An American in London

Redivivus

2008-07-21T18:15:00.000+01:00

Yes, back by popular demand (if three people occasionally inquiring could be deemed “popular”). Suddenly not blogging for four months lent itself to some bizarre shame spiral, where each time I came up with the idea for an entry and then subsequently didn’t enter it only made me feel worse than the time before. I also thought I’d have to dream up some protracted excuse for my absence, culminating in some massive mea culpa which again only makes me feel like I’m highlighting my failures as both a writer and a communicator. But if that’s what you’ve come back here for, sorry to disappoint. In actuality it comes down to two points:

1) I’ve been involved in a few very clandestine activities which have been both keeping me very busy whilst not really allowing me enough time to generate much novel material appropriate for interwebs broadcasting; and

2) I’m absolutely broken hearted to be leaving London.

If I’m as madly in love with this city and this experience as I claim to be, why would I want to slowly document the end of the affair? Whenever I start to think about it for more than five seconds, I immediately jump up and attempt to distract myself. I don’t do well with pain; I’m not an artist, longing for the kind of extreme emotion that allows one to then dig deep into the soul and produce a physical manifestation of sentiment to share with the world. I’m a scientist. I use machines and computers and test tubes and spanners and have a lab coat with an actual pocket protector. I stuff my feelings down deep and then cry at inappropriate times while watching movies. So honestly, my head hasn’t been in the best place for blogging. But the thought of leaving this website just stranded and unfinished also nags at me persistently. So, I’m back. Sort of.

Prosaic

2008-03-21T17:15:00.003Z

I'm sorry, I haven't written in quite a long time. All I do now is write. It's so incredibly boring and stressful. So the last thing I want to do is take a break from writing to write about how boring and stressful my life is. So instead I choose to focus on my London celebrity sighting list, which is increasing considerably lately despite the fact I don't often leave my bedroom.

1. Martin Freeman
2. Goldie Hawn
3. Kurt Russell
4. Ivana Trump
5. Charlotte Church
6. Carmen Electra
7. The Darkness
8. Graham Norton
9. Paul McCartney
10. Patrick Stewart
11. Kevin Spacey (smoking around the corner from the Old Vic)
12. Matt Lucas (hailing a cab on Lisson Grove)
13. Jessica Stevenson
14. Simon Amstell (talking to Ms. Stevenson at a special viewing of Grindhouse at Prince Charles Cinema)

Are those last three too British? I mean, I wouldn't have any idea who they are if I hadn't lived here for some considerable time. It makes me feel really acclimated.

Ostend

2008-02-08T23:00:00.000Z

So as you know, after three years of living in halls, I'm now finally out and about in a proper London flat. It's a whole different world out here. On my interview, I came in, met the flatmates, had a quick tour. It wasn't until after I moved in that the mild surprises started kicking in. Take my kitchen for example:

Did you get that? Yes, that's definitely a washing machine in our kitchen!

These seems to be the norm here in Britain. Not that I've been to that many flats, but I am totally addicted to those house hunting shows, like A Place in the Sun and Relocation Relocation (I'm so wound up in the sexual tension I've actually been known to yell at the screen, "Just snog her, Phil! Just throw Kirstie down over that refurbished dining room table and snog the hell out of her!!!") In nearly all of these country homes, the washing machine is in the kitchen. In America, these appliances are tucked neatly away in the 'laundry room' or the 'utility room'. There seems to be something not right about having laundry detergent near all my food but to each his own.

Also note the lack of a dryer. It's washing machine only, which means that in my room I have a clothes drying rack, and it takes me ages before my laundry's done. While I'm all proud of myself environmentally, it is quite strange to constantly have wet clothes in my room. I'd post a picture of that too, but I don't want to broadcast my knickers all over the internet...

Humbled

2008-01-31T22:00:00.000Z

Brilliant. The month I decided to start looking for a big, fancy, high-paying, pharmaceutical job in America is the exact same month America decides to kick off a recession. So anyone who was worried about this blog ending anytime soon can hold off their despair! I'll be here ages yet!

Recrudesce

2008-01-11T13:45:00.000Z

Yes, I'm back!!! Had a nice two week holiday break in San Francisco. Before and after that trip I've been writing furiously for my thesis. Yes, my lab work is finally completed and I'm now in full PhD thesis writing mode. It's hell. Absolute, burning, rain-of-fire-from-above hell. To think that I'm going to be spending the next three months of my life like this is agonizing. It will also be roughly about my last three months in London. The time is fast approaching where I do have to leave and head back across the pond. I thought I would like to stay, as I do love it here more than I ever imagined it was possible. But a rather pressing matter has come up that makes my return to the States imminent:

I got engaged!!!

The love of my life happens to live in America, and so that's where I must be.... I know I will miss London dearly; it's the only place I've ever been in my whole life that I ache for when I'm away. But I wasn't meant to be here forever, and this time is coming to an end. I've got some other stuff to do coming up!

Lionizing

2007-12-08T08:15:00.000Z

It's the most wonderful time of the year, for sure, but also the worst time of the year for blogging. Between all the parties and visits from my parents and old friends in town, I haven't had time to exercise, eat properly, sleep, and definitely no spare time for writing. Sorry!

But I did have to get up early and jot this one down, because it is one of my favorite (yet silliest) aspects of living in London I like to mention: celebrity-sighting! We were at the National Theatre to see a Noel Coward play Tuesday night, starring Alex Jennings and Sara Stewart (whom I was already over the moon about: she's the mom from Sugar Rush, the first series of which is probably some of the best television I've ever seen). During intermission, we were standing around and I was chugging the last of my gin and tonic when my mom said, "Oh look, Patrick Stewart." I turned around, and sure enough, standing right next to us, chatting away with some friends, was Jean-Luc Picard.

So to remind you, my London list:

1. Martin Freeman
2. Goldie Hawn
3. Kurt Russell
4. Ivana Trump
5. Charlotte Church
6. Carmen Electra
7. The Darkness
8. Graham Norton
9. Paul McCartney
10. Patrick Stewart

I must admit I am a little star-crazy at the moment, thinking I see them all the time while I jog around Marylebone and St. John's Wood. Sometimes in my panting induced delirium I catch myself thinking, "Is that David Williams?" or "Holy crap, I think that's Jim Broadbent!" Once I swore I saw Alexa Chung in Mayfair. But I'm never quite sure, don't really get a good look, so just don't trust it. I guess I need someone to run with who's as celebrity keen as I am!

Hungerford Bridge

2007-11-21T23:15:00.000Z

Is actually an incredibly lovely bridge, spanning the Thames, inland from Waterloo. The views are pretty spectacular, and it's a train only bridge, meaning no ducking and weaving amongst cars and buses.

It also leads to an interesting short cut through Charing Cross station so you can avoid all the tourist pedestrian traffic on the Stand, which I suspect is one of those secret things only Londoners know.

But one of the best things about it I've recently discovered is that there is a Quizno's underneath the bridge on the northern side of the river, a lunch spot from the states that I've sorely missed. It's dreadfully expensive and I'm actually thankful for that, or else I'd spend nearly every nice day noshing my fresh sandwich standing in the sun on Hungerford Bridge, soaking up the view.

Regent's Park

2007-11-12T13:00:00.000Z

Just some more lovely fall photos from Regent's Park. This park and Hyde Park are the two closest to my new flat, and I do love that, even though sometimes I find them too large to manage and end up getting lost walking around. In SE1 there were no large royal parks that I could walk to in a few minutes, so I didn't spend much time in parks until now. Before this, I would spend warm afternoons dozing in the Bernie Spain Gardens, which are cute but don't have quite the same effect. Regent's is so big it contains the London Zoo!

Beleaguered

2007-11-07T23:30:00.000Z

No one loves Christmas more than I, and I'm slowly coming around to the fact that it comes earlier every year. Why, I've already been blindsided by the Marks & Sparks window displays (which my flat window looks out on) and their interesting product placement of mince pies next to the Halloween candy. I get that in probably less than 10 years, Christmas shopping will be a year round thing, where we are encouraged constantly to "buy spend buy spend buy spend!!!" I'm fine with it, I really am.

But last night it was all ruined for me, the moment when Christmas in the UK becomes unbearable. I saw my first Kerry Katona Iceland Christmas party advert. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.

I don't know how to explain, but there is something about these ads that drive me mental. If you're not from the UK then you don't know who she is (she's one of 'those' celebrities: famous for being in a band where she didn't sing, famous for a marriage that didn't work, now just tabloid fodder, etc). Her voice and personality are so grating. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I can't find an example of the Christmas commercial on the web for all of you non-Brits. But I did locate a regular non-Christmas one just so you can get the gist of what I'm complaining about. Iceland is a crap grocery store, but I actually think they can do much better than her.

See what I mean?

Harvest

2007-10-30T23:45:00.000Z

Here I am now, well into my fourth English fall. Yes, I say 'fall' and not 'autumn,' much to the chagrin of nearly every Brit I've met.

Me: Ah! What a gorgeous fall day!
Brit: A what day?
M: Fall day.
B: Pardon?
M: Fall, as in the season.
B: Fall? What's this now?
M: *eyes narrowing* You know, after summer, before winter.
B: *grinning widely* Don't follow you.

And this goes on until a stream of curse words starts to pour out of me. I'm not kidding, I've had this exact conversation at least twenty times since moving here. I don't know what it about the word 'fall' that makes me insist on using it singularly (I do promise that I have given in to many other regional dialect preferences) while at the same time makes the natives refuse to recognize it (often they enjoy hearing my take on the vocabulary differences, for taking the piss if nothing else). But with 'fall' we are at an impasse. I guess to me, 'autumn' sounds outrageously pretentious. It's a very pretty word but somehow I can't say it without feeling like a total prat. (#57: Insistence on using the word 'autumn'.)

Anyway, to wash this unpleasantness away, today I took some photos of my favorite tree in front of one of my favorite London buildings:

Fall indeed. Summer 2007, we hardly knew ye.

Ostentation

2007-10-23T14:30:00.000+01:00

I'm a big American sports fan, and miss that part of my old life terribly, but do try to keep up. As a student I can't afford special satellite or internet packages that allow me access to the games, but I do alright via ESPN, etc. So imagine my surprise last month when it became obvious to me that London was keeping better track of NFL schedules than I was:

At first I just shrugged it off, "They're in two different conferences but whatevs, that's the trend nowadays with nearly all American professional sports leagues-- wait a minute, I'm not in America! Why the hell is the NFL being advertised on the tube?!"

The answer, as of course I'm sure you know by now from the advertising blitz that has ensued this week, is that the Giants and the Dolphins are playing each other at Wembly Stadium. Something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, mainly because I was sure I'd die before Wembly would ever be finished.

I'll root for the Dolphins because 1) they are 0-7 this year and 2) three years abroad has not tempered my hatred for the Giants and Jeremy Shockey. I doubt anyone else in London will even care. I've given up trying to convince them that it's a sport worthy of their attention, and I figure this will be even more difficult after all the excitement generated by the Rugby World Cup. American football players wear a ton of gear to protect themselves, only play either offense or defense (meaning each player only plays about half a game) and on top of that, play stops every few seconds. It takes over three hours to watch a game consisting of one hour of play. So compared to rugby or soccer which are much more action packed, I don't think this is going to go over well here at all.

Of course, please don't anyone tell Christian Slater this.

Fervid

2007-10-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

Look, I've already resigned myself to a hellish fate for writing this down publicly, but the next time I read or hear something about Madeleine McCann I'm going to have a total mental fit. I seriously can not take it anymore. Part of the problem is that ever since my move last month I am now a commuter who takes public transport. This means I am privilege to two, yes two, free papers every single day. I get the Metro in the mornings and the London Paper in the evenings (sorry but London Lite is just shit, so I refuse to pick it up.) Couple these with the fact that I am already a news junkie, and keep a personalized Google News profile as my homepage, and I am completely saturated with incoming information. Usually this keeps me quite happy, I enjoy knowing as much about the world as I can possibly absorb. But out of all the stories in all the world, this one does my head in. To me it's all very simple: either 1) her parents killed her; or 2) her parents left her alone to be kidnapped and then put on such a show to find her that they probably freaked out the kidnapper into killing her as a way to avoid being caught with her. In both scenarios she's dead, and not one more story that comes after this will be anything pleasant to read. Either she'll never be found (heart breaking) or her body will turn up one day (horrible). So why is anyone still interested in this? If just a smidgen of the effort that's gone into finding this one little girl had been applied into searching for the other 77,000 children who go missing in the UK every year, there might actually be some happy stories to report. So frustrating.

http://uk.missingkids.com/

Winchester!

2007-10-15T22:45:00.000+01:00

I've been making a much more concerted effort to get around England this year, I'm not sure if people noticed but I do get chided on this quite a lot in comments and emails. A lot of, "my town is the greatest and if you don't come here you'll never get the full experience of living in the UK." I appreciate these insights, I really do. But I'll never make it everywhere. That said, I really do want to see as much as I can, after all Europe is awesome, but this is where I came to live.

In the spirit of that, may I present to you my two hours in Winchester. Apparently it has a very big cathedral, used to be the capital of England, has the Table-that-they-tell-tourists-is-THE-round-one-knights-used-to-sit-at-but-
that's-not-true, and Jane Austen died there. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

King Aurthur's Round Table

The famously long Winchester Cathedral

The Guildhall

View from atop one of the gates

(Not sure what this is, may be part of Winchester College, feel free to correct me if you know).

Barcelona!

2007-10-01T11:30:00.000+01:00

Took what I think may be my last (one of my last?) European trips, this time to Barcelona for a long weekend! I thought everything would be so great, based mostly on weather forecasts and the fact that when I told my PhD supervisors I was leaving I didn't get yelled at for half an hour. But no. I started to suffer from an extremely nasty flu the day we left, the weather wasn't that great, and vegetarian food was actually pretty tough to come by (I thought that would have improved in the seven years since I was last there). Other than that, we had a great time, which reached a zenith when we accidentally stumbled upon the nighttime portion of the La Merce festival. People dress up as devils and put on massive dragon costumes and spray fireworks directly onto on another. It was madness! I think we saw one ambulance standing by for about 5000 people! But no one seemed to get burned or otherwise injured, and it was a really surreal experience. Amazing!

View of Barcelona from Park Güell

Casa Batlló by Gaudi

Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia Garden

Arc de Triomf

The Cascada in the Parc de la Ciutadella

Josep Subirachs sculptures on the Passion façade of La Sagrada Família

On the beach!

caught in the middle of the La Merce festival!

Transference

2007-09-16T23:00:00.000+01:00

I've moved!!!! Look at my new building, isn't it gorgeous and London-esque?

My new neighborhood is totally rocking. I guess it is technically the Edgware Road area, but I'm having a little difficulty determining the actual borders of this designation. Seems to be just the area "around Edgware Road," as I've been told. From what I can tell though, I'm about a 5 minute walk from Marylebone, 10 minute walk from Baker Street, and a 10 minute walk from Paddington Station. So if all that is Edgware Road, then so be it. And I absolutely adore my flat. It's clean and nice and safe and full of lovely people. I even live over a news agent and a restaurant, and across the street from the tube station; I really love the big city feel to it!

A lot of people gave me a bit of a hard time when I told them I was moving here. "Yuck," they'd say, and crinkle their noses. I'm really not sure why, as I'm finding it delightfully busy and interesting (especially when compared to my old 'hood by Waterloo station, which was dead at nights and weekends). But I suppose if I had to guess, it's due to the distinctly ethnic flavor around here. There are loads of Middle Eastern types walking around, and nothing but Lebanese taverns up and down the whole road. It's not like I'm the only girl walking around without a hijab, but it's definitely a common sight (seen plenty of full burqas, too). Edgware Road was also one of the tube stations bombed in the July 7 attacks, and now that I've been here I'm not at all sure why. I've been told it's due to the Paddington Green police station, which is very big, scary, used to hold terrorist suspects, and I can see it from my window. Apparently it's the victim of lots of terrorist offensives. But I'm not scared. After all, if I don't take this awesome, not-too-expensive flat in a cool area, then the terrorists win.

Lugubriosity

2007-08-27T21:15:00.000+01:00

I apologize, dear readers, for such scant writing this past month. I think I'm finally ready to admit that I'm in a moderate mode of depression, and that state of mind is not conducive to creatively writing cheerful quips about the very great city I live in. Not to bog you down with my troubles, but essentially my supervisors have decided that despite the fact my three years are now over, my PhD is not finished, and are thus forcing me to extend my time in the lab. This obliges me to turn down a very good job offer and prolong my continuing state of financial ruin, not to mention wonder about how much longer they plan to keep me at their mercy. This is one of the joys of academic life, I've been sarcastically told. There is no HR department, no contracts to sign, no rights whatsoever. They hold the keys to my completion, and so why shouldn't they use that to their advantage? The moral of this story (at least how I'm honestly feeling at the moment, hopefully this will change in the future) is, "never get a PhD."

Enough about that. Since I don't have anything pleasant to add at the moment, and certainly don't want to neglect you, I'll leave a quote from Bill Bryson's most excellent book Notes from a Small Island. This was a Christmas present from my father (thanks Dad) and I've been saving it until the end of my time here, as a way to start the heart-wrenching process of saying goodbye. That moment appears to have been indefinitely postponed since I started the book, alas. But I am still absolutely loving it. Here's his bit about London:

"I can never understand why Londoners fail to see that they live in the most wonderful city in the world. It is, if you ask me, far more beautiful and interesting than Paris and more lively than anywhere but New York--and even New York can't touch it in lots of important ways. It has more history, finer parks, a livelier and more varied press, better theatres, more numerous orchestras and museums, leafier squares, safer streets, and more courteous inhabitants than any other large city in the world.

And it has more congenial small thing--incidental civilities, you might call them--than any other city I know: cheery red mailboxes, drivers who actually stop for you at pedestrian crossings, lovely forgotten churches with wonderful names like St. Andrew by the Wardrobe and St. Giles Cripplegate, sudden pockets of quiet like Lincoln's Inn and Red Lion Square, interesting statues of obscure Victorians in togas, pubs, black cabs, double-decker buses, helpful policemen, polite notices, people who will stop to help you when you fall down or drop your shopping, benches everywhere. What other great city would trouble to put blue plaques on houses to let you know what famous person once lived there, or warn you to look left or right before stepping off the curb? I'll tell you. None."

Hear, hear. I still can't figure out for the life of me why Londoners always seem to dislike London so much, but they universally do. I guess they never see it from the eyes of an outsider and take it for granted. I know now that there certainly are frustrating aspects of residing here for long periods of time, but it's still, hands down, the most awesome city I've ever been to. And the mere thought of that is actually cheering me up a little.

Oxford!

2007-08-14T23:15:00.000+01:00

On the way back from Bath, we just had to stop in Oxford. It was beautiful and peaceful. The buildings are so amazing. Almost makes me wish I weren't living in London!

Christ Church, University of Oxford

Now I know where Harry Potter eats!

And as an added bonus we stayed in a hotel that used to be a prison:

Yes, it looks cool, but it actually kind of freaked me out. I wasn't really comfortable in the place, despite it being a very fancy luxury hotel and all.

Assiduous

2007-08-08T20:30:00.000+01:00

Today someone showed up to work wearing a Washington Redskins shirt. Totally random, and made me very homesick. Didn't stop me from singing the fight song however, which I learned in elementary school choir of course.

Ooh, I've been busy busy busy. I am all set to be done with my lab work in a month or two! Looking for a job, because in even less time, one month, I have to move out of the dorms and into some proper accommodation. Yes, this 30 year old is finally getting her own place. (And by "own place" I mean flatshare!) Not cheap, and so to afford this extravagant new lifestyle I will be needing some sort of income. This is harder than it sounds; I've applied to over 30 jobs, gotten 2 responses, and only one interview. It's a nightmare. But no matter what I am looking forward to moving outside the King's College bubble and experiencing London on a more real level.

Bath!

2007-07-22T21:00:00.000+01:00

It's so lovely to get out of London. This time I managed to get all the way to Bath (if you don't count Scotland, this is the farthest in the UK I've gotten yet). It was absolutely gorgeous. Even managed to spend a few hours in that super fancy new Spa (wasn't the biggest fan, there's a lot that's not right about the place, but the rooftop pool is money). Bath was very quiet though, I guess it's not quite hopping when the University is out. But the architecture was gorgeous, the shops were quite cute, and the river was wonderful. Even though the rain tried its best to ruin the day.

Bath Abbey

River Avon

Roman Baths

Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey

Descry

2007-07-18T15:45:00.000+01:00

I am still reeling from the most massive London celebrity sighting I've ever had! Walking along Shaftesbury Ave two weeks ago, and noticed this phat Lexus SUV pulling between traffic like it owned the joint. It stopped at a red light and while I walked by I glanced inside and sure enough, in the passanger seat talking on a car phone (they still make those?) was Sir Paul McCartney!!! And I honestly couldn't believe it was him, so after I crossed the intersection I stood on the curb and just stared at him. Eventually he noticed us staring and waved! Bingo!

I think I'm finally starting to add some serious meat to my celeb spotting list, because I've got a few now who are world famous, not just England-famous. I mean, this guy was in probably the greatest band of all time.... So just try and beat that.

My list, updated:

1. Martin Freeman
2. Goldie Hawn
3. Kurt Russell
4. Ivana Trump
5. Charlotte Church
6. Carmen Electra
7. The Darkness
8. Graham Norton
9. Paul McCartney

Wimbledon!

2007-07-13T22:45:00.000+01:00

Something that I've been wanting to do since before I ever even dreamed of coming to London, but could never seem to make happen, is go see tennis at Wimbledon. First of all tickets are near impossible to get, it's all lottery-ified. If you don't have tickets, you can just randomly go wait in line, and hope that enough people leave for the day so that you can be granted access. Sometimes you don't get in. So as you can imagine, it's a little hard to rally the troops for this. But a lovely friend of my put her foot down, forced us all to go, and even negotiated a date when I was available, and away we went. After queuing over two hours, we were in. And it was awesome!

It was one of those days where I felt totally amazed that I was in London. And after being here 2 years and 10 months I just don't get those feelings too often.

Chronicle

2007-07-09T22:30:00.000+01:00

Ok, I'm back from the most decadent week ever, that was in honor of my 30th birthday (for example, Wednesday night was spent at Gordon Ramsey at Claridge's with a seven course, 4 hour meal. Oh, and I never in my life thought I would spend the Fourth of July with a Cornwallian and an Australian in a British restaurant that serves French food; no freedom fries for me!)

While I got some great gifts and stuff, what I am most thankful is England's present: we've finally gone smoke free!!!!!!! No more smoking in public, enclosed spaces. I am so happy. I think I'll be a lot more inclined to go out now, as places also should be less crowded. The same phenomenon happened the first time I went to California, everyone was standing outside smoking and the bars were comparatively empty inside. You could get a drink so quickly, extra bonus!

Neoteric

2007-06-28T23:30:00.000+01:00

Wow, I guess we have a new Prime Minster. Just like that. Hardly seemed like anything happened, no ceremonies for the public, etc. I think there's something with the Queen, Blair tells her he's out, Gordon tells her he's "forming a new government" and I suppose she green lights this. But no parades, fireworks, swearing-ins, or anything that generates a big fuss. Is this the norm? Did I miss something? Or is this because he wasn't elected? So weird to live in a democracy with a leader we didn't elect. I guess this would be like if the President died and the VP had to take his place, i.e., Truman or Johnson. I'm not sure how long Gordon can just continue being PM without any vote; seems to me like he can ask for an election whenever he pleases. So weird. Still, I'd take this over the now two year election process in America. Seriously, it's been going on since last year and the vote's not until November 2008. I'm sick to death of it and I don't even live there!

I can't believe that since moving here I've lived through a new PM and a royal wedding and both events were amazingly boring. What a shame. I know it can't all be Princess Di and New Labour ... but still.

Frore

2007-06-26T22:00:00.000+01:00

This is addressed to all of you living in and around London: Um, does anyone know what the hell happened to summer?! It is freezing! Like, I'm outside for one minute in long sleeved shirt and jeans and I am actually cold. (And I've acclimated over the years, I swear.) I know that Wimbledon's on, and this is a prescription for bad weather and rain, but this is absurd. What happened to all those heat waves from last summer? I know it's flooding and things are a real mess, but come on greenhouse gases! Fifty degrees (10 C) is just too damn cold for the end of June.

Cozen

2007-06-10T19:45:00.000+01:00

Last week these magically appeared at my Sainsbury's Local:

This is kind of interesting, as I lived in Maryland for 25 years and never once noticed it to have its own type of chocolate chip cookie. This is a similar emotion to the one I experienced in Tesco a few months ago when I noticed they stocked something called, "Maryland Corn Relish," again, nothing I ever came across in my two plus decades in Maryland.

I'm sure there are legitimate reasons for these product names but I can't shake the nagging suspicion that it's some sort of marketing ploy. By associating with names that are clearly American, what are the manufacturers trying to say? As if we really know our food in America, after all, that's why we eat so much and are so fat? Because our food tastes so good? I don't want to delve into a huge debate, but Londoners are always ranting on about "how fat you Americans are." Right, because I have yet to see a McDonald's here. "Americans may be fat," I always say, "but you Brits sure are catching up fast." As this adorable graphic shows:

As for the cookies, naturally for researching this post I purchased and consumed them. They taste nearly identical to Chips Ahoy. Not great, but will satisfy in the middle of a hormonal and/or stress induced feeding frenzy I'm sure.