Day 62: Don't box me in

The girls can't seem to get enough of being in boxes - here they are trying out a undrawered chest of drawers.

Today I did some long-distance tech-support to help my Dad out of a problem that I had contributed to before the exile began. The ability to talk, hear, see and be seen across continents is quite extraordinary when I stop to think about it. The stuff of science-fiction, not just available but basically free (to those of us who already pay for a broadband internet connection anyway). However, we were both aware that we were using our computers and our internet connection to communicate. As I write this, Exile #2 is downstairs talking on a telephone handset to someone who lives nearby who has made what seemed to here to be a normal local phone call, and neither of them is probably concious of the fact that their voices are being transmitted over the internet. Another step in the advance of technology into every day life.

On my return to normal work today, one of my colleagues related a conversation with an American about the UK. So, you drive on the left, which side do you walk on the stairs? It turns out that the strange looks we had been getting were not for our dashing good looks, or our quaint accents, but for sometimes walking on the wrong side of the stairs. Have I missed something all my life? Is there a convention I never learned? I know that there is escalator etiquette, especially on the Tube, but stairs? Maybe like how far from the curb you should park, how far before a junction you should start to indicate, which lane you should turn into when turning into a one-way street, there are just rules here that have no equivalent in the UK. Keep to the right - even on the stairs.