Britain

I'd forgotten a few of the following things about my country of birth, that I thought were worth a mention cause otherwise I'll forget them. It was odd being back: one did look at Blighty as a foreign country, full of odd people and strange customs. A few things I'd forgotten and remembers. Some might be new. Most had clearly been there all alone, but I hadn't seen them before.

Here we go:

1. The apocalyptic cold. Since when was a day described as 'mild' simply because you couldn't see your breath (inside, with the fire on)?
2. The truly excellent sausages. Bacon: over-rated. Sausages are where it's at, as they'd say on...
3. Radio 1. I read once that you can measure your age against Radio 1. I think Radio 1 peaks when you're about 15. At 25, bands I thought of as new were being covered by bands I'd never heard of. This time round, at 33, I genuinely did not understand what they were talking about.
4. The heart stopping inanity of List TV: 50 Funniest Moments of 2010. Kill me now.
5. That re-cycling is important and completed diligently in many parts of the world.
6. The average human being is physically not very attractive. Particularly at train stations. Partcularly if that train station is Ayr. Chriiiist.
7. The weather has headline-news-live-blog-update importance.
8. Sexism is disapproved of. Well done there, love.
9. Whingeing: an art form.
10. And finally, the look of scorn that a supermarket checkout assistant can muster when you do not have your own bags. Excellent transferable skills from the look of pure, undiluted contempt I used to get when I told them I didn't have a loyalty card. And that people really do talk about supermarkets a lot.

That said, I can't wait to live there again.