Commuting by Train

Yesterday (for the 2nd time since starting work in May) I had the joy of trying to find an alternative way into work thanks to train disruptions. This time my 7.25am train left Hertford on time, but, after making the first stop in Cuffley, the driver announced that a major power outage had occurred at one of the stations further down the line. As a result, no trains were going into or out of London along these lines. So we sat there in Cuffley for an hour before they decided to move us forward to the next stop (Crews Hill) to give the train behind us a platform to park at for anyone who wanted to get off.

After sitting in Crews Hill for another 30 minutes, Paul (who I had already called to tell of my dilemma) offered to come pick me up and drive me into London. So I got off the train and waited for Paul to reach me some 30 minutes later. By now it’s 9.30am.

Instead of driving me all the way into London (which would have taken ½ day by the time Paul returned to Hertford), he just dropped me at Southgate tube station where I caught 2 underground lines into work. I finally got there at 11am.

Thankfully the trains were running again by the time I got off work. But this is just a classic example of the joys of commuting by train and the problems you encounter. I’m one of the fortunate ones in that there are 2 train lines that come into Hertford, so I’ve always got the option of using one if the other is down.

Buying a Home

I am RELIEVED to say that we have FINALLY moved into our new home. And what an ordeal it has been. Buying a house in England couldn’t be more different than buying one in America.

For starters, a seller is free to list with as many agencies as he wants. It’s not uncommon to see more than one agency’s sign in front of a house for sale. The selling agency gets all the commission; the listing agency gets nothing. But the sale must go through one of the listing agencies.

Commissions here are very low compared to those in America (only 1-2% vs 6-7%). “Estate agents” are paid salaries by the agencies and get very little of the commission earned by the selling agency, therefore estate agents have very little incentive to really sell a place. Also, estate agents in England do not have to be licensed (although the agency does).

When you make an offer to buy a place, there is no legally binding contract. The seller is free to take as many offers as he likes and is not obligated to sell the property. “Gazumping” is a very common problem here and will continue to be until they change the real estate laws. Gazumping is when a seller accepts an offer from one interested party only to accept a higher offer later on from someone else. Unfortunately for the buyer, agents are legally obliged to tell sellers about any other offers on the property. Even if the property is taken off the market once your offer is accepted, anyone who previously viewed the property can still make a bid. If they do, then the agent cannot keep this fact hidden from the seller.

Once you make an offer to buy property, you (the buyer) have to start spending money (all non-refundable) to get the purchase underway without any binding agreement or guarantee that the seller will go through with it. You have to hire a “solicitor” (attorney) to act on your behalf while the seller has his own solicitor acting on his behalf. The realtor doesn’t really have to do anything else once they’ve gotten an offer on the property. All communication is done via the two solicitors.

Your solicitor will arrange the surveys and other legal work that has to be done. Only AFTER all this legal work is done, and only AFTER you obtain a mortgage guarantee from a lender can you actually “exchange” contracts. The sale is not legally binding UNTIL the contracts have been exchanged, and this doesn’t happen until the END of the whole process. As a buyer, you are pretty much screwed if anything goes wrong, since you have no protection whatsoever.

Once the “exchange” is ready to take place, you do not attend a closing or anything like that. Instead, your solicitor will mail you copies of the contract and other paperwork to be signed and witnessed by any non-family member (it can even be a stranger, but it does not even need to be notarized). The paperwork will also get mailed to the seller to countersign. Once everyone has signed, the two solicitors contact you and the seller to inform them that the contracts have been “exchanged.” Once this happens, both parties are obligated to go through with the deal.

On the exchange date, you are also notified of the “completion date,” which normally takes place about a week after exchange. This gives the lender time to transfer monies to your solicitor, who then transfers it to the seller’s solicitor, who then notifies the estate agent that the sale is complete and the keys can be released. So even though as a buyer you effectively “own” your property as of the exchange date and effectively are paying interest on the mortgage from that date, you cannot actually take possession of your new home for another week!

Another disadvantage to buying a home in England (as though there needed to be another one) is that the seller is not obligated to do any repairs, etc. on the home. If an inspection reveals a major defect in the home, then you as the buyer can opt out of the deal. But the seller is in no way obligated to make any repairs. Therefore, all purchases tend to be “as is.” You can choose to have your solicitor write up the contract to state otherwise (like asking the seller to make repairs, etc.), but with so many other people typically chomping at the bit to buy the house, there is no incentive whatsoever for the seller to agree to such a contract. Therefore, as a buyer, you are not protected in any way should the seller decide to trash the property before you move in. You are also not protected should you discover a major defect in the property that was not disclosed.

Now you know why I am so RELIEVED to finally say we have moved into our new home!!!

Sunday Roast Dinner

Today we had a typical Sunday roast dinner in a local pub. If there'’s one thing you can count on eating on a Sunday in most pubs and homes it'’s a Sunday roast dinner. Fish and chips aside, this is probably the most popular of all British meals. It consists of roasted meat (typically beef, pork, lamb, chicken, duck, turkey or ham), served with an assortment of boiled and roasted vegetables (roast potatoes, parsnips, peas, Brussels sprouts, carrots, broccoli), Yorkshire pudding, gravy and relishes horseradish sauce or English mustard with beef, mint sauce or redcurrant jelly with lamb, apple sauce with pork, cranberry sauce with turkey). Sage and onion stuffing is also common. We had our Sunday roast at one of the many Weatherspoon pubs, a chain of pubs that have sprung up all over the country. The cost, including a pint of beer, was just £4.99 each. You can'’t beat that!

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping in London is like grocery shopping in Florida just before a hurricane. There are TONS of people, regardless of the time of day you go. You can barely move around the store. Perhaps that’s why their “trollies” (shopping carts) have wheels that allow you to move in any direction, not just forward and backward, but sideways as well. Otherwise you’d never be able to maneuver the aisles.

In most grocery stores, you have to rent the trolley with a £1 coin that fits into a slot on the trolley handlebar, which is then attached via a key and chain to another trolley. The only way to unlock the key is to insert a coin. When you are finished shopping, you return your trolley to the “trolley park,” insert the key into another trolley, and out pops your coin.

At checkout time, you have to bag your own. Always. They certainly don’t hire people to bag groceries for you. And the cashiers get to sit down, unlike those in America who have to stand on their feet all day.

British grocery products are also quite different from American ones, but I’ll cover that another day.

Potatoes

Potatoes are by far the staple of the British diet. You normally get served potatoes (and green peas) with just about every meal you have, and I have been served several types of potatoes (boiled, roasted and mashed) on the same plate. The Brits certainly love their spuds.

What’s especially funny is that they call potatoes by different names than we do in America. For example, baked potatoes are called “jacket potatoes,” potato chips are called “crisps”, and fries are called “chips” (except for McDonald’s fries, which are still called fries).

The snack aisles in grocery stores are mostly full of a huge assortment of “crisps.” They have all sorts of flavors you don’t normally see in America, like prawn cocktail, cheese & onion, salt & vinegar, ready-salted, roasted chicken, tomato, barbecue, and spring onion. They do sell a few Kettle chips and other varieties of crisps, but for the most part British crisps are the thin-type potato chips.

Where I come from, baked potatoes are normally served with butter and sour cream and sometimes extras like chives, bacon bits or cheese. In England, jacket potatoes are served loaded with a strange assortment of fillings, from baked beans (another British staple that I’ll talk about later), to chili, tuna salad, prawn cocktail, just to name a few of the things. I have to special order a jacket potato with just butter and sour cream, and that’s assuming you can even find sour cream. It’s not commonly used here.

Hello, Good-bye

Even simple things like saying hello and good-bye are different here. The greetings of choice when seeing friends and colleagues seem to be “hi-ya” (hello) and “see-ya” (good-bye). The word “cheers” is also commonly used, but more so to mean “thanks.” If you help someone out in some way, or answer a question for them, they typically say “cheers” in return. People also tend to sign off emails with “cheers” (whereas in America people use the word “thanks.”) But in more formal emails or written letters, the signoff of choice here is “Regards or “Kind regards” as opposed to “Sincerely.”

The funniest difference of all is when saying good-bye on the telephone. Everyone here, whether man or woman, regardless of age, class or position, tends to raise the tone of their voice several octaves when saying “bye.” The last sentence of your conversation might be…”Okay, I’ll catch you later…bye!” That last word (“bye”) is unmistakably higher pitched than the rest of the sentence. It’s so common here that you easily find yourself picking up the habit, as I have now done. Otherwise, it just doesn’t seem like you’re saying good-bye properly unless you raise the pitch of your voice for that last word before hanging up. Strange.

Pie & Mash

Pie & Mash is one of my favorite British dishes. It’s an East London tradition that is (quite sadly) dying off little by little, thanks to the growth of other cheap, fast food establishments, like McDonalds and KFC. Pie & mash shops have been around since the 18th century and originally sprouted up to serve the London working class people. Ironically, most of the people you see frequenting these pie & mash shops are middle-aged and older. You rarely see young people going there. What a pity.

In any case, the specialty of pie & mash shops are meat pies (made of ground beef, and sometimes kidney or onion, in a rich beef gravy encased in a pastry crust), served with a side of mash (mashed potatoes) and green liquor (a green parsley sauce). It is quite tasty and very cheap. A small serving of 1 pie & mash typically costs around £3.00. To be really authentic, you should drench your plate in malt vinegar (the same vinegar that Brits use on fish & chips), although I just can’t quite acquire a taste for the stuff. Pie & mash shops often sell another London speciality – jellied eels. I have no intention of trying this.

There are a handful of pie & mash shops still left in East (and South) London. My personal favorite also happens to be within walking distance of my job (lucky for me!). It’s a place called Manze's in Chapel Market (in Islington). The décor is also very traditional for pie & mash shops – very Victorian with tiled walls, wooden benches and boothes, and marble table tops. It is an experience every visitor to London needs to try!

Taking the Piss

This is a classical British expression. There is nothing even remotely similar to it in America. This one phrase can have a lot of different meanings, depending on how it’s used. For example:

• If you keep promising to do something and never do it, you’d be taking the piss.
• If you order a Diet Coke to go with your 3 Big Macs, you’d be taking the piss (unless, like me, you PREFER a diet soda).
• If you say that British cuisine is the best in the world, you’d be taking the piss.
• If you say that George W. Bush is a great orator (or a great president, for that matter), you’d be taking the piss.

In simplistic terms, taking the piss means to be sarcastic, make fun of, take advantage of, or even say something totally untrue and ridiculous. You sometimes hear the expressions “taking the mickey” or “taking the mick” instead. (I guess these are used by people who don’t like saying the “piss” word).

Actually, the Brits use the word “piss” in a number of ways, most of them referring to drinking or being drunk. In America, being “pissed” means being angry; in the UK it means being drunk. (Although “pissed off” means the same thing in both countries). To the British, going “out on the piss” is to go out drinking, to have a “piss up” is to have a party, telling someone to “piss off” (or “bugger off”) is telling them to get lost. And finally, to “have a piss” is just that…to have a pee.

Yep, I’d have to say the Brits love taking the piss!

Working in the UK

Today I’m enjoying the first of my 16 days annual leave to use by the end of December. Over here, vacation days are referred to as annual leave or holidays. One of the many advantages of working in the UK is having plenty of TIME OFF. It’s also a big reason we decided to return to the UK. In America, 2 weeks vacation is the norm (and generally you have to work a whole year to get that). In the UK, you can count on getting at least 20 days holiday to start off with. I started my job in May with 27 days annual leave. Prorated for the year, that gives me 16 days holiday to use by the year end (not including the 8 public holidays per year, plus another 4 days off at Christmas)! Try and find that in a job in America!

An American in England

As an American living in England, I've decided it might be interesting to keep a written record of my experiences, observations and opinions of life here and how it compares to life in the US. Having lived here previously for 2.5 years (Nov 1996-May 1999), I recall how overwhelmed I was at the time at the vast differences in everyday life that you would never expect to see. So much of it I have become used to, but hopefully by sharing some of these experiences and observations, I can enlighten and entertain my fellow Americans (and perhaps a few Brits as well).