I’m flying to the UK today, so blogging will be erratic for the next two weeks. What better time to recommend a few of my favorite reads?

For some excellent –if caustic– comment give Heather Armstrong a try at Dooce. She just won four awards at this years Bloggies and is one of the best bloggers I have ever read.

For Brit wit of the highest caliber (I know, I know, “it’s calibRE”, but I’m still in NY — as of tomorrow I revert back to “RE”) try Blognor Regis.

Complete Tosh and Clive Davis are both entertaining and extremely informative (this isn’t meant to be a hard sell — try them, I guarantee you will go back for more).

I don’t neccessarily agree with what they say, but I do enjoy Biased BBC.

I do agree with and I thoroughly enjoy my local blog Daily Heights.

And I think much more attention should be paid to my blogging friend Anguswit.

That should be more than enough to be going on with, except to say that I think blogging has reached an all-time low here and here, with two discussions on how long an adult can survive in unarmed combat with a roomful of five year olds.

So there I am, happily typing away when I hear a clip-clopping outside the window. It’s only a bloody cowboy riding down the street.

But first…

Salford 12 – 30 Leeds Rhinos. Again this was not an easy game for Leeds. Salford were unable to put out a full side due to injuries. I did not see this game but the reports suggest that they gave Leeds a hard time in a somewhat scrappy affair in which Leeds did not show their usual clinical finishing. Leeds were without McKenna and Ellis as well as the long term injured Diskin and McGuire. Nevertheless they had sufficient strength in depth in their squad to put out a team that should have been capable of matching the strongest in the league.

On Thursday, Leeds are at Odsal to take on the old enemy, the Bradford Bulls who now seem to be coming back to their old form. I did see their match with Hull who themselves are a very good side and although Hull did match them try for try the Bulls seem to have more of the possession and Deacon’s superior goal-kicking gave them the victory. They have now won three games in a row and the fact that they are playing on home ground will give them a slight advantage. Leeds for their part, when playing at their best look to be the superior side. They seem to have a more controlled defensive set-up and when under pressure appear to be able to strike back from any part of the ground like the St Helens sides of recent years. The game may depend on which team can produce their best form on the night or which goal kicker can produce the better form. Personally I expect Leeds to produce top form for this game and win convincingly. But then I could be wrong.

Talking about St Helens they do seem to be the form team at the moment. Having been beaten by Leeds in the second game of the season, they have since been unbeaten, with each game showing an improvement in form. On Saturday, playing at home, they thrashed Wakefield by 64 points to 16. I saw the first half and though for twenty minutes Wakefield did seem to be matching them, it was clear that St Helens were faster all over the field. Finally the Wakefield defence collapsed and the Saints proceeded to tear them apart.

If tomorrow Leeds were to play Saints and each showed the form they exhibited at the weekend, then I feel that Leeds would have lost their unbeaten record. Vinnie Anderson, the New Zealand international, has at last been able to show what a fine signing he is, Cunningham is back to top form and centre Jamie Lyons has struck up an outstanding partnership with winger Darren Albert. If they can do things like this on the soft grounds of winter, what will they do when summer brings the hard grounds? I think that this season is going to be an even contest between Leeds and St Helens. On Friday they travel to Wigan. It should be a blinder.

Sometimes stories are spot on. And this one in the City section of the New York Times, is just such a story. Not only is it well written and highly entertaining but I could have featured in it because it’s all about the Brit invasion of brownstone Brooklyn:

It’s not just the cacophony of British accents, it’s the creeping growth of Brit establishments. Bars have mutated into pubs, with darts, microbrews, trivia competitions and even cheese-and-onion-flavored crisps. Fish-and-chip shops do booming business, and food products (American friends might dispute the term) like Marmite and spotted dick are available in local bodegas and supermarkets.

Not to mention the ubiquitous Mini Cooper, without which no Brooklyn street corner is complete, smugly tucked into a space an American automobile could not hope to occupy. (It’s no coincidence the Park Slope Zip code has one of the country’s highest rates of Mini Cooper ownership.) Sometimes, as you walk down brownstone Brooklyn’s streets, it’s hard not to feel that Austin Powers is about to come leaping out into one of his “Swinging London” frenzies.

I live in Prospect Heights, a stone’s throw (literally) from the aforementioned Park Slope, and I have to hold my hands up and admit that there are tons of us. We’re swamping the place. Before long there’ll be no more African/Japanese/Chinese/Greek/Polish/Russian/Turkish/Thai/Mexican/American Americans left here. Just a load of Brits serviced by fish and chip shops, pubs and the occasional curry and kebab house.

The New York Times story captures everything–except one phenomenon I would have liked to see explored further: how friendly we Brits are to each other. Yes, I have British friends in New York. But there have been many occasions, in shops or in the post office, when I have heard a British accent and suddenly…well, become British. Either we make eye contact and look away or we pretend not to notice each other at all — as though it was completely normally that somebody who sounds like they’re from Wigan is standing next to me in a post office in Park Slope. But one thing we definitely DO NOT DO, is acknowledge each other’s Britishness, strike up a conversation: “Oh, you’re from Sheffield are you? What are you doing here?” (etc.)

And I often wonder, is this a British trait? Do Australians, when they hear a fellow countryman’s accent in a local store, strike up a conversation or get excited that they have perhaps found a kindered spirit? Do British (and here, I thnk I mean English) people ignore each other because it’s just what we do? Or is it because there are so many of us that seeing/hearing each other has ceased to be a novelty?

Or is it because, unlike most places in the world, Brooklyn, New York, does not feel like abroad (to Brits). It feels like home. And you certainly wouldn’t turn to someone in a kebab shop in Leeds and say, “Hi. What are you doing here?” Or you might end up in Leeds General Infirmary.

Any word freaks out there may be interested to know that I have a story in today’s Washington Post called How to Win at Scrabble — well, improve your score at least. The link to the story is here. (Registration is required but worth it, I promise.)

And sticking with the subject of Scrabble here’s an animation celebrating the joys of the triple triple. (Hat tip: Macboy.)