London Calling... again

I had to travel to the UK on a short notice last week and, because I got there too late in the evening, I ended up staying with my friend K, instead of going to a hotel in a London suburb where my meeting was the next day. I woke up super early the next morning, and walked down a very empty Gloucester Road - I almost had the street to myself and I was struck by how lovely and clean it was. This is a street that I pounded on daily while last living in London - but I never saw it like that morning - calm, clean, glistening wet from the recent rain. It strangely lifted my spirits.

It got me thinking about England, and more particularly, things that are just so particularly English. One train of thought I had involved people's names. There are some names that are just very English, as in, while they are very commonplace in England, you would be hard-pressed to find people with such names in the US. For example:

Graham
Nigel
Simon
Colin
Liam
Ian
Duncan
Alfie
Jasper
Rupert
Sadie
Fiona

I wonder why that is? And they are mostly boys' names. Hmmm.

And some expressions remain resolutely English. Like if you have done something well, they would say to you "good on you!" - or when you thank someone for holding the door for you, they would reply "that's ok" instead of "you're welcome".

It also felt good to be in an English speaking country again - it's been months - and seeing many familiar but missing-in-France-outside-Paris shops like Starbucks and the Bagel Factory and Krispy Kreme. Yum!

Alas, this post ends on a critical note (being a critical person that I am) - one thing that used to annoy me living in London was the poor spelling of the locals. In newspapers, in flyers, in office memos - and I'm not talking about UK spelling protocols vs. American protocols - I mean, pure spelling mistakes. Here is one I caught at the airport on the way back - see if you can spot what I'm talking about:

Cheerios!