Jan 11 2009
in which life imitates art, sort of, not really all that much
I may have mentioned I watch British TV shows. I suppose this isn’t completely true–I do watch Doctor Who, Torchwood, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, all of which are British, although I haven’t watched much British TV other than that. Still, just watching those did help a bit with knowing what to expect, with accents and slang and such. The funny thing is that now, having lived in England for three months, when I happen to watch any of those, I notice things that I didn’t notice at all before, or saw in different ways. I re-watched the series 3 episode “Blink” yesterday, for instance, and kept seeing things that never would have caught my eye before: the European license plates no longer look weird, just British, and I saw the radiator in the creepy old house because radiators like that are everywhere in England, in new places and old, and I noticed the top half of a mailbox when Sally’s going into the police station even though I wouldn’t have known enough even to wonder what it was before. Oh, and watching SJA? Mostly I kept noticing the “fire door keep shut” signs on all the doors in the school. I suppose I’m just seeing these things because I lived with them and know to look for them now, or something.
yeaaaahh..I thought the fire door sign on every door was interesting. It was on all the base doors too. In some ways they seem more safe than us (e.g. those signs and EVERYONE working outside wears bright safety suits; police cars are blue and bright green). I got so used to the traffic there when I saw video of american traffic I thought something was wrong and when I got back I found I often wanted to turn INTO the left hand lane!