Welcome one and all. I am your humble Britican beginning my weekly round up of things British, American and in between. But before I bore you with my opinion on Hillary (yuck), Obama (hmm), McCain (I’m reserving judgement for now), Brown (double yuck), and Cameron (please Lord, anything but Brown), let’s talk about Calliope for a bit.

 I’m excited about our new little magazine. I want it to encourage writers of all ages, experience levels, and confidence levels. I want it to be a place of quality writing and fresh ideas. The entries we got this month for our debut edition have been varied and inspiring, and I hope you all enjoy reading them. My particular favourite was Luigi Marchini’s poem Gnocchi and Barolo – a beautiful taste of Italian family life.

 My cause of the week: While less of a cause and more of a government proposal, the

William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act was drawn up last year to combat white slavery. I’m Calliope’s resident feminist, as anyone who has checked out my blog nuggetoftruth will know, and the issues of sex trafficking, pornography and the sexualizing of underage girls are all big concerns of mine. However I’m not interested in writing over-generalized rants about men. Fear not, I’m not a man-hating, leg-hair growing, bra-burning Feminist! I’m a feminist with a lower case f. 

 What I love about America: The television shows. Seriously. Some of the one-hour dramas we can watch for free right now are better than the rubbish we pay £8 (that’s $16 to our American readers – yes, that’s how much we’re scandalously overcharged here in Britain) to see in the cinema. At the moment my favourite is Supernatural - I’ve been developing something of an obsession with the DVDs. It’s a show that just keeps getting better with each season. The weekly one-hour ‘movie’ experience about two demon-hunting brothers is in its third season and it’s not slowing down or getting bogged down with extra characters we don’t care about but is staying true to itself. Watch it!

 What I love about Britain: I must confess that I’m too depressed about the state of my birth country to find much to love about. I’d like to say the only way is up, but unfortunately I think we’re going to continue spiralling down this path of incompetence, apathy, increasing government control and decreasing citizens’ rights. However we do still have the local British tea-shop in most towns, which kind of makes up for all the infuriating chipping away at British greatness that has been going on. The best way to experience these quaint tea rooms is to ditch London, head to a small country town (preferably lined with thatched roof cottages) and find a little place with rose coloured table cloths covering every table. Order tea for two and a slice of Victoria sponge cake and be glad that something good remains in this country; before tea is banned for import ‘footprints’ and cake becomes subject to fat-tax.

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