I’ve said before that I like the choice and variety of US music radio stations, however I have been increasingly listening to National Public Radio (the closest we have here to Radio 4). It is on in my car much of the time and I play it at home. (Talk radio is no good for a radio alarm though – that’s set to loud rock). In any case it really is a source of interesting and thought provoking content. Its business model is unusual – it describes itself as “a privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization”. That essentially means that it is funded by donations.

Actually I couldn’t care less how it is funded MOST of the time but one week every quarter they run fundraising drives which are INCREDIBLY annoying. During that week all that great programming is greatly reduced and replaced with the DJs and reporters asking for money. For a whole week!

All those experienced radio reporters are reduced to talking about how fantastic the content is and drumming up more donations – so after every piece there’s a section along the lines of:

DJ 1: “Well I had no idea that there were so many things you could do with paper doilies/ people’s bogies/ old copies of Newsweek….that highly informative interview has completely changed my life.”

DJ 2 “Yes it is only on NPR that you get that depth of reporting into these valuable subjects. Now everyone can have friends as they have something interesting to talk about. Please give us more money or we’ll all be out of jobs.”

About as subtle as a poke in the eye and more annoying.

Now they talk about a combined audience of 26.4 million listeners across all the NPR stations. That’s a lot by my count – and many of them broken down into some useful niches. So how about a bit of advertising to reduce the pain each time around? Please?

I bet you are wondering – did I donate? Not during the fundraising drive but I like what they do so I’ll give them some cash another time. I’ll just hope they get on the advertising bandwagon pronto.

Every day I seem to find new examples of how very different the Brits and the yanks are. There’s one area where they are sadly very much the same – the handshake.  I checked on Google. There are 2, 690,000 results on “how to: handshake” and yet both nations continue make a complete Horlicks of it. Maybe it is the confusing instructions relating to “pumping to convey sincerity” that confused matters…

Most likely you’ll be offered a limp, damp thing that is jiggled loosely next to yours. This is generally a pretty pointless experience. Then there are those who have heard that a “firm” handshake is important. They apparently interpret this as a grip strength exercise and literally squeeze your proffered extremity until the bones creak.

I wear a largish ring on my right hand – the hand that was recently subjected to the latter indignity. A sharp pain accompanied the alleged shake which left an indentation of the ring in the two neighbouring fingers. That’s not a handshake – that’s an assault. I imagine that this is some sort of Napoleon complex style over-compensation – the giver of the handshake was definitely the sort that has sand kicked in his face.

Both nations should look to the Germans  who seem to have the hang of it. In the meantime I think I’ve got two options: – 1) wear a sling at all times or 2) go for the preemptive strike and crush to save my own metatarsals.

When you live in the UK, there are some things that you can depend on: for example that it will most likely be raining or that a London cabby will take you wherever you need to go without relying on a sat nav or hastily made mobile phone calls. I’ve really missed the “Knowledge” in many US towns.

Another British institution are those magnificent chaps from the RAC and AA – who have cheerfully helped me out during many car emergencies over the years. Every time they have showed up, they have worked hard to fix the problem.  For a time while I was part of a two Rover family I was on first name terms with some of the local chaps…(we had his and hers matching oil slicks in the car park).

I imagined that the AAA in the US would provide the same exemplary service. The other night I found that this is very much not the case:

Having returned to fragrant Newark station at around 11.30pm after a day’s shopping in Manhattan, the Beemer’s windscreen wipers packed up – in the middle of one of Newark’s infinite number of dodgy areas and in the driving rain. Joy. When a quick fix looked out of the question (tried the fuses etc), calling the AAA seemed the best option – they’d send an expert to fix the problem – right?

Wrong. After 40 (yes that’s forty) minutes on hold a professionally polite lady took all the usual details. You know the drill: my membership, the car and its location. All good so far but when I explained the problem she said:”Ok we’ll send a tow truck for you.”

Me: Can’t you just send someone to fix the problem?

AAA: we change wheels, do jumpstarts on the spot or bring petrol but for anything else we tow.

Me: It’s a Saturday night. Where would you tow us to?

AAA: Anywhere you like. It costs $5 per mile.

Me: boggle, yip, wibble, etc

So we fixed the problem another way by staying in the lovely Newark Hilton and driving back in the morning when it had stopped raining.

So now I know not to call them with anything difficult. And I know that I should just fix the easy stuff myself too – even I can change a wheel in under 40 mins. Grrrrrr