I've outdone myself

I have to provide comment on tonight's meal. It was most tasty and excellent. I made Tuna with soy-ginger-lime glaze - an original Nob production. Not only was it fantastically delicious, I accompanied it with italian seasoned pasta and fresh fruit salad (banana, orange, kiwi, and pineapple). Mmm, mmm. I can't wait to eat the leftover tomorrow. Clearly one of the tastiest dishes I've made in recent memory and probably the best meal I've had since I moved to the UK (including restaurants). I can make it better the next time, especially if I have better cooking technology.

At any rate, I was thinking about some subtle cultural differences between the Brits and the Yanks. Here are a couple observations:

1. Children/Discipline - How many times have I walked through a store in the US and seen kids getting spanked, yelled at, or subjected to embarrassing scolding? Too many to count. How many times have I seen the same here in the UK? None. Nada. Zilch. I don't know if it's a representative trend or not, but it looks to me like the Brits have a much better handle on their kids than Americans do. It's a pleasant occurrence. Out of control parents/kids are embarassing not just to them, but also to the other shoppers.

2. The wrong side of the road thing does make some sense, especially for buses. Instead of having to make extremely tight right turns, they have more room. Going left is easy as well too because they have "on ramps" that are like soft turns. So, it's not completely insane.

3. London is extremely diverse, so this probably isn't a reflection on the Brits, but it is pretty damn funny to see a woman with a winter hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and thick coat on when it's like 53 degrees outside. I mean, it's chilly here; there's no doubt of that. But it's not cold yet.

4. Everyone (and I mean everyone) drinks bottled water here. I've been told that the London water system uses a lot of chlorine, so people don't like drinking it because it dries the skin. Whatever. A recent study concluded that was BS. And while i'm on the subject, here are 7 words that don't inspire confidence: Authorized by the French Ministry of Health.

5. The myth of the Brits being "polite" has been exposed. Just go to the Tube or the grocery store. People don't wait for passengers to exit trains, they don't get up for pregnant women (like 3 stories in the newspapers about this one), and they aren't curteous at all at the grocery store. Once again, London is not purely "British" because it's so diverse. But still. I find shopping at Tesco on the weekends entirely distasteful because of the inordinate number of rude shoppers.