A Special Relationship: Part 2

It's possible, in all the circumstances, that the tirade encapsulated in my previous message was enough to turn off a large proportion of my American readers, horrified by my flagrant anti-Americanism. Supposing that that proportion is 50%, and supposing that American readers made up 25% of my readership, until my previous message, I have just lost something in the region of, let's say, one reader, give or take. Ho, hum.

In fact, of course, The Referee doesn't have an anti-American bone in his body. Why move to live in a country that you can't stand? Despite all the little things that annoy one about wherever it is that one lives, one tends nevertheless to form an attachment to the place. When it's the US of America, and indeed New York in particular, that attachment is not difficult to establish. Here are the top ten reasons why.

In other words, please stand to attention (although not in the sense of my previous message), put on an old recording of God Bless America at high volume, and enjoy The Referee's Bumper Top Ten Reasons to Live in the New World.

10 Trains

In the New World, trains are modern, or at least clean. There is always - and I mean always - a uniformed conductor with a nice hat who is very interested in whether or not you have (ie one has) a ticket. And - this is the best part - the trains leave and arrive when the timetable says they will. I can remember only one occasion when my train was as much as ten minutes late, and that was the day after a record-breaking two feet of snow had fallen on Central Park. British readers should note that I am not making any of this up.

9 Guitar shops

OK, I accept that this is something of a niche entry, so I'll get it over with quickly. The Referee has had occasion to visit guitar shops at both sides of the Atlantic. Visit a guitar shop in this country, any guitar shop (probably), and you will find not only guitars, but also staff who are (i) knowlegeable about their subject, (ii) polite, (iii) friendly, and (iv) not troubled by an affliction by which their knuckles drag along the ground. Those who have ever attempted to buy a guitar in the UK of Blighty will know what I mean.

8 Newspapers

Just like the homeland, the New World has two types of newspaper: the serious and the not-so serious. The less said about the latter the better. But here the former are different. They actually make an attempt to report the news without assuming that the reader is such a numbskull that he (or she!) needs to be told what to think about it. And they refer to everbody, and I mean everybody, as Mr or Ms - even bad people.

7 The Stars and Stripes

One of the definitive sights of suburban America is a neighbo(u)rhood of quaint wooden-framed houses, almost all of which have a basketball hoop at the back, and the Stars & Stripes hanging at the front. If one is a Brit - and presumably one will know, one way or the other - it's worth pausing to think what the equivalent definitive sight might be. Whatever your answer, it's a safe bet that it won't include Union Flags aka Union Jacks hanging out in front of houses. In fact, if one does see the national flag hanging outside a house in the homeland, one assumes that the occupant is an eccentric, extremist fruitcake. Worse still, one would, generally speaking, be right.

In recent years, a healthy exception to this rule has emerged, when England's finest are appearing at the finals of an important and meaningful international tournament. Following the recent Euro 2008 non-qualification debacle, this exception is not likely to apply for a while.

6 Motels

Anyone who has tried driving for any distance around the New World - and if you haven't, you should - will know the joy of deciding willy nilly that one has had enough for the day and turning unannounced into the next motel which presents itself, where one will almost always find an adequate and clean room, and sometimes breakfast as well, in exchange for a number of dollars which would probably not be sufficient to buy the coffee machine in the room. (Yes, I know that's all one sentence. Please feel free to breathe where you think it appropriate. No need to do the whole thing in one go.)

5 Holidays

All Europeans who have hung around in this part of the world for any length of time will have noticed that working Americans tend to have an average of about 5 minutes annual leave. This would be enough to make anyone miserable, not to mention unproductive, so the always-ingenious Americans have tended to mitigate the meanness of their corporations by inventing a long list of reasons to have public holidays.

To mention just a few, there's Martin Luther King's birthday (which also happens to be my mother's birthday) (hello mum), Inauguration Day (for the new President, every fourth year), President's Day (which is celebrated on Washington's birthday), Memorial Day (for those who didn't make it back from wars), Independence Day (the less said about that the better), Labo(u)r Day (which is set aside specifically so that Americans can work on their spelling), Columbus Day (which is odd in the sense that the country is actually named after another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci), Veterans' Day (for those that did make it back from wars), and Thanksgiving. On second thoughts, that's all of them. Unless you also include Christmas and New Year's (New Year's what?).

4 Thanksgiving

Notwithstanding the entry at #5 above, there is one particular holiday which constitutes a major contribution to American culture, and not just because we have celebrated it recently. Thanksgiving is not just a very welcome long weekend, but also a genuinely communal event in which friends and families fly and drive huge distances in order to be together, for no other reason than to sit around eating and drinking too much.

In theory, at least, it commemorates the arrival of English settlers in Virginia in 1619. Unless it commemorates the feast which another group of settlers enjoyed with Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.

In practice, most Americans don't worry too much about the precise origins of the feast, at least not as much as they care about eating it.

3 Diners

Now, don't get me wrong. I am as big a fan of the fried English breakfast as the next chap, but there really is nothing like going to a traditional chrome-enhanced diner for breakfast, better still brunch. They really know how to do it. But make sure you go early in the day - by dinner time it's just another restaurant.

2 New England

For a moment, if you will allow it, dear reader, I would like to address just my fellow country-persons, and anyone else intimately acquainted with the UK of Blighty. American readers should go out into the back yard and shoot some hoops for a while, or something.

Imagine, if you will, the homeland, but with the following amendments: (i) all the coastline looks like Cornwall, only more beautiful; (ii) all the inland areas look like the Scottish Highlands, only three times as high; (iii) the open road is, well, open, rather than like a long, thin car park; and (iv) there are no chavs.

I rest my case.

1 Baseball

A serious debate is continuing over here, and I dare say over there as well, about whether the arrival of a certain D Beckham at LA Galaxy will be the catalyst which elevates Assocceration Football from minor also-ran to major player in the world of US sport(s). I can assure you that it won't.

I don't say this because I have anything against Becks (I don't), or because I think his arrival will cause any harm (it won't), but because I happen to think that sport is inextricably linked to culture.

To put it less pompously ("too late for that!" I expect you're thinking), the biggest sports are the biggest because they matter to people, and they matter to people because they come up from the streets.

Baseball is America's pastime not because somebody organised it that way, but because young kids here have for more than 100 years gone out into the street with sticks and stones and anything else that came to hand and tried to emulate Willie Mays or Reggie Jackson or Babe Ruth. As I have argued previously on this site, one can learn a lot about this country from watching baseball, which occupies a similar place in hearts here as football does in the homeland.

Whilst it may not be THE beautiful game, it is certainly A beautiful game, and the thing I will most miss about the New World when I eventually return to the old one.

So, there you have it. Certain readers will no doubt conclude that the #1 entry above confirms that I have finally lost my marbles. You know who you are. It's a fair cop.

For everyone else, should you ever feel a little twinge of anti-Americanism developing, just have a lie down and perouse this list. I guarantee you'll feel better.

A Special Relationship: Part 1

As all my regular readers (!) will be well aware, November marks the two year anniversary of The Referee sending messages from the other side. To mark this auspicious occasion, The Referee has decided to offer, at no additional charge, not one but two Top Ten lists. The purpose of these lists is to give you, dear reader, a summary of the best and worst things about being an Englishman (or Englishperson, these days!) in New York.

Coming soon, my top ten things about living in the US of America.

For now, however, I am proud to present the top ten things that drive me to distraction about this great country. In other words, please sit back and enjoy The Referee's Bumper New World Bottom Ten:

10 College sport(s)

What is the point of college sport(s), as distinct from professional sport(s)? Please don't feel the need to answer this question; it's rhetorical. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against young folks running around in the open air and enjoying themselves between college work, or indeed instead of it. But what does that have to do with anyone else? I don't know about you, but I played a good deal of five-a-side football whilst at university. No one ever turned up to watch it, not even my mother (hello mum). Why on earth would I expect crowds, TV cameras and cheerleaders? I wouldn't. Bonkers.

9 Stairs

There are a lot of places in the great city of New York where there are flights of stairs right next to escalators. Grand Central Terminal, to give the station its official name, has many of these. The interesting thing about this scenario is that it presents the traveller with a choice: stairs or escalator? What do New Yorkers choose? I'll tell you. On the basis of my highly scientific research into this issue, which involves looking around when I get off the train in the morning, I can tell you that New Yorkers choose the escalator, at a rate of at least 90%. I sometimes wonder what percentage of that 90% are the proud owners of expensive gym memberships. In New York, the chances are that many are, perhaps most. To those people, I say simply this: try the stairs - it's free!

8 Boxing Day

For a country that prides itself on celebrating Christmas with style, Christmas is not celebrated with much style over here. In particular, as soon as Christmas day is over, it's over. Mention the phrase "Boxing Day" to most Americans and you will get a blank look (unlike Canadians, who observe it with some enthusiasm). So Americans are deprived of not only the best and laziest day of the year, but also that great British tradition of taking all week off work, eating far too much and watching old films on TV until next year.

7 The word "program(me)"

This might seem an obscure one to those who have not spent much time in the New World, but bear with me. Those who have done so will know, if they search the deep recesses of their consciousness, that Americans use the word "program(me)" all the time. About anything. Leave aside for now the fact that the locals here run out of enthusiasm for spelling this word just before reaching the penultimate letter. Everything here is a program(me). My elder son plays in a soccer program(me); my younger son eats pizza for school lunch once a week, and that is a pizza program(me); my wife teaches an art program(me). If I stand up and walk around the room for a while, I am quite convinced that I could legitimately say that I was executing my personal circulation program(me).

6 Halloween

What is the point of halloween? For a start, it is decidedly odd to make such a fuss about All Hallows Eve, when hardly anyone marks the day that follows it, AKA All Saints day. That aside, why encourage children to dress up in stupid costumes, act obnoxiously and eat too much "candy"? Most of them do all those things with no encouragement at all.

5 Live radio football commentary

One of the greatest joys of my life - and I mean this sincerely - is listening to live football commentary on BBC Radio Five Live. Don't ask me to explain this. You will either understand it, or you won't.

I appreciate that this is a point about not living in the UK, rather than living in the US of America as such. But, for whatever reason, whilst it is possible to listen to most BBC radio output online, try listening to live football commentary from outside the UK of Blighty and you will get only an automated message saying something about "contractual obligations".

I have often wondered what precisely is in the contract in question to prevent those of us living overseas from listening. Presumably it says something along the lines of "In no circumstances should live commentary of Hereford v Scunthorpe in the first round of the Carling Cup be broadcast in Turkmenistan, in order that the rights may be sold separately to the National Turkmenistan Broadcasting Corporation, for local transmission to the numerous Scunthorpe fans in that part of the world". The problem with that, of course, is that there are not too many Scunthorpe fans in Turkmenistan, so local broadcasters are not interested, so there is no local transmission, so it's not possible to listen.

I have heard it said that people living overseas can't expect to have access to all BBC output because we don't pay the licence fee. In fact, we can't pay the licence fee. I expect I'm talking for a large number of ex-pat footie fans when I say that I would gladly pay the equivalent of the licence fee just to get access to football commentary on Five Live. So, come on BBC, take my money!

4 Medicine

After two years living here, I still cannot begin to fathom the American approach to all things medicine. Something close to half of all the commercials on TV here are for drugs: to treat hair loss, erectile disfunction (whatever that is) (simmer down, ladies!), "stubborn belly fat" (this is true), insomnia, and countless other ailments. But none of this is available over the counter. So almost all these commercials end with the phrase: "Ask your doctor if "Stand To Attention!" is right for you".

Then, presumably, when you next go to see your doctor (which, for the average American, is in the next five minutes) you are supposed to say "So doctor, do you think "Stand To Attention!" is right for me?". And the doctor says, "Well, the last patient I gave it to is still standing to attention three months later. But, yes, I'm sure it will be fine. Here's a prescription for the next 20 years". And then the doctor receives a fat cheque from Erections R Us, the makers of Stand To Attention!, and everyone is happy.

3 Tea

I have written before on this site about the difficulties of getting a half decent cup of tea in the New World. Well, despite two years of personal intervention on my part in terms of introducing numerous Americans to the concept of a teapot and suggesting that they fill it with something that one can actually taste, the situation at the national level is just as dire as it was. It remains the case that, in most beverage-serving establishments in this country, a request for tea is likely to be met with a cup of hot water presented alongside a Liptons yellow label tea bag. If you're lucky, your Liptons yellow label will be delivered on its own saucer. Perhaps The Referee is losing his touch.

2 The suburbanisation of the Beautiful Game

Here's what (association) football means to me, and has meant to me since I was first taken along to a non-league game at the age of six (hello dad). Long shorts, mud, rain, cold tea, meat pies, old blokes in flat caps and no teeth shouting helpful advice to the referee relating to his eyesight and his parentage. It means total commitment to one's team, the belief against all the evidence that they are the greatest team in the world, and a hatred almost as passionate directed towards any visiting team.

But what does (association) football mean (if anything) for the average American? Well, it probably means something more along the lines of clapping politely as a gaggle of 7-year-old girls skip happily around an elementary school playing field in the leafy suburbs, whilst sitting on a folding deck chair and shouting encouraging but incomprehensible phrases such as "Way to hustle!", whatever that means.

At least "The referee's a wa**er!" is grammatically correct.

1 Disney World

Consider for a moment, if you will, all the worst bits of the Big Country: excess, self-centredness, obsession with money, a lack of awareness of the rest of the world, a rather annoying over-confidence, etc. Then imagine that all those worst bits were somehow fashioned in plastic, covered in melted cheese and dropped in a field in the middle of Florida. Then imagine that you had to part with thousands of dollars in order to hang around in this field for a few days. Then imagine that, to your horror, your children thought this was a really good idea and lobbied you to do it all over again. Well, kids, it's not going to happen. Get over it. I am never going there ever again. Period. Whatever that means.

So, there you have it. I hope you feel better for having read my Bottom Ten. I certainly feel better for having written it.

American readers need not despair. I love your country really. Top Ten coming soon.

October

As Oscar Wilde most certainly didn't say, there is only one thing worse than the Yankees losing in the play-offs, and that is the Red Sox not losing in the play-offs.

Looking for a New England

It goes without saying, and indeed typing, that one of the essential activities for those from Old(e) England when visiting (or living in) this country is a visit to New England. Preferably, this should take the form of a tour of several or all the six States which make up the beautiful and historic north eastern corner of the country.

(Now, in the days before the Information Steve Heighway (without which this site would not exist, of course), I could have had some fun by asking you to name the six States of New England. Thanks to the good people of Google, however, my fun has been curtailed. But here's a suggestion. Just for fun - no prizes or any of that nonesense - British and other non-American readers (imagine that!) should resist the temptation to Google it and try to guess the six using only their grey matter. The answers will appear at the end. But there'll be a couple of clues along the way.

Go on - do it now, before you read any further.

OK, let's move on.)

So, this summer, The Referee and family decided to make the traditional pilgrimage north and east to see what we could find. We decided to start on the coast of MA, then inland to NH, and then back east to the coast of ME. (You will note that I am writing in code in order not to spoil your fun.)

Well, it was just as beautiful and peaceful as we had imagined, in part. On the other hand, it was also strange and over-eventful...

1. MA

I cannot over-recommend to you the beautiful villlage of Rockport MA which, like St Ives in Cornwall - another of The Referee's favo(u)rite places - is both a fishing village and an artists' colony, as well as the proud owner of some lovely beaches. We spent a very happy couple of days there, staying at a wonderful B&B (the Old Farm Inn) which, having been there since at least 1705 (as the home of one Cpt William Woodbury), must be one of the oldest buildings in MA, and indeed in the US of America. But Rockport is most famous for "Motif #1", an old red lobster barn on the harbour, so-called because it is said to be the most-painted object in the country. I don't mean that it is often re-decorated, I mean that... You know what I mean.

2. NH

From there we drove north and west into the spectacular White Mountains, which are not particularly white in the summer, but a popular place to ski at other times of the year. They are notable primarly for (i) Mt Washington, the highest point in New England (and, at 6,288ft, half as high again as Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK of Blighty), and (ii) the Mt Washington Hotel, which sits at the foot of the mountain in the town of Bretton Woods, and which hosted the famous post-war financial conference which goes by that name.

(It has also been said by some that the spectacular hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel The Shining, although Mr King himself in the introit to the book explains that the inspiration was a hotel in Colorado, which seems to rather scupper that theory.)

Anyway, it's a remarkably beautiful area - like the Scottish Highlands on steroids - and we enjoyed a fascinating day taking the steam railway up to the top of the mountain, which the engineers were keen to explain is the second steepest railway in the world, after one in Switzerland. When you're going up the section which has a gradient of over 37%, you take their word for it.

The locals like to say that Mt Washington is the home of the world's worst weather. This might seem impausible at first but, being something of an anorak for this type of thing, I was pleased to learn that it holds the world record for the faster-ever recorded wind speed: 231 mph.

3. ME

Then things started to go awry. We had booked ourselves into an apparently beautiful little cottage, on the coast, in the middle of nowhere, in upstate ME. Sound idyllic? That's what we thought.

The first sign of trouble reared its head when we arrived in the nearest metropolis, let's call it Little Inbred. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the good people of this area are completely uncivilised. But - this is true - the man employed by the local chamber of commerce to give out tourist information warned us to be careful about the locals, who were not always particularly welcoming of outsiders. For a town where there was clearly absolutely nothing going on except tourism - and there wasn't much of that - this was quite an admission. (The chap in question, who, it seemed to me, was doing his best in difficult circumstances, was wearing a t-shirt proudly advertising the local Lupin Festival 2007.)

Feeling rather unsure about whether we'd done the right thing, we set off in search of a supermarket. Since Little Inbred clearly had nothing at all to offer in this department, we decided that, before finding our cottage, we would have to check out the nearby settlement of Imarriedmysister. It quickly became clear that Imarriedmysister was a much more happening place, boasting not only a supermarket but also a parking lot, a couple of fishing boats and a dog with almost the requisite number of legs. We came away relatively pleased, in all the circumstances, with our haul of some long-grain rice from the 1970s and several potatoes with some lovely green shoots.

Without going into boring detail (imagine that!) about the accommodation in question, suffice to say that, on arrival, we quickly concluded that life is not always like the internet. Perhaps that's a blessing. But this place was not only different, it was also dirty and it smelled (although not as badly as the chap on my flight to Melbourne - see my message of 8 August).

We then did something which we hadn't ever done before, but which was actually rather fun. We had a family meeting, and we made a democratic decision. The unanimous decision was that there was no way we were going to spend a week in this place - we would stay only that night and leave again first thing the next morning.

After an unpleasant night, on the floor in my case (the kids were so spooked out by their creepy room that they got in our bed and refused to get out), we packed up and drove off, to nowhere in particular.

I don't know if you've tried this, but there is something strangely invigorating about driving with a car load of stuff and children without any idea where you're going to spend the night.

To cut a long story short (too late for that! I expect you're thinking) we were taken in like waifs off the street by the wonderful Carl at the Old Farm Inn back in Rockport MA, and spent a lovely few days there back on the beach, eating at the same restaurant every night, followed by the same walk to admire the wonderful harbour and Motif #1. Perfect.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is that things which look like they're going to go wrong sometimes turn out better than they would have done if they had gone right, if you see what I mean.

And finally, the answer to the quiz is, of course: Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachussets, Maine and Rhode Island. But then you already knew that.

Can A-Rod Save Baseball?

I don't know about you, but The Referee tends to be the sort of person who is not at the centre of things. I am generally the last to know when something important happens, and I'm probably not there at the time.

So it was recently when I slipped out to Australia for five minutes (see my message of 8 August 2007) that, whilst I was over there, or under there if you prefer, two important and long-awaited baseball records were broken back here in the US of America.

Now, you might actually have heard about the first of these record-breaking incidents, which received a good deal of media worldwide, including in Oz, a country which takes about as much of an interest in baseball as Americans take in Australian Rules football. However, unless you live in my adopted country and take a keen interest in these things, you are less likely to have heard about the second piece of baseball news I am about to report. But I suggest that this other news will ultimately become more important in the great sweep of history. And, this being The Referee, dear reader, I am not going just to suggest this - rather, I will demonstrate it using complicated math(s). Oh yes.

The first piece of news, of course, is that, on 8 August, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit the 756th home run of his career, thus breaking the record of 755 held by Hank Aaron since 1974. You might be interested to know (!) that the third person on the list remains the great Babe Ruth, who hit 714 homers in his career, and headed the all-time HR list from 1921 until Aaron overtook him.

(By the way, although the record was broken at AT&T Park, San Francisco, in a game against the Washington Nationals, the record-breaking ball was caught by one Matt Murphy, a Mets fan from New York who was there only because he was on the way to Australia. Spooky, or what? In case you are looking to make an investment, the ball is currently up for auction and is expected to fetch half a million dollars.)

Those who are not close to these things might reasonably expect that this amazing record-breaking effort might have been accompanied by celebrations across the world of baseball. This was not the case, only because Bonds is one of a group of players widely suspected of taking performing-enhancing substances from the late '90s until the baseball authorities began testing for them, which was amazingly not until 2003.

Let me make it clear that The Referee is not going to comment on the veracity of these allegations. I have nothing to offer in that department. All I know is that the record books on the single-season HR records make interesting reading. The record for home runs in a single season is also held by Bonds, an amazing 73, set in the 2001 season. The odd thing, statistically, is that the next five records in that list were also all set between 1998 and 2001, all of them by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, both of whom have also been alleged to have been involved with inappropriate substances. It seems odd, to say the least, in a sport with a history of more than 100 years, that the HR records should be bunched in a span of just four years. (Ruth's best ever in a single season, by the way, was 60 in 1927 - the 8th best all-time.)

On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Barry Bonds is a great player and one of the best hitters of all time. I can only speak for myself on this point, but I have no doubt that, even if The Referee was to take a good quantity of every performance-enhancing substance known to man, I would never be able to hit a baseball out of a stadium 755 times or anything close to it. In fact, just watch a live major league baseball game as hitters face a small, rock-hard ball arriving at over 90 miles per hour, and you'll be amazed that they ever hit it at all.

But, you are thinking, what was the second record I promised, and how can it be more important that Bonds' new record? I'll tell you.

On 4 August, just three days before Bonds hit number 756, one Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees hit the 500th home run of his career. Rodriguez, universally known here as A-Rod, thus entered the fabled "500 club", becoming only the 22nd player ever to do so, and the youngest. (As I write, A-Rod has 45 home runs this season so far, and has now entered the top 20 list for career home runs.)

Bonds is now 42 years old, which is about the time most baseball players hang up their romper suits, even those who have pickled their vital organs with human growth hormone - allegedly. A-Rod, however - and this is where it gets interesting (I promise!) - is only 32, and can expect to play for another decade, if he stays healthy. None of the other current players near the top of the career HR list is anywhere near as young as A-Rod. In fact, one has to go down to 64th on the list (Andruw Jones, currently on 366) to find someone younger than A-Rod.

Put all the above together, and you can see why many commentators believe it is just a matter of time until A-Rod takes the HR crown from Bonds, which would be widely popular, including amongst those who believe it still really belongs to Aaron, because it would be aided only by the unnatural number of sunflower seeds which players are able to consume during games.

But how long will we have to wait? I'm glad you asked that.

A-Rod has phenonemal numbers, as they say. His single-season record is 57 home runs, whilst playing for the Texas Rangers in 2001. And his season average, in the 14th season of his career, is 44. That includes hitting no homers at all in his first season (with the Seattle Mariners) and only 5 the following year.

Let us suppose, for the sake of this scientific experiment, that A-Rod keeps up his average of 44 for the rest of his career. If he does, The Referee calculates that he would reach Bonds' record-breaking 756 after another 5 and a half seasons, or in the early summer of 2013, to be precise.

On the assumption that Bonds will hit a few more this season and then retire, A-Rod might just need until the end of the 2013 season to top the list.

Of course, it's quite possible that he will not keep up his impressive average for that long. But The Referee prefers the view that we have yet to see the best of A-Rod, whose average may even improve over the next few years, as he climbs up the top 20 list, passing such greats as Mickey Mantle (13th), Reggie Jackson (11th) and Willie Mays (4th) on the way.

And so, there you have it. Keep your eye on the HR top 20, but don't hold your breath. And remember that you heard it here first.

As we often say in our house, "Let's go, A-Rod!", whatever that means.

The Referee Down Under

The Referee finds himself in Australia.

I don't mean by this that I am undergoing some sort of spiritual awakening which was possible only by travelling halfway around the world and wandering off into the outback. Oh no. I mean only that I find myself in Australia for a period, for reasons which are not important for the purposes of this message.

For the purposes of this message, let's assume that I have made all the effort of travelling over here for the sole purpose of writing pithy and erudite comments about the cultural differences between opposite corners of the New World. This is, of course, not the reason, at least not the only one, and you are not about to read any such comments, but please see if you have it in your heart to humour me on this point, at least for the time it takes to read the next few lines.

After considerable research and analysis of empirical evidence, The Referee can reveal the shocking and unexpected news that not all corners of the New World are the same. It turns out that, rather like babies and pet guinea pigs, each former colony has its own personality, distinct in interesting and subtle ways from each other as well as the Motherland.

And so, for your edification and delight, gentle reader, The Referee is pleased to present Interesting Cultural Differences Between the New Worlds, or Ways In Which Australia Is Not The Same As America.

1. Chocolate

I'm sure you'll agree with me that there are few cultural barometers which are as important (or as good to eat) as the stuff our American friends insist on calling "candy". Imagine my delight then, when arriving at my first Australian supermarket, to find that a good 90% of fare in the confectionery department was just the same as that which might be found in a similar establishment in the UK of Blighty - Kit Kat, Dairy Milk, Turkish Delight, Bounty, etc. I immediately bought up a job load of my personal favourite - Maltesers - and scuttled hurriedly back to my hotel room to devour them in peace. Better still, the establishment in question was good old Woolworths and, even better, I noticed that the locals referred to it as "Woolies". I realised I had landed in civilization.

2. Football

Regular readers (imagine that!) will not be surprised to find that I was keen to investigate the health of the Beautiful Game over here, as well as the terminology employed by the locals to refer to it. I had an idea that this was another corner of the world given to using the s-word but, given the seriousness with which I take my role as your correspondent, dear reader, I wanted to hear it for myself. I was therefore very pleasantly surprised to learn that the world's most popular game is commonly called football over here.

But this discovery was soon tainted slightly when I realised that almost all other sports here are called football as well. In fact there are four Oz footballs: Association, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Australian Rules. In other words, almost everything is football unless it's cricket (and the less said about that the better).

(By the way, The Referee was lucky enough to attend an Aussie rules game the other day - a local derby between two Melbourne teams, Carlton and Collingwood. It was fast, physical and exciting. The pitch was enormous and there were roughly 300 players on each team. But the (oval) ball bobbled all over the place in an ungainly fashion, as did the players, who often ended up in a heap of bodies - the Beautiful Game it ain't.)

3. Body Odour

I can't really pretend that I have discovered an empirical difference between New World body odours as such, but equally I can't resist sharing with you the following story. For reasons that will become obvious, some of the details have had to be obscured.

The Referee was travelling the other day between two Australian cities, let's call them Adelaide and Melbourne, with a certain national airline beginning with Q, let's call it Qantas. Although it's a very short flight, I was mildly dismayed to find myself in a B seat on a Boeing 737 (which, as you jet-setters out there will know, is to be avoided for the same reason as E seats - ie that you are squashed in the middle between two fellow passengers, who tend to be either rather larger than the space afforded by the seat, or taken to spreading their elbows out of their own space and into yours, or both).

On this occasion, neither of these appeared to be the case, and I thought for a moment that my luck was in. How wrong I was. As I settled into my B seat, I noticed almost immediately a very odd smell, which at first I couldn't place. After a couple of minutes I realised that I was dealing with two smells mingled together in a very unpleasant way - it turned out that the chap in A was emitting a very strong mixture of tobacco and body odour. The result was nauseating and almost sweet. (If I was one of those people who write the labels on the back of wine bottles, I would say that there were strong notes of chocolate, but that would of course be ridiculous.)

I realised that I wasn't going to be able to deal with this for the whole flight and that I would have to employ defensive tactics. I reached up to the little air nozzle that sits above aeroplane seats and turned it up full, pointing directly at my nose. I calculated that perhaps this would direct the offending odours downwards before they reached my olfactory awareness. It didn't.

Becoming desperate, I decided that I would have to go on the offensive and turn the nozzle to the left to point at the chap sitting in A. But clearly that might have looked a little odd to say the least. So I compromised by pointing the air slightly to my left, but not so far as to suggest that I was actually pointing it at him. Needless to say, it made no difference at all.

Mercifully, by the time I had finished fiddling we had arrived in Melbourne and I dashed into the airport terminal, gasping lungfuls of lovely, fresh air.

And so, there you have it. The Referee encourages his fellow country-persons to remember that not all the colonies have panned out the same.

Please also remember never to sit in the middle seat.

Hand in Glove

I don't know about you, but The Referee has never been terribly interested in those official days throughout the year which we're all supposed to observe with some reverence but which most of us suspect were made up five minutes ago by people with a significant financial stake in the success of greetings card companies. This includes Fathers' Day, which has never done a great deal for me, despite the fact that I have now qualified to be honoured for more than a decade.

(Those in doubt about these sorts of things should note that it is properly "Fathers' Day" - the day belonging to fathers plural, not "Father's Day" - the day belonging to one father, unless of course one is of the view that everyone currently alive is the offspring of just the one man, in which case the latter would be correct, if a little unlikely. (Fill in your own joke here about which man it might be, and the fact that he must be very tired, etc.) Alternatively, those who are uncomfortable with having to calculate precisely which day belongs to whom might like simply to opt out of the possessive by using "Fathers Day" - ie the day which nods generally in the direction of fathers without actually belonging to them as such. I hope that helps.)

Anyway, unlike my previous nine qualifying Fathers' Days, this one was a pleasant surprise, for two reasons. Firstly, I received from my two sons the best Fathers' Day offering I have ever received, or could reasonably expect to, of which more in a moment. Secondly, the gift came with a mystical tale, elevating it instantly to the stuff of legend, at least in our house.

The gift in question was a baseball glove. Not just any old baseball glove, you understand. To be precise (and vegetarians, vegans and other cattle-lovers should look away now) it's a Rawlings black leather 12.5 inch Instinct series with a pad lock, dual wings and basket web. I have no idea what any of that means, but I do know that there is something undeniably manly about going out into the yard (how can a place almost exclusively comprising grass, trees and wildlife be called a "yard"?) and throwing an implausibly hard ball with all one's might in the direction of one's junior male offspring, only for them to smile as they catch it in their glove and return it just as agressively as it arrived.

(By the way, anyone reading this (as if!) who is in need of work could do worse than get into the US patent business. I notice that the Rawlings Dual Wing has US patent number 4,853,975, and the Pad Lock has number 5,457,829. But I still don't know what either of them are.)

Even better than the glove, however, was the story of its purchase. The offspring had visited the local branch of a well-known US sporting chain, let's call it Sports Authority. After deciding that their old dad was a Rawlings 12.5 inch Instinct black leather kind of chap, the offspring stood "in line", as New Yorkers insist on calling it, when they noticed something of a kerfuffle (a much under-used word, I'm sure you'll agree) at the check-out. It transpired that a number of other small boys were jockeying for the autograph of the one and only Mariano Rivera, who was in the middle of paying for something.

American readers will need no further explanation. Others need to know that Rivera is the principal closing pitcher for the Yankees - ie the most accurate and reliable pitcher of all, who is brought on only for the last inning, if that, to ensure that the lead is not squandered or - more often this season - that things don't get any worse. Suffice to say that Rivera is perhaps the most senior and respected closer currently playing. For British readers, you'll not be far off if you imagine nipping into your local J&B Sports for a pair of shin pads and finding yourself in the queue behind John Terry.

Being enterprising sorts, the offspring joined the kerfuffle and each came away with an autograph of the great man who is, by all accounts, a thoroughly nice chap.

On the morning of Fathers' Day, the glove was handed over and the story was recounted. One way or the other, I was informed, the glove was blessed by having been bought in the presence of the great Rivera.

We then set off to our local church, where there is a Fathers' Day tradition of an impromptu men's choir, in which fathers, sons, nephews, uncles etc are all invited to join in the enthusiastic singing of hymns which are either sexist or employ military imagery or, preferably, both.

Afterwards, the junior boy pointed out to me that the announced number of males in the impromptu choir - 42 - was also the Yankees shirt number worn by Mariano Rivera for more than a decade. Not to mention the number of our house. And, for fans of the late Douglas Adams, the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Perhaps, I pondered, the glove was pointing us towards what physicists call the Grand Unification Theory.

To put it another way, as we often say in our house: spooky, or what?

The Age of Aquariums

One of the good things about so-called Middle Age is that it is so poorly defined. And so, if one is in danger of approaching this stage of life, or indeed is in danger of having reached it already, one can simply move the goalposts - as we fans of assocceration football like to say - and so pretend still be to "young", even if, in moments of totally honesty, one would admit that all the messages being received from ones elbows, knees, teeth, bowels, children and birthday cards suggest otherwise.

(I should clarify at the outset that Middle Age is in no way to be confused with The Middle Ages, which is something else entirely. The latter was a brutal period of human existence when people with rotting teeth worked all the hours God sent and never had any fun. The former, on the other hand, ...Oh, never mind.)

Now, just like Ebeneezer Scrooge, and indeed the Baby Jesus, The Referee has recently been visited by three wise messengers, each bearing clues which suggest that You-Know-When is perhaps approaching. And so, despite the considerable personal risks of self-revelation, I have decided to introduce you, dear reader, to my three messengers, in the hope that you might later recognise them, should you experience a visitation at some point.

1. Gluten

I don't know about you, but I had no idea what gluten was until, relatively recently, with no apparent provocation that I can recall, it started an argument with my lower intestine, causing all sorts of digestive chaos. After the argument had been going on for a while, I decided to admit defeat and simply give up eating anything involving wheat, which turns out to be the host of this sinister gloop. The improvement in my health was almost instant, but so was the sense of missing lots of things I liked to eat. However, the good news which awaits one in Middle Age is that there are lots of tempting foods which are made especially for those who find themselves in these circumstances, including disability bread, disability cakes and disability cookies. These "speciality" foods may have looked and tasted like cardboard a few years ago, but now, I am pleased to report, scientific improvements mean that they are almost edible.

2. Myopia

Now, until quite recently, as far as I can remember, road signs and shop signs and the like used to be painted up very clearly and, in the main, were mounted in a sturdy manner such that they would generally keep still, even in windy weather, and so were reasonably easy to read, even from a distance or from a passing car. It has come to my notice recently, however, that such signs tend to present themselves rather more sloppily than previously, such that some of the lettering can be difficult to read, and in some cases tend to move around in a very annoying manner, just at the moment one is trying to focus on them.

Having identified the potential root of this problem, I set off with some trepidation to visit an optometrist. (Have you ever wondered, by the way, what happened to all the "opticians" out there? I like to imagine that their bodies were somehow taken over by an advanced race of "optometrists", rather like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.) Anyway, after investigating me with a variety of weird and wonderful contraptions, the young and female doctor asked me - and this is true, word for word - "Can you get dilated today, sir?". I have to admit that I was sorely tempted to say something highly facetious along the lines of "I have no idea but, with your help, perhaps we can make sweet music together". Needless to say, I said nothing of the sort. In fact, I said something much more along the lines of "Well, it's not all that convenient just now because I have to go back to my office and read some emails".

Anyway, after returning to be dilated at a more convenient time, I emerged with a prescription for mild shortsightedness and the news that I have a freckle on the back of my left eye. This is obviously important information which is bound to come in useful one day. For example, if I am ever separated from my left eye and need to identify it in a line-up (using my right eye, of course).

3. Young love

There may be many potential measurements to test whether things are going for one or against one in life. But few could be more telling and poignant than this one: Am I getting more or less romance than my children? Although it pains me to admit it, if the answer is "less", one really must be arriving in You-Know-When.

I raise this only because the senior offspring recently announced, with considerable poise for one yet to turn 11, that he has a girlfriend. He then proceeded to explain to me, perhaps thinking that I needed a lesson in these things, that, at his age, a girlfriend is a girl, who is a friend, whom you like. I tried briefly to encourage him to explain how that distinguished one particular girl from many others, but decided not to pursue the point very far. I knew what he meant, and so did he, even if he doesn't quite yet have the vocabulary to express it.

More surprisingly, having announced with some conviction that I knew which of the young ladies at his school we were talking about, it turned out that I was completely wrong. As usual, my finger was right on the pulse. Having spent much of the last few months hanging out, as they like to say here, with a particular young lady, it turned out that he had had his eye on someone else "ever since 4th grade". The tone in his voice had the unmistakable "doh!" of Homer Simpson, as if to say "get with it, daddy-o". I had been put firmly in my place, and, more disconcertingly, in my Age.

And so, there you have it. My advice - offered entirely free of charge - is to watch out for the three messengers of Middle Age and, if you see them coming, run as fast as you can. Followed, obviously, by a little lie down.

A Game of 18 Halves

Not since my message of 16 May 2006 have I mentioned America's pastime, rapidly becoming The Referee's second favo(u)rite sport, and its most famous exponents, who also happen to be my local team, the New York Yankees.

So, in response to what, in my fevered imagination, is mounting demand from you, dear reader, for an update, I proudly present the second in a series which might be subtitled "Why everything that one needs to know about life can be learnt from baseball".

After a deadly dull and frigid winter, when the only sport(s) to watch are football (not assocceration) and basketball (college or otherwise), the baseball season arrives here like the spring - bringing with it the promise of something better just around the corner.

And, so far, one has not been disappointed. Let me explain why.

My kids were keen to see the Yankees again, and this time my wife said that she wanted to come along as well. So, off I went to procure the earliest tickets I could get - at home at Yankee stadium against the Baltimore Orioles (or Oreos, as The Referee likes to refer to them, to the amusement of no one but himself). (You might at this point like to note something I have recently been forced to face up to personally - that, if you can't get your 8 year old child to laugh at a joke, it's probably best not to pursue it a great deal further.)

Anyway, the big day came and we scaled up the steep sides of the stadium in a chill wind threatening flurries of snow. Not all that springlike after all. Sure enough, the early stages of the game did not deliver much seasonal warmth. The debut of new Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa, who promised more than he delivered, was such that we were 7-2 down by the 4th inning.

After that, precisely nothing happened for three innings, except that everyone got colder and I was forced to scale down from the heights to forage for chips - by which I mean chips, not chips - just to keep everyone warm. Despite the fact that I was gone for what felt like several weeks, I missed only a single run for the Yanks, making it 7-3 to Baltimore.

At that point, something odd began to happen. People began to leave. Not just in their ones and twos, but in their droves, whatever they might be.

The senior offspring turned to me in some bemusement about why people were leaving in the 7th inning. "Do they think we're going to lose?", he asked. I explained that they might, but that you should never give up until the end, and perhaps not even then. That response seemed to go down well, mainly because it left open the possibility that something interesting might happen.

By the 8th inning, the stadium was perhaps a little over half full. And then, with just the dedicated faithful left, something interesting did indeed begin to happen. The Yankees found 3 runs out of nowhere, and suddenly it was 7-6 - only one down and an inning to go. What was left of the crowd suddenly realised that we had a role to play and started to make a noise.

The great Mariano Rivera came out to close for the Yankees and finished off the last of the Baltimore hitters without much ado. The crowd was by now feverishly screaming for some action.

The chance of that happening seemed to dissipate as quickly as it had arisen after the next two Yankee hitters were out almost immediately. Surely, with only one out to go, we were expecting too much?

Then someone got to first base. Then someone else did the same. The crowd started to sizzle again. Then Bobby Abreu came out, got hit on the leg by a pitch, and hobbled, rather than walked, to first base.

Bases loaded. Only one out left. And the crowd went wild when they realised that Alex Rodriguez was up next. For those who have not followed his story, Rodriguez is one of the most precociously talented players in baseball, who hasn't always delivered, despite being one of the most highly-paid sportsmen in the world (including players of assocceration football). The result has been a love-hate relationship with the immensely demanding Yankee fans. And the buzz around the stadium said, more or less, "OK, show us what you can do".

You couldn't make up what happened next. He fumbled at the first couple of pitches - two strikes - one more and the game was lost.

As the next pitch came in, he swung at it with everything he had, and the whole stadium followed as it sailed way over the hapless pitcher's head and carried on soaring for a beautiful home run right over the middle of the park.

For those unfamiliar with the game, that's what is known as a "grand slam" - a bases-loaded home run, worth one run for the hitter and one each for the three runners. The Yankees had won 10-7. And this was not just any old grand slam - rare enough - but a walk-off grand slam, ie a grand slam which ends the game.

Everyone in the stadium leapt in the air. Rodriguez skipped around the bases, clapping his hands and beaming as he went, only to be mobbed by his entire team on arrival at the plate. The second that he did so, the stadium speakers belted out the familiar opening strains of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York". It was a pretty good moment to be a New Yorker, even an adopted one.

The next day, the NY Times reported that, in the 105 year history of the Yankees, they had at that point played a total of 16,116 games, of which this had been only the eighth to end in a walk-off grand slam. If my math(s) is correct, that means that the chances of my wife witnessing such in her first Yankees game were 1 in 2,014, and a half.

I was tempted to conclude that I should immediately send my wife out to buy a lottery ticket. But, instead, I reminded the senior boy about our agreement that one should never give up, nor should one ever leave a baseball game in the seventh inning, even if one is worried about how long it might take to get out of the car park.

As we say in our house, "Let's go A-Rod!". Whatever that means.

Ohio Boy Accidentally Buried by Snow Plow OK

My message of 30 October 2006 demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, at least in my mind, the importance of proper and orderly punctuation in all our lives, or, at the very least, in all our sentences. Responses that I have subsequently received to that message from a number of "regular readers" (in my dreams) have suggested, in the nicest possible ways, that The Referee perhaps tends towards the affliction of punctuation anorakism. This is, as far as I can tell, a specific and acute strain of the more general and common affliction of grammar anorakism, although perhaps one can have both simultaneously. I certainly hope so.

Anyway, bouyed by these generous compliments, I am proud to present the second message in an ad hoc series that might be entitled something along the lines of The Referee's Guide to the Importance of Proper and Orderly Punctuation in All Our Lives.

In researching this series on your behalf, dear reader, I have noticed that the "tabloid" media is particularly helpful in providing examples that spotlight the importance of good punctuation, if I may have your permission to use "spotlight" as a verb for a moment. (It won't happen again.)

I'm not sure why this should be so; perhaps it's because the more low-brow media tend to pack as much meaning as possible into breathless headlines, so as to grab the attention, and/or to be able to keep the accompanying article as short as possible.

Whatever the reason for it, my attention was caught recently by a headline on foxnews.com - and the brow doesn't get a lot lower than that - about a young man in Ohio who fortunately walked away unscathed after a rather wintry scare. In fact, after having gone unnoticed by a frozen precipitation removal operative, his plight was reported by a friend, and he was then whisked away to a hospital, where he was declared unharmed and not in need of admission.

So, all's well that ends well, and there was apparently no more to the story than that.

If only the same could be said for the headline, which has almost as many words as did the story; and, if you sit back and look at them, those words seem to be scrambling over each other in a desperate attempt to blurt out the span of the whole story before the edge of the page turns up to spoil the party.

These seem to be perfect conditions for multiple potential meanings and nuances, and therefore ideal circumstances for demonstrating the importance of proper and orderly punctuation.

This time, however, I'm not going to mollycoddle you (and it's not often enough, I'm sure you'll agree, that we see the word mollycoddle these days). No. Because you, I surmise, are an educated reader who requires no stabilisers in order to navigate the rocky terrain of punctuation.

And so, without further ado, I give you a few alternatively-punctuated versions of the same headline.

1. Ohio boy accidentally buried by snow plow OK.
2. Ohio: boy accidentally buried by snow plow; OK?
3. "Ohio Boy", accidentally buried by snow plow, OK.
4. Ohio boy accidentally buried by snow. Plow OK.

There may be others.

You're on your own.

I expect you can almost feel the wind of punctuation blowing through your hair...

Return of the So(u)n(d) of Monster Magnet

Those readers who are parents - and I expect you would have noticed, one way or the other - will understand the next sentence; those who are not parents will have to take my word for it. There is nothing quite like the thrill of seeing your offspring perform, particularly if they're any good. The thrill is rather reduced, I'll admit, if they're awful and you have to pretend that they're any good. But, if you don't have to pretend, there's nothing quite like the swelling chest and "that's my boy!" sense which grips the proud parent, even if it's your daughter.

The Referee enjoyed such a moment last week at the school band winter concert, featuring the senior offspring in the percussion department.

Now, before you beat me to it, so to speak, I know as well as you do that the answer to the old joke "What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians?" is "A drummer", and perhaps there's something in that. But, it seems to me, the percussion department of a band or orchestra is quite a different matter. Percussionists have to play all types of drums, and other things that need to be hit, with sticks or otherwise, as well as things which actually have notes, like vibes - sometimes all in the same tune.

So, I watched with considerable pride as the senior boy furrowed his brow and hopped dextorously between instruments, pausing to glance at the conductor, or at fellow band members, before beating the cymbal into submission at precisely the right moment.

As I watched, and listened to the selection of classical pops and pop classics, it occured to me that I had heard something very similar before. I wracked my brain for a while and then, right in the middle of "We will rock you", it came to me. I turned to my wife and said "Peaches en regalia". She gave me that smile that wives give when they're hoping that you're about to go straight back into your own little world without bothering them any further.

But you, cultured reader, will no doubt have realised what my wife didn't immediately realise (until I expained it to her at length) - that I was referring to the legendary opening track of Frank Zappa's debut solo album after the demise of the Mothers of Invention: the seminal Hot Rats.

That's right. I had realised something of devastating musical importance that I had not realised before. Not that Zappa sounds like Queen - or even vice versa - he doesn't. What I realised was this: a large gathering of 5th graders who are just in the early stages of mastering their instruments but who nevertheless follow the conductor's instruction to belt out the classics with carefree gusto at the maximum possible volume sound almost exactly like a small band of virtuoso musicians playing incredibly complex arythmnical 1970s jazz/rock.

Now, you might take the view that this revelation doesn't really matter one way or the other. If that is the case, I'm afraid I can be of no further help to you.

On the other hand, you might realise the potential consequences of this near-scientific discovery, but simply have difficulty in believing it to be true. I have some sympathy with that latter response and, in the interests of science, I offer the following assistance. Come with me, if you will, into the land of interactive blog experimentation...

Which is not quite as scary as it sounds. All you have to do is follow these 3 steps:

1. First, look at the lovely photo above of the band in action.

2. Play, as loud as possible, and preferably out of some speakers near your computer, the tune "Peaches en regalia". Unfortunately, if for some unfathomable reason this wonderful track doesn't already feature in your collection, you won't find it in i-Tunes, which features shamefully little by way of the huge FZ back catalogue. This means, for the benefit of those under 21, that you would have to go into a shop and hand over some cash in exchange for one of those thin plastic music boxes.

3. To complete the effect, hold your computer a few inches above the desk and shake it vigorously in time - if you can! - with the crazy rythmn.

I rest my case.

May you never become a Dancin' Fool, nor be struck unexpectedly by Cosmik Debris.

How Green Was My January?

Yesterday in New York it was 68F (or 20C for those of you reading this in Europe). On the 6th of January. Or January 6th, as the preposition-shy Americans prefer it.

In case you didn't catch that - perhaps you were distracted by a thing, as they like to say in The West Wing - let me run it past you again. In New York, on 6 January, it was 68F.

What is going on? Normally at this time of year, New Yorkers remark on the weather only if it rises above freezing, and tend to spend most of January wearing furry ear warmers and (at least in the suburbs) looking for good places to go sledging.

This year, on the other hand, something strange is happening. A high of 68F makes yesterday the warmest 6 January in recorded New York history. Or it was the warmest January day ever recorded. Or both. Or neither. No, hang on - not neither.

What's more, we have had no snow at all so far this winter. This is very unusual. In fact, it's the latest New York has gone without snow since 1878. Which, the New York Times pointed out yesterday, was before the arrival of the Statue of Liberty, and before NYC existed in the sense of comprising the five boroughs as it does today (see my message of 18 September 2006).

(Which reminds me that the Statue of Liberty is only a short-hand informal way of referring to the famous landmark. What is it's official title? Answers via the comment button, please. When I say "button", I don't mean "button" in the sense of... Oh, never mind.)

In response to the question "What is going on?", some people answer: "Nothing". These people must be avoided. They are dangerous lunatics. These people appear to believe that we should not admit that the climate is changing because, if we do, we'll have to try to do something about it and, as soon as we make any efforts in that direction, everyone in the world will instantly lose their job and/or go out of business. I exaggerate somewhat for emphasis, but you get the general idea.

The problem with this argument is that most of us, if we are honest, and over about 20 years old, can tell from our own experience that things have changed since we were younger, even without drawing up historical charts, or waving a sock in the air, or whatever else it is that meteorologists do.

And, once we have agreed that things are changing, the next logical question is "Why?". Is there a serious chance that the answer has nothing to do with human behaviour? About the same chance, I estimate, that the whole thing is an evil plot for world domination hatched by Little Jimmy Krankie. (Americans will need to ask a passing Brit about this reference. On second thoughts, don't bother.)

Which brings me to one of the cinematic highlights of 2006, Weird Al Yankovic's fascinating dental/meteorological documentary, An Incontrovertible Tooth. If you haven't seen it, see it.

Is everything presented in the film necessarily accurate and/or directly relevant to the weird things which appear to be happening to our climate? I don't know. What I do know is that a documentary about a middle-aged politician giving a lecture about the weather had no right to be that gripping or entertaining.

Regardless of your view on the thorny issue of climate change, anyone who has seen his film will have to admit that Mr Yankovic is (i) intelligent, (ii) articulate, and (iii) a man with something to say.

As they like to say over here, "Go figure". Whatever that means.

Happy New Year('s).