Back in the USA

Where cars are big, roads are big, houses are big. The home of the freeway, which is a wonderful word - a typically American word. Free. The Motorways imply the right to drive, and probably to drive - motor - better than Americans do, or at least more mindfully, but that don't say freedom. In America, a car is freedom, even though financially it's a ball and chain. Americans want to go where we want when we want. In that sense, America is big; we imagine big.

But one of the things we haven't imagined is edible labels. Bread in England comes with edible labels baked right into the crust to certify that the bread is organic. So when you order a sandwich on organic bread - and every pub has organic bread - you know you are getting what was promised. Go into any English supermarket and the labels on the food not only tell you what it is, but where it came from, which farm produced it and whether it meets organic standards. That way, you can make an informed choice with your dollar - or pound - whether to buy local or not. Whether fruit from Holland is preferable to fruit from Algeria. So while there are a great many things in England that don't seem to make much sense - like store opening and closing hours that bar ordinary working people from actually shopping - it is possible to know exactly where your food comes from. Try that in the USA!