I tend to stay pretty basic on pizza toppings. My feeling is that the crust, sauce, and cheese ought to be good enough to be eaten on their own, without the need for much embelishment. Most of the restaurants I've seen with the most elaborate pizza toppings (like 6 or 7 things on each pie) have had absolutely terrible crust and sauce.

And I'm a little stunned there would be anyone American who does not know who Dick Van Dyke is, but Too Much Television rears its ugly head again.

I don't think I ever watched the Dick Van Dyke Show until a few years ago. We didn't get TV Land, and it wasn't syndicated much anywhere else. I'd heard of it because it's a thing that people have heard of, and I knew that it had Mary Tyler Moore, but I'd never actually watched it.

I tend to stay pretty basic on pizza toppings. My feeling is that the crust, sauce, and cheese ought to be good enough to be eaten on their own, without the need for much embelishment.

I'm pretty much willing to try any topping (well, other than live tomatoes, but that's because they're so disgusting to me they can't deserve the name of food), but one at a time. I also think we have way less options than anywhere else, at least currently.

It's somewhat strange for me that you have to specify 'vegan' pizza - in Israel, because of 'kosher' demands, it's practically obvious that the toppings are vegan (otherwise they won't abide the 'kosher' rules when combined with the cheese).

Not all places are 'kosher', of course (in fact, the majority isn't), but I think the default option in the vegan one, even in the non-kosher places.

But most pizza isn't vegan, Nilly, (unless I'm misunderstanding you) because the cheese makes it dairy. Most pizza in Israel is vegetarian.

There was a restaurant in Charlottesville where you could get a fried egg on a Hamburger.

They will roll their eyes and exclaim, "Oh that awful Cockney accent!" It's always the first thing they say.

Jesus, yes. t shudders. Although, growing up in Yorkshire, I thought that was what Londoners must sound like, since I encountered Mary Poppins long before I encountered any actual Cockernees.

wrod to the robin thing - American robins are these big old ugly normalbirdshaped birds. t /offensiveness British robins are gorgeous, cute, distinctive and did I mention gorgeous? Little tiny wee balls of feathers with their crimson chests and cute wee beaks. Bless.

Also, whilst on the subject of curmudgeonly anti-incorporation-of-US-isms-into-putatively-English-things - Disney's version of Winnie the Pooh. (a) Get off! Get off! You bastards! And more specifically (b) WHAT is that digging thingy that is supposed to help get Pooh out of Rabbit's Howse in the Disney version? Eh? What is it?

deep breaths.

Sorry, I'm being baglike and irrational. Go Team USA, with all the nice-stuff-having, and the Jossy goodness.

Clearly this is some England in an alternate dimension, perhaps where it's a few miles offshore of Massachusetts.

It is the same America as in the Borrowers movie, which has skunks and porcupines. Not hedgehogs, porcupines. I was quite cross.

It is the same America as in the Borrowers movie, which has skunks and porcupines. Not hedgehogs, porcupines. I was quite cross.

I imagine the porcupines were a bit skeeved too, to discover they hadn't managed to shake the skunks in the journey.

England had skunks in the live-action 101 Dalmatians, as well.

I reserve my Mary Poppins- ire for the American robin that shows up singing at one point. Clearly this is some England in an alternate dimension, perhaps where it's a few miles offshore of Massachusetts.

Wow. So how do you know it's spring, without the red red robins a-bob-bob-bobbing along?

But those British robins are wicked cute. In fact, robin seems too plain a name for them. And if a UK immigrant named the American bird, it must have been before the widespread introduction of eyeglasses.

And if a UK immigrant named the American bird, it must have been before the widespread introduction of eyeglasses.

Heh. But, hey - York and New York - pretty gosh darned dissimilar. It's that whole so-bloody-homesick thing, I think.

Speaking of fauna in exotic countries, does the UK have squirrels? I see British-sounding tourists oohing and aahing over the tree rats in NY sometimes. But maybe they're not really British.

And compared to the Japanese tourists in Harvard Yard, who would go into high-pitched rhapsodies of cuteness overload over the tree rats, they were pretty sedate. But I'm still wondering.