It’s getting close to a month since I left Indianapolis, and I’m starting to miss it all a great deal. Heather, her dogs, the city itself. It’s not a feeling I’m accustomed to, so you’ll forgive me for indulging myself in a photo set of some of my favourite photos taken while I was there that I haven’t shared yet. Can’t wait to get back to all this.

The Kennet and Avon Canal, which runs right through Newbury.

Just a quick update, since it’s been so long.

I arrived back in the UK on June 4th, after a hellishly boring and sleepless overnight flight. My visa-free time in the US, regrettably, having come to an end.

That said, I couldn’t have chosen a better day to come back. Driving home from the airport at around 10am, the weather was wonderful, and I realised I’d been taking the UK for granted in some respects: it’s really scenic here. Not an epiphany I was expecting.

The drive home from the airport is incredibly scenic and perhaps even beautiful. I arrived back in Newbury and once again, I was struck by just how nice it is here. For all its good points, one thing Indianapolis doesn’t have is scenery, and England has that in spades.

That said, that’s about the only positive thing I can think of to say about the UK, which isn’t all that surprising, given that I’m now stuck here until I can afford a flight back, while Heather is thousands of miles away.

Here’s the plan: find a job, save enough money for a flight back and a fiancé visa.

Oh yeah, we’re engaged too. Almost everyone I know has reacted very positively to the news, which is encouraging, and we’re both very grateful for all the positive messages about it.

So, obviously, I’m looking to get out of this place as fast as possible and get back to my fiancé (still seems a little odd to say), which may be harder than it sounds, thanks to a little thing called the recession. Job opportunities here are few and far between, and I haven’t managed to find a single lead yet in my two weeks being back. (If you happen to know of one, do let me know.)

If I can get out of this place before Christmas, I’ll be happy and surprised.

Photo courtesy of David & Cheryl M.

Continuing the advertising theme, here are two promotional videos for 30 Rock. The one embedded above is from Channel 5, a British channel. Compare to the one embedded below, which is from NBC, the American channel that airs the show.

Of note:

• Rock music!
• Screaming women!
• Huge hype of a celebrity appearance!
• As much as possible squeezed into 30 seconds!
• Emmy-winning best comedy!

And take note of which scenes the two are promoting. The American promo is highlighting numerous big funny moments. It’s very in your face, and cut together to make it seem very exciting. And as good as 30 Rock is, it’s not that exciting. The British promo is comparatively restrained, and the scene shown (just one, mind, not 4 or more different scenes in quick succession) is also more restrained, and probably appeals to a British audience a little more.

Just so we’re all on the same page, when I say “advert” I mean commercial, and when I say “aerial” I mean antenna. I’m aware of these differences, but they still seem unnatural to say, so I’m sticking to my British guns.

I came to a conclusion this week: the US and the UK — my experiences of each, at least — really aren’t all that different. Obviously, there are some major differences that are hard to ignore — different currency, driving on the wrong side of the road, and so on — but if you take a step back and take a very general view of the two places, there are far more similarities than differences.

That is, until you turn on the television. More specifically, until you turn on the television and wait for the next ad break (or “commercial break”). I could say watching American adverts is a little like being forced into something you absolutely do not want, over and over again, while between 10 and 50 people shout at you as loud as they can.

Watching American adverts for the first time is rather overwhelming, as you might have gathered. I’ve been here two months and I’m still a little jarred when the adverts come on¹ (admittedly, I haven’t watched much television here). But before getting into specific advertising differences, it’s worth noting that there are some fundamental differences in the way Britons get their telly.

There aren’t as many TV channels in the UK. Cable TV is almost ubiquitous over here, which almost guarantees a minimum of around 12 channels (I think). In the UK, your basic TV + aerial will net you 5 channels. Two of those are public channels, funded by our tax money², and as such do not broadcast adverts.

Secondly, British advertising is strictly regulated³. The rule used to be only 6 minutes of advertising per hour, but it’s been relaxed to 12 more recently.

So with these two caveats, that means there are a lot less potential ad spots on British television than there are on American television, which by extension means Britons see less adverts. I’m not sure how this might affect the content of our adverts, if it does at all, but it’s worth noting nonetheless.

On with the show.

Although the basic notion of advertisements stays the same — to convince a consumer to buy a product — there are two very different methods employed, and thanks to an introductory Media course, I’m able to give these methods names!

Hard Sell vs. Soft Sell

All signs point to American consumers not giving a damn about advertisers, welcoming them into every facet of their daily lives, but Britons see advertising as an unwanted menace, forcing advertisers to approach us from a more non-invasive angle.⁴ Enter: the soft sell.

American adverts are all about the hard sell. The product is the star, and every second of the advert is devoted to it, touting its features, aggrandizing it in every which way possible, staging it in face-offs against its lesser competitors. The product is front and centre the whole time, telling you what a fucking badass it is, and how it will save your life. British adverts, on the other hand, are almost embarrassed to be there at all. Frequently, the product takes a backseat to other elements, with the adverts relying on other techniques to reel you in, without being pushy about how awesome the product is.

One technique I’ve seen used more and more frequently is to set the advert up as a mini-drama or movie. The video embedded below is one example.

In 30 seconds of advertising, there are only two specific mentions of the product — one of which is engineered to be a part of the “story” — and the advertisement itself is written in a way that, presumably, is designed to engage the viewer, encouraging them to pay attention. It also features characters of a popular British soap opera, which is sure to appeal to the hordes of froth-mouthed soap addicts in Britain.

Another good example is this excellent Burger King advert from a few years ago. For the most part, it’s a catchy, entertaining sing-song. The burger itself doesn’t enter until right at the very end. It draws you in, and waits until the very end to push its product. It’s particularly effective because the song is catchy and easy to remember, leading to huge numbers of people wandering around humming or singing the song, generating yet more advertising for them.⁵

It would be unfair to say that there are no American adverts employing less annoying techniques like these, but they are considerably rarer, displaced by adverts that are all information, all sell, and almost all annoying. If British adverts are like a mini-drama or movie, then American adverts are more like lectures: a narrator extolling the virtues of a product that, in all likelihood, covers the majority of the television screen.

Something else I’ve noticed is the part humour plays in adverts. There are some hilarious adverts aired in the UK — and they’re always the most memorable ones — but I see humour during adverts a lot less frequently over here. And it seems to be a different kind of humour, too, which won’t be at all surprising to a lot of people. Almost everything about British humour — be it in an advert or movie, or a stand-up comedian — is opposite to American humour. Where we rely more on puns and satire, Americans seem to go more for big, easy laughs.

Advert content aside, there are also numerous types of advert you just don’t see very often on British TV. Thanks largely to the advent of the DVR, advertisers are trying to cram as much advertising as possible into the shows themselves. Almost all the major networks advertise their major shows over whatever is currently on. (Can you imagine an advert for Coronation Street while Emmerdale is still on?) This is starting to happen on British TV too, but it’s largely confined to the end of the show, while the credits are rolling.

Product placement, too, isn’t nearly as common on British TVs. The video embedded below compiles a few scenes of product placement on one of my favourite American shows, 30 Rock:

It’s blatant product placement that they don’t even bother trying to hide, even making self-referential jokes about it⁶. I saw a similarly blatant example of product placement a few weeks ago in a Heroes episode where two of the characters drove a car that was also being advertised heavily during the advert breaks. Bonus points if anyone knows the embarrassing reason that I even know what Jimmy Choos are. If a British show attempted something like this, Advertising Standards would have a field day. As recently as March, Andy Burnham, the UK’s culture secretary, said “fuck no” to product placement.

So that’s American advertising. With the gentle stroll through the commercial break that I’m used to, it feels a lot like getting punched in the face.

Edit: Avery provided a little fact checking, and I’ve edited this appropriately.

1. Probably at least partially because commercials here seem to be played at a higher volume
2. BBC 1 & 2
3. Plenty of info about it on the Advertising Standards Authority website
4. There is research that backs this up that you could find fairly easily
5. It also prompted thousands of complaints from butthurt women, which I like to think Burger King anticipated, knowing it would lead to press coverage, and by extension, even more advertising for them
6. Doing so is kind of a 30 Rock “thing”, more about it here

I made brief mention of language previously, but as a guy that’s into language, that’s not nearly enough. So here’s the prerequisite “you guys speak funny” post.

The language differences between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) are well documented (and here, by my old Linguistics tutor), so I’m not going to go into too much detail here, lest I stray into stating the obvious. There are also numerous inherent FYIs on this matter, where regional dialects and accents and the like are concerned, but I’m not going to go into that much detail either.

The most immediate observation, obviously, is accent. My accent differs greatly from anyone else’s here. So much so that a German girl Heather works with claimed to be unable to understand the British accent, despite fluency in American English (we haven’t met, but I don’t believe her). Surprisingly, though, it hasn’t been that big of a deal. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but there hasn’t been any “OMG you’re English!” or accent-related misunderstandings or confusion. Both accents, I think, are pretty clear and easy to understand.

Different accents, of course, bring different pronunciations. Mostly, this is down to accent, but there are some words Americans just say differently. For the most part, it’s just stressing a different syllable, like with “adult,” where we stress the first syllable, rather than the last, which relates to “adult” being a French loanword, I believe (we do the same with “debut” and “nonchalant,” also French, and the other way round with “address” and “cigarette,” also French). But there are some legitimate pronunciation differences, some of which I find very odd. One of them is “greasy”: in BrE that would be [GREE-see], but in AmE it becomes [GREE-zee]¹. That one still trips me up whenever it comes up, and since some halfwit left a tub of discarded cooking fat in the yard (not the garden!), it comes up with unusual frequency.

I know I said I wouldn’t go into too much detail, but it’s worth noting that that’s just an anecdotal observation, and that in different parts of the US, and indeed the UK, the pronunciation is the other way round. Furthermore, The American Heritage Dictionary’s usage notes say that the verb grease is also variably pronounced with an [s] or a [z], but that the noun is always pronounced with an [s] (although this is not true in Heather’s case, and it sounds odd).

There’s no need to document every single pronunciation difference here, but needless to say, it has proven to be quite an interesting thing to observe here, for others as well as myself, as Heather will attest to if she ever stops laughing at my pronunciation of “pizza” (it ends with [er] rather than [a]).

Another difference I keep noticing and being surprised by relates to formal and notational agreement of collective nouns, but I’ll point you to a Wikipedia page for that, because there’s no need to rehash something that’s already been said perfectly well by someone with more authority than myself.

The other notable hurdle has been the words American use. Boot becomes trunk, garden becomes yard, and on my second day here, Heather laughs hysterically when I refer to the screens on the windows as mosquito nets. Most of these differences are trivial — and I already know most of them exist, which makes it easier — but it can be hard to see myself ever calling a boot the trunk and not feeling weird about it, though I’m sure I will eventually.

Honestly, having watched so much American television, and having a longstanding interest in Linguistics in general, I think I was a lot less surprised by language differences like this than I might have been, which is something I’m grateful for, as far as easing the transition goes. For most people, it’s not even slightly interesting to read about, which is why I’ve kept this brief, but for everyone else, the Wikipedia articles linked herein should provide interesting reading.

1. That’s a basic pronunciation guide; if it’s confusing, just read it out loud, and put stress on the bold type

On Saturday, the temperature in Indianapolis hit 81.3°F. Which, to most Americans, is probably nothing. But for comparison: the average temperature in Andover¹ for April is 47°F. I thought I was going to die.

As the chart above shows (yes, I made a chart for this), the average temperature here during summer is consistently around 15° higher than in Andover, which is a non-trivial amount for a British guy with almost perfectly white legs. The highest recorded temperature in Indianapolis last year is also around 15° higher than it was in Andover, at 104°F. As if that wasn’t bad enough, winter in Indianapolis is consistently a lot colder than Andover’s.

I have yet to see how I’ll handle that kind of heat at length — and it’s not even certain that I’ll get to yet — but as I said to Heather: If anyone tries to make me wear shorts, I’ll be on the next plane back to England.

All the information here came from Weatherbase, in case anyone wondered.

1. Andover is about 15 miles from Newbury, where I’m actually from, and is the nearest place to it that I could find reliable weather statistics for.

Dear Steak & Shake,

1. Drinks big enough to fill a person for at least 2 meals? Really? In a recession?

2. A happy hour is one hour.

3. A happy hour at a fast food restaurant? Really?

A McDonald’s sign peeking out from some shrubbery.

The hyper-organized grid layout of American streets seems to run counter to the general layout of things like retail outlets, food chains and that sort of stuff.

Every British town or city I’ve ever been in has a “town centre”, where the majority of retail outlets, fast food chains, and general places-to-spend-money are, that spans an area somewhere between 4 and 10 blocks in size (very rough and probably inaccurate estimate). Outside of that centre (sorry, “center”), it’s mostly housing, schools, and convenience stores dotted around. There are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, that’s how British cities are laid out.

There is no quicker to explain how different this is to American cities (or at the very least, Indianapolis) than to say: shit is everywhere. There are Walmarts (think supermarket, Brits) on opposite sides of the city, fast food chains pop up anywhere and everywhere, and, although there is a downtown area with a high concentration of commercial outlets (predominantly restaurants in Indianapolis, it seems), it couldn’t be considered a town centre in the same way as a British town, because it doesn’t account for even a small percentage of retail opportunities in the city.

That said, American cities tend to be a lot bigger than British cities. Wikipedia doesn’t seem to know how big most British cities are, but in terms of population, Indianapolis dwarfs Brighton, the biggest British city I’ve lived in, with a population of 795,458 to Brighton’s 155,919. That doesn’t necessarily tell you much about size (no word on population density either), but it’s enough of a difference to assume Indianapolis is considerably larger. So given the size difference, a focused town or city centre would probably be inefficient and pointless.

Even so, it seems odd to drive to one side of the city to pick up some cables for a computer, then back into the centre for fast food, then somewhere completely different to find a Walmart. Fortunately, where Brighton has maybe 2 or 3 McDonald’s, for example, Indianapolis has more than 30, according to Google Maps, covering all areas of the city. (And Google Maps kind of makes all this completely irrelevant, anyway, since I can find out where anything is in seconds.)

This is the study, and my favorite room right now, in the old Indianapolis mansion I live in. It was almost condemned before the owners bought the place to refurbish it. There are 16 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and 4 kitchens, and everyone living here has taken the initiative to decorate. I share a wing with 2 men, both waiters and not at all settled. [One of the two waiters, David, has since left.] None of us are really, but we’re trying to make the house less gloomy. I think my room used to be John Elam’s office, and it’ll be the hardest room to brighten. The walls are blue, and the owner hung black curtains! This is certainly not where I wanted to be in 2009, but I’m in a place where I can think and a job where I help others.

Courtesy of Heather, this is a photo and brief description of the place we live in at the moment. We’re still not sure if we’re staying here permanently, but it’s a really nice (and huge) place.

This thing has comments now. Do your worst, and say “hi” to my Mother if you see her.