was to have moved to America, because of the way that I've missed a year and a half of little changes to how the country works in general, and it feels like waking up again after having been frozen in time in another dimension. At the moment we've only visited London, which I last saw during a record-breakingly miserable weekend three years ago while waiting for my visa to arrive, so it wasn't bringing up the best of memories.

The biggest change is probably the new money. I saw the website when the updated coins and notes were first introduced, and it all looked tremendously exciting, but this is the first time that I've seen it first-hand. It's not as if they've changed the denominations or shapes or anything like they've done a couple of times in the past, but everything seems slightly shinier - in particular the new notes have been vastly brightened up to the point where they look like Euros. And in general, it's so nice to handle money that is both heptagonal and feels like it has some weight to it again. Look at the pound coins in particular - it was yemminie that made me appreciate them so much after saying that they looked like coins from a sunken treasure chest.

Of course, you can't carry around too much of it at once or your trousers tend to fall down, but that was sorted out quickly because I'd forgotten just how expensive London was. Our hotel in particular - which I will complain about in more general terms in the future - was a bit of a joke, with a £5 charge for a light breakfast, or bottle of water, which is a lot to ask when Tesco is just down the road and you can get a croissant for 30p (or a whole day out's worth of shopping done for about £3.50). I had moved some money around our British accounts in preparation, but I was still constantly worried about overdrawing my current account while I was there and had to check my balance nightly.

Even though I regularly import it via BitTorrent, I'd forgotten just how nice, calm and friendly British television can be in comparison to the attention deficient presentation that America regularly bombards me with. It does, however, seem to have far more channels than I remember because a large shift to digital seems to have gradually occurred ever since I left in 2006. I'm sure the last time we stayed in a hotel we had the four channels that I had grown used to throughout my life, but since then the selection has expanded immensely. During the rare occasions we were in our hotel room, we tended to watch something called Dave, which seems to collect together a heap of old episodes of very good programmes (and Catherine Tate) and just broadcast them all again one after the other. And that was very much appreciated.

What else is there? There's a smoking ban in England now, so little ashtrays have been nailed to fences all over London - it's an odd experience not to have to worry about smelling of bonfires after going anywhere for lunch. Tragically I find myself having to get used to looking in the right direction before crossing the road again, after it was America that presented this problem to me at first. Paper's a different size. You pay for things on a debit card not by signature but by Chip & Pin, which I had honestly forgotten about while I'd been away. And I couldn't help noticing that the Carphone Warehouse, which has admittedly been a bad name for an electronics chain for at least the last decade, seems to have become Best Buy in my absence. Unfortunately, since I was last away the English seem to have become a lot better at making a scene, as there was a ghastly woman on the bus on our way back from Oxford yesterday who got on and argued with the driver for about ten minutes about whether her ticket was valid or not, refusing to leave even as he told her that he couldn't move on until she had paid or left.

Still, it's the little things you miss.