I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7 am. I never even do that at home. If the New York office only knew.
I didn't realize it earlier, but Reading, and particularly the Holiday Inn, overlooks the Thames. The hotel sits on a wee cove. Jane counted more than 100 swans on the banks of the river. She's the mother of two, works like a fiend, and still has time to count the swans. She's Britain's answer to Yvonne Goolagong. How does she do it? "Isn't easy."
Danny arrived in time for breakfast. He stopped me just in time from mixing marmite with marmelade. I wish he stopped me from mixing marmite with toast. Marmite is brown yeast extract. It's god-awful. What is it extracted from? You must try it at least once, just to know how awful it is. Danny's British born and loves marmite.
Today was editors' day and we met with seven different companies. In terms of language Britain is interesting on two levels. Accents change every 50 miles, and in the modern age, no three people in a room ever seem to sound alike. I also realized on this visit that a lot of British people have speech impediments. Danny later agreed. He thinks it's unusually common, but not too pronounced. I definitely noticed lisps and shisps and Rs that became Ws.
Danny and both nearly passed out from the heat in the room, as the afternoon sun beat in through the windows, and at one point we glazed over a bit and noticed the accents and speech impediments more than anything else. Danny says I have a New York accent. I suppose I have a slight one. Danny has a rather cockney accent.
By 6 pm Speech Impediment Wednesday was over and Danny and I took the train back to Paddington. Just 20 minutes nonstop. We talked politics the entire way back. Danny is very left-wing and rages about homophobia, which is interesting since he's married to Susie. It's good to have friends in Britain, and it's good to have friends who are simpatico.
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