davidn: (rabbit)
davidn ([personal profile] davidn) wrote2009-07-04 12:47 pm
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Yearly review

On this day last year I was very surprised that the day had come around again so quickly already, which makes it even more shocking this time as it seems to have arrived even faster.

Today I'm alone, because Whitney is away in California. Previously this wouldn't really matter because I would have little to celebrate on this day apart from the way that some people left Britain a few hundred years ago and gave the rest of us some more room, but this is the first time I've been a Lawful Good US Resident of the country when the date has come round. So with that new title, I hope you won't mind if I offer some outsider's suggestions to make my adoptive country even better.

  • It's the 21st century - it really is time to adopt the metric system. We got fed up with Imperial quite a while ago and have done our best to get rid of it, and everyone else in the world but Burma and Liberia know what metric is now. You can tell me it's 'unnatural' when you grow two extra fingers and six more toes.

  • Change the way that you write dates - the one you use just now just makes no sense and is all out of sequence. If you want to really leap ahead, look to the Japanese and Scandinavians and use YYYY-MM-DD - you can sort it naturally numerically and everything.

  • Speaking of the Scandinavians, stop bleating so much about socialism. A bit of it does you good.

  • Chow fun and sushi are both lovely, even if they sometimes kill me a little - top marks for adopting these from their respective countries.

  • I've actually got used to having denominations as low as $1 get a banknote to themselves, but you could do with varying their look a little because they take ages to sort through. I'm not saying they should become the Skittles-like rainbow explosion of the Euro notes, but a bit more of a difference would be nice. (And not just changing the $10 to orange. This doesn't help me.)

  • You finally sorted your President situation. It's about time - well done.

  • Start pronouncing the "h" at the start of "herbs". Honestly.

  • While I'm on the subject, the same goes for the "l" in "solder".

  • I like the size of your wall sockets, but they could do with an on/off switch (see diagram)

  • Come up with some new television. Do you really need more than one programme about people with slightly large families, or about choosing a decent chef/fashion designer by process of elimination? Keeping this format and applying it to a slightly different profession like hairdressing does not count.

  • The above suggestion of not filling the airwaves with entirely interchangeable garbage might result in the number of TV channels having to be reduced - to prevent adding to the already decently sized unemployment pile, train everyone involved up as medical assistants instead of plucking those off the streets with the irritating career adverts that the defunct channels used to run. That should sort out that shortage at the same time.

  • Related to both the last two points, please stop talking proudly about your prescription medicine for your bladder/herpes/fungification in your adverts. I really can't describe how little I want to know about it.

  • Consult with a British-Indian about the recipe for korma. Yours is very haphazard just now.

  • Pizza delivery is good, keep it up.

  • You've actually made some things that might even be called improvements to the language with things like altering the unwieldy and unspellable "manoeuvre", but I really can't accept discarding the noun forms of "practice" and "licence". Not after it took me so long to remember which way round the endings went.

  • Also, make your mind up about whether it should be "centre" or "center".

  • There's a type of cereal that you really might want to consider starting importing. See me for details.
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[identity profile] rachel-anne.livejournal.com 2009-07-04 05:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I keep looking for the 'Like' button in livejournal.

Rachel likes this.

[identity profile] kibet.livejournal.com 2009-07-04 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Turning right on red is one thing that Clarkson mentioned that they got right.

Also they should not cancel intelligent quality programmes based solely on ratings as we all know a crowd is stupid no matter how many intelligent people they have in the bunch.

re: metric and money

[identity profile] diarytypething.livejournal.com 2009-07-04 06:17 pm (UTC)(link)
You can actually count to twelve on your fingers, or even twenty-four if you use both hands. Instead of using individual fingers to stand for one, you use your thumb to count along the three segments of your other four fingers, giving you space to count up to twelve (I saw Johnny Ball explain this on tv years ago, and it just kind of stuck). However, metric is far more sensible, so perhaps you should explain that the imperial system derives from the old custom of basing weights and measures on various parts of the ruling monarch's body, making the whole thing undemocratic, and thus un-American.

I understand that the business with the notes is actually a bit controversial. Having every note the same size, shape, colour and texture means that it is impossible for the visually impaired to tell them apart, so the entire currency is in breach of disability discrimination laws. Incidentally, I always find it amusing to hear Americans over here complaining about how confusing it is to have money that comes in different colours. I can see why it might take tourists a couple of days to get their heads round blue=£5 brown=£10 purple=£20, but it shouldn't be something that still causes distress to people who've been in the country for 3 or 4 years.

[identity profile] whinknee.livejournal.com 2009-07-04 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
It might be a little more respectful of your adoptive country if you made these suggestions on a day other than the 4th of July.

[identity profile] the-twilighted.livejournal.com 2009-07-04 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know why but "I like the size of your wall sockets" reads like it should be said in a Southern accent. Southern US, I mean.

(Anonymous) 2009-07-05 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I've actually got used to having denominations as low as $1 get a banknote to themselves, but you could do with varying their look a little because they take ages to sort through. I'm not saying they should become the Skittles-like rainbow explosion of the Euro notes, but a bit more of a difference would be nice. (And not just changing the $10 to orange. This doesn't help me.)


I'd like to remind you that the country you abandoned also had a note for £1, which is the right size :P.

[identity profile] marcobiagi.livejournal.com 2009-07-05 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
This was on C4 today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Fish,_Two_Fish,_Blowfish,_Blue_Fish

It made me think of you.
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