Onions and Orchids

Those of you familiar with the Herald Telephone, I mean Herald Times, will recognize the phrase as our Hoosier hometown moniker for likes and dislikes. Well, we've been in London long enough to make such facile awards ourselves.

ORCHIDS:

• Public Transportation, especially the Tube. Fast, and efficient, if not cheap. Ben is half price. Easy access to airports via public transportation. Some Onions for the tube stops that have no escalator and only large elevators where the wait can be long and the smell and feel of a sardine can is evoked.
• Food from the grocery store. There are much fewer additives in the food here. The fruit is better and everything is fresher than one finds in the supermarkets in the States. All eggs are free range. Coke is always made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup (explaining my current addiction). There are lots of little "off license" Mom and Pop stores, and one can place big orders over the internet and the warehouse will provide an hour's window for delivery to our doorstep.
• Great restaurants: Thai, Indiana, falafel, Vegetarian, Italian
• Random guys who call me "love" or "darling" (as in "'eer ye go-o luv", or the guy when I explained that I was allergic to strawberries, exclaimed with alarm, "then you cahnt av that darlin!")
• BBC radio. Great interviews with public officials who are actually expected to answer the questions.
• London A-Z. With this book, one can find anything in London. It is rough on us middleaged folks because the print is so small.
• Serious concern about the environment. Global warming is a regular topic of news and concern. My borough of Islington has paper, glass, can, plastic recycling and mandatory composting. (Though our upstairs neighbors don't seem to be with the program, and I am constantly fishing recyclables from their trash).
• Cadbury chocolate with hazelnuts. Puts Hershey to shame.

ONIONS:

• Public drunkenness.
• Tabloids, such as The Sun or The Mirror with the naked woman of the day, make the NY Post and Daily News look like a serious efforts in journalism.
• English "cuisine." Recently Szonyi ordered an appetizer called "bait" and though deep fried, the little fisheys still had their beady little eyes in tact and visible. (why I am married to, or ever consider kissing, someone who ate the bait must be the subject of another posting). The beef is inedible.
• Absence of sun.
• The damp that gets in your bones.
• Arcane banking rules. A check made out to Ben on an HSBC account could not be cashed by him at an HSBC branch unless he himself had an account, no could he sign it over to me (I do have such an account -- a coup!). Long lines at ATM's.