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Scottish woman baffled at what  Americans who rented her apartment left behind

"It's An American thing." Is it?

Photo credit: Canva

A woman shocked at what she sees on the wall of her new apartment

There has been a lot of fun chatter online about how Americans are different from Europeans in many ways. The most often cited differences are that Americans are incredibly friendly (to everyone), love to carry massive bottles of water with them everywhere, and have very loud voices. There are also differences when it comes to their homes. Americans love having large refrigerators, stocking up on groceries, and buying in bulk. Europeans tend to favor regular trips to the store and have a small fridge.

Author Willow Heath of Scotland recently added another thing to the list in her viral TikTok. She explains the confusion she experienced when moving into an apartment where an American couple previously lived. “Question for all the Americans out there. I have just moved into a new place here in Scotland, and previously, this flat was lived in by an American couple,” Health said. “I showed my friend who now lives in L.A. a curious thing about this flat, and they said, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, it's an American thing.' And the thing I'm talking about is hooks.”

Heath then shared all of the hooks she found in the apartment that were not removed after the couple left.

 
 @willowtalksbooks Do Americans love hooks? #usa #uk ♬ original sound - Willow Heath, author 
 
 

Heath also noted there was a lazy Susan in the refrigerator that she had never seen before. “I've never seen this before. It's actually really cool,” she said, playing with the rotating plastic tray… “It turns around so you can get at things that are at the back so you don't have to reach all the way to the back … my friend said this is also an American thing,” she added.

Some Americans returned fire at Heath by asking why people in the UK don’t have hooks throughout their homes. “Is everything on the floor in Scotland?” one asked. “That couple was so nice to leave all their hooks for you,” another added. One American stood strong on their hook use: “American living in England, their lack of home organizing is astounding to me.”

Another American referenced the current UK versus U.S. realization that Robbie Williams, the subject of the critically acclaimed movie Better Man about a rockstar chimp, is massively popular across the pond and virtually unknown in America. “Are British people spending so much time listening to Robbie Williams they don’t know what hooks are?” a commenter joked.

One commenter, most likely in the UK, blamed the excessive number of hooks on American consumer culture. “We don't buy random stuff, so no need to hang everything, Americans hoard everything,” they noted.

It might be worth noting that even though Americans have a fervent love of wall hooks, they can't exactly take credit for the idea. That honor, as with so many timeless innovations, belongs to the ancient Egyptians. Then during the Industrial Revolution, the rise of urban cities and middle class families demand more home furnishing that nailed both form and function. Luckily that demand was able to be made with the mass production of various metal items. And now, hooks are a home staple that also reflects certain cultural aesthetics—from the minimalist design of Japanese hooks to ornate, colorful Mediterranean renditions. Scotland must have just missed the memo.

 scotland, wall hooks, living in america, home decor, cultural differences, culture A rustic style of wall hooksPhoto credit: Canva

At the end of the video, Heath shared that she wasn’t putting Americans down; she just never realized how much they like hanging things from hooks. “I'm not saying they're not useful, and I spent time in the States. I lived in upstate New York for a few months,” Heath said. “I like the U.S., I like Americans, I'm not attacking you … I just think this is an interesting cultural difference, hooks everywhere.” The good news for Heath is that nobody took the hooks down, so she may learn why Americans love them so much. As for Robbie Williams, not so much.

This article originally appeared last year

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across the pond
Democracy

Scotland announces a rent freeze and ban on evictions to address huge cost of living increases

This is what effective government looks like.

via Garry Night/Flickr

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in 2016.

Americans everywhere are feeling the pain of the cost of living increases over the past year, but we’re not the only ones. According to a report in The Washington Post, global inflation is set to reach 6.7% this year with countries all around the world feeling the pinch.

While Americans are quick to blame our own leaders for inflation woes, the problems that have led to the increase in the cost of living are global in nature. Global inflation is the result of multiple events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a downturn in China’s economy and unpredictable weather events caused by climate change.

The Washington Post also notes that worries about inflation can also lead to inflation as people begin to expect and demand higher salaries and food costs. The United States passed an Inflation Reduction Act, but economists say that the reduction in inflation “will be statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

In Scotland, the price of energy for a typical household is expected to rise by 80% from £1,971 ($2268) a year to £3,549 ($4.084). Businesses have also seen sharp increases in energy costs. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, says that the government will soon announce a program to defray the costs.

To add to that, Scotland has experienced an inflation rate of 10.1% over the past year.

Sturgeon calls the steep increase in the cost of living a “humanitarian emergency,” and so the Scottish government is treating it as such. To help its people weather the crisis, the Scottish government plans to freeze all rent increases and the price of riding ScotRail, the country’s publicly owned railway.

It will also put a moratorium on all evictions.

"Firstly, it will aim to give people security about the roof over their head this winter through a moratorium on evictions," she said, according to Sky News. "Secondly, the legislation will include measures to deliver a rent freeze."

“We will take immediate action to protect tenants in the private and social renting sectors,” Sturgeon said according to TimeOut. “The Scottish government does not have the power to stop your energy bills soaring, but we can and will take action to make sure that your rent does not rise.”

Living Rent, Scotland's tenants union, called the package a “huge win that would not have been possible without years of organizing by members.”

To help families, Scotland will also extend its free school meal programs and the Scottish Child Payment will increase from £20 to £25 a week for each child. In 2021, Scotland enacted a weekly payment to eligible families with children to help fight child poverty.

The Scottish people aren’t responsible for the global pandemic or a war in Ukraine but they are feeling its effects in a very real way. Instead of dragging its feet, the Scottish government took bold action to tackle rising prices and protect its most vulnerable citizens.

The Scottish people are living through a humanitarian crisis and its leaders have decided to treat it like one, instead of telling them, “You’re on your own.” This is what effective government looks like.

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scotland
Joy

Musical mashup at Scottish-Indian wedding is a delightful blend of cultural traditions

This works so well.

Choo Yut Shing/Flickr, Evie Fjord/Unsplash

Who knew that the dhol and the bagpipes made such a fabulous combo?

For most of human history, pretty much everyone formed families with people who lived within walking distance of where they lived. But over the millennia, advances in transportation, communication and technology have shrunk our world into a global neighborhood. Today it's not at all unusual for people from countries thousands of miles away from each other to marry, blending not only families but diverse cultures and traditions as well.

How those cultures and traditions come together can be interesting, though. Cultural clashes occasionally do happen and figuring out how to honor everyone's background when bringing together two families from vastly different places can be a challenge.

One couple came up with an utterly delightful way to do just that at their Scottish-Indian wedding, and it has everyone bopping along.

In some ways, Scotland and India are worlds apart. One is known for its cool, moist weather while the other contains 10 of the 15 hottest places on Earth. One is joked about for having bland food while the other's cuisine has been studied to figure out what makes it so flavorful. One is part of an island with a smaller population than New York City, while the other takes up a vast stretch of a continent and holds around one-seventh of the world's people. From clothing to food to religious traditions to melanin levels, Scotland and India are two very different countries.

That doesn't mean they don't make a fabulous combo, though. Wait till you hear the musical mashup that brought this Indian groom and Scottish-Indian bride into their reception:

If anything can bring people together instantaneously, it's music. Who knew that a bagpipe (traditional Scottish wind instrument) song and dhol (traditional Indian drum) would blend so well together?

The video was shared by Arun Bhopal, brother of the bride, on TikTok. People in the comments have shared how much they love how the musical traditions complemented each other.

"Absolutely LOVE this, two cultures coming together and appreciating each other," wrote one person.

"This combo, wow…didn't realize how much it works together," wrote another.

Several people said they wished they could get the song on Spotify, and Bhopal shared that it sounded even better in person. We can only imagine.

What a joyful celebration of two cultures coming together in love. More of these kinds of traditional musical mashups, please.

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Family

The controversial HPV vaccine has nearly eliminated the cervical disease in Scotland.

There’s been a lot of controversy around the safety and effectiveness of vaccines over the last decade, but a new study just put a big check mark in the plus column for the HPV vaccine.

The study involved 140,000 women and shows the vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus has been effective in dramatically decreasing cases of the cervical disease later in life. Researchers claim the vaccine, recommended to girls when they are in their early teens, has cut the pre-cancerous cells by 90 percent, nearly eliminating cases of pre-cancer since they implemented the new vaccination program in 2008.

But that’s not the most interesting factor. This new research also found that being vaccinated at a younger age was associated with increased effectiveness.

And there’s good news for parents who’ve chosen not to vaccinate their kids as well.

Unvaccinated women also showed a reduction of cervical cancer, likely due to the fewer HPV cases in general thanks to the increase in those who had been vaccinated.

Researchers hope these findings will help ramp up cervical cancer prevention programs around the world, and inspire more families to get their young women vaccinated so that cervical cancer can be eliminated once and for all.

"The main message is that the vaccine works,” Dr Kevin Pollock, of Glasgow Caledonian University, explained to the BBC. “As long as the high uptake continues, the virus has got nowhere to go and it is being eliminated.”

Unfortunately, many parents are still morally against the vaccine, fearing it encourages sex at a young age.

It might seem like a no-brainer to get your child an HPV vaccine, however, historically there has been some controversy around it, especially with regard to administering it to younger women.

Some worry that it encourages their children to be prematurely sexually active. Others simply don’t believe in vaccinations in general. What's more, if parents refuse to allow their child to be vaccinated, and that child then waits until they’re legally old enough to get it themselves, it likely won’t be nearly as effective. An individual needs to receive the vaccine before they become sexually active — not after — in order for it to do its job. If they wait until they’re 18, there’s a much higher chance that they’ll already be sexually active, thereby negativing the vaccine’s effectiveness.

Just because teens have access to things like condoms, birth control pills and vaccines that have to do with their reproductive health doesn’t mean they are going to have sex. However, as this study shows, such vaccines could save them from contracting a life-altering and potentially deadly disease. At the end of all the arguments, isn’t protecting your child’s long-term health the most important thing?

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