Happy Birthday, Big Ben!

Big Ben turns 150 today! However, to be more exact, today marks the day when the Great Clock started keeping time back in 1859.

Most people think of Big Ben as the whole structure (the Clock Tower, the Great Clock and the Great Bell), but Big Ben is actually the nickname for the bell itself, which didn't start chiming until July 11th that year. And its success was very short-lived. Just three months later the big bell cracked and Big Ben became silent for four years!

The bongs of Big Ben are heard every hour (and chimes ring out every quarter hour). Rarely has Big Ben gone mute. The chimes were stopped for a couple of years during WWI, but then carried on during WWII when Britons observed a minute's silence as the clock struck nine. It was called the Big Ben Minute.

Construction of the tower in 1859 was marred by delays, budget overruns and bureaucratic squabbling. (Nothing ever changes, heh?) It was lambasted in the media as a disgrace and much too loud. But as with the London Eye, all the negativity turned into positives and soon Big Ben became a cherished part of London's landscape. In 1949 it made its first TV appearance on New Year's Eve and has played a starring role in New Years celebrations ever since.

Train travel

Most Americans don't have a clue what it's like traveling by train as the norm. There is certainly lots to love and lots to hate about it.

The good things: it's fast and saves tons of time as opposed to driving; it gives you time to read or sleep or do something productive other than putting up with road rage (either your own or someone else's); it's a LOT more environmentally friendly than driving.

The not-so-good things: cancelled or delayed trains; overcrowded trains; other people can be a big nuisance! Nothing irritates me more than people who use the train to conduct their daily phone calls, or eat their meals, or talk so loudly with fellow passengers that it disturbs everyone else around them. Frankly I think food and phones should be banned from trains.

But there is worse. Drunks, people with horrible BO or those who fart, or trouble-makers who make you fear for your life. And let's not forget the over-zealous train drivers who eagerly announce every station for those passengers who have never been on the journey before. It can certainly get irritating. Thank God for iPods (except for those assholes who crank theirs high enough for everyone to hear).

Paul and I are fortunate though. By catching the 6.25am train into London (and returning to Hertford before 5pm), we are able to avoid all of the crowds and enjoy relatively empty carriages. Except when we travel on the weekends. I have never understood why the train company can run a service every 5 minutes to London on the weekday with trains that are 6 carriages long, yet run weekend services just twice an hour with just 3 carriages. Shit, by the time we get to London, people are crammed like sardines. But then that's not as bad as having to endure loud children and babies crying, which is at least something you rarely get during weekday journeys.

It still beats driving....

Eurovision Song Contest

Last night was the Eurovision Song Contest. This is an annual competition held since 1956 among European countries. Each country submits a song to be performed on live TV and then votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. Generally around 100 million people worldwide watch it.

The UK has won 5 times and come in second 15 times. They had always been in the top 10 up to and including 1998 but haven't done all that great since then. In fact they got 'nul points' for the first time ever in 2003 and again in 2008. However, Jade Ewen changed all that last night after she came in 5th with the song specially written for her by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren called It's My Time. We watched Jade win the competition (to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest) earlier this year on the TV show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You. And Andrew Lloyd Webber even played the piano for her last night.

The last time the UK won was in 1997. We happened to watch it that year while we were on our honeymoon in Kent. Ironically, American-born Katrina Leskanich (Katrina and the Waves) won it with Love Shine a Light. There is no restriction on the nationality of performers, by the way.

Other notable winners include ABBA who won for Sweden in 1974 with Waterloo. (Olivia Newton John came in 4th place that year for the UK). And Celine Dion won in 1988 for Switzerland, although her stardom didn't come til years later and wasn't associated with her win. Cliff Richard has placed twice, once in 2nd place (1968) and once in 3rd place (1973).

This year also marked a new host for the British broadcast of the show. Graham Norton replaced Terry Wogan after 37 years.

Birthday cakes

I can't get my head around the British tradition of celebrating birthdays at work. In America, it's customary for colleagues to bring in a cake or goodies to the person celebrating a birthday. In England, it's up to the person having the birthday to bring in the 'cakes' for everyone else! Not only that, but they refer to the treat being brought in, regardless of what it is (a birthday cake, cupcakes, pastries, donuts, cookies, you name it) as 'cakes' even if they aren't really what I would call cakes! Talk about confusing.

And it doesn't stop there. To the British, 'sweets' refer to any type of candy (chocolate, hard, soft, whatever), while cookies are called 'biscuits'. (Except of course if someone takes some biscuits to work on their birthday and then they are called 'cakes'). And dessert in general is referred to as 'pudding'. So if you're in a restaurant and see 'puddings' on the menu, it can mean anything from ice cream to Spotted Dick - which by the way is a sponge-type steamed pudding made with suet (beef fat) and dried fruit (usually currants) and served with cream custard. It's actually quite good.

Anyway, back to the birthdays. Yesterday was Paul's birthday and because he took the day off work, he couldn't take cakes into the office (and wasn't planning to anyway). Several people actually sent him a message asking if he were planning to bring cakes in today instead!

Cornwall

We just returned from a fabulous week's holiday in Cornwall. What a gorgeous and unique part of England!

Cornwall is England's southernmost county and therefore is its warmest and sunniest. The winters are relatively mild and snow is rare. My kind of place! It is located on the peninsula at the southwestern tip of England and is bordered to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel and to the east by the county of Devon. As with Florida, you don't just 'drive through' Cornwall. You have to make a special effort to get there. And to make it even more difficult to reach - there are no motorways! Perfect.

Apparently some 30% of the landscape in Cornwall is national recognized and protected as 'Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.' Once you visit the place, you can see why. Cornwall has more ancient monuments than any other county in Great Britain, with over 11,000 listed buildings, houses, churches, mines and castles.

Most of the interior landscape is made up of patchwork fields divided by heath and stone hedges and full of heathland, moorland, yellow gorse, and cattle and sheep (and horses). I read somewhere that there are as many registered sheep living in Cornwall as there are people. Reminds me of New Zealand. Most of the driving is along small two-lane 'B' roads which take you through tiny villages with centuries-old stone cottages, barns, pubs and churches.

Cornwall's northern coastline is made up mostly of impressive rocky cliffs, thanks to the winds blowing off the Atlantic. The south coast, also known as 'the riviera', is a bit milder. There are loads of harbours and beaches located all along both coastlines. The tidal changes pretty much dictate life here though. When the tides are in, all of the harbours of full of water and boats can freely come and go. But when the tide is out, no one goes anywhere, as the harbours are completely empty of water leaving all the boats sitting on top of the sand. It's wild. Likewise, when the tides are out, sandy beaches that weren't there before suddenly appear. Where we stayed in Hayle, there was hardly any beach when the tide was in, but when the tide went out we had 3 miles of wide sandy beach to enjoy.

Cornwall is also full of footpaths for walkers to enjoy the scenery. You can get just about anywhere by foot. In fact, the South West Coast Path runs a whopping 630 miles around the southwestern coast from Minehead (north of Cornwall) to Poole Harbour in Dorset along the south coast.

Old deserted tin mines also mark a lot of the Cornish landscape. These tin mines used to be a huge part of the Cornish economy, although the last mine in Cornwall (and last working tin mine in Europe) closed in 1998. The closure ended a 3000-year history of mining. In the 1800s, Cornwall mined HALF of the world's tin. But this all collapsed when mines that were nearer the surface and easier to excavate were located in places like Australia, South Africa and South America. Cornwall just couldn't compete - even though tin is still quite plentiful in Cornwall. What you generally see still standing are the tall chimney stacks and walls that formed the old engine houses used to anchor the mine engines to the ground and protect them from the elements. Some of these mines contained up to 12 miles of underground workings that descended 1000 feet or more.

These days, food and drink and tourism form Cornwall's biggest industries. The Cornish pasty alone is worth £150 million to the economy. Pasties were originally created for Cornish miners as way of feeding them a hearty and easy meal while there were working in the mines. They are basically meat and veggie meals cooked in a pastry crust with a crimped edge for holding the pasty while eating. You normally get them filled with steak, potato and turnips. They are definitely tasty and filling and weigh a TON.

Cornish clotted cream is another big thing and is used to form local specialities such as Cornish fudge and Cornish ice cream. We were lucky to find a shop in Hayle (called Mr B's) selling home-made Cornish ice cream. It was heavenly.

I could go on and on about what makes Cornwall so unique. Suffice it to say that we love it enough to want to retire here. That has now become our next goal.