Dumbing Down

An American reader tells me my blog is too complicated for her friends to understand, and that I need to dumb it down.

"Don't tell me!" said I, smugly, "it's the irony and the cultural allusions right? Too much irony and too many cultural allusions." She told me no one likes a smartass, and did I imagine that The Simpsons was made in America solely for the benefit of Brits? Sometimes I feel very Old Europe.

I asked her to explain

Well, for one thing, she told me, you should start a story at the beginning and then go on to the middle before getting to the end. And stick to the subject; quit wondering off. And don't mention Tesco so often. Or Blue Peter. And sort out those long sentences and what's the 'lower remove' did you make that up? And, omigod, would you please, please just finish things off properly and not leave them dangling: I mean, dude, did you get to see the semi-final or not?

Perhaps I should have explained: my friend is a New Yorker. They don't talk like that in Colorado. No siree, Bob mcDandy they don't.

Actually I like New York - it's just like London. Only with more weather; and 40watt lightbulbs, and it has never palled that one of the perks of my indescribable job is that I regularly get to visit London's twin city.

Mind you, trips to mirrror-world are less rewarding since old Forbes sold his Fabergé egg collection in 2004 - nine eggs he had along with toy soldiers, and old monopoly sets, in a tiny dark gallery on 5th avenue where sometimes I'd be the only visitor, marvelling over painstaking exquisitry.

However, while Manhattan may have lost its Forbes' eggs I can still recommend it, as it's the venue for some fine margaritas; indeed perhaps the perfect margarita can be found in Dos Caminos, where they have 120 brands of Tequila and a basement full of Mexican wetbacks hand-squeezing the limes. And don't miss the weirdly unpromising but surprisingly excellent blood orange margarita in the louche and low, chic and charming, bad and baleful, Morgans Bar.


"So do you think?", I asked my friend, absently, for one part of my mind was back in that dim-dark bar, struggling to double the tax in my tequilia-swimming head, "So, do you think that if I DID dumb down my blog, would I get more comments?"