Moving to Pittsburgh

I want to live in a cheap cheap town,
Silicon Valley just gets me down -
Look at your rent with a big big frown
Look at the hills as they all turn brown!

***

So Maryl and I are moving to Pittsburgh. Being in California has changed both of our lives (after all, we met here!) but I like the effects of rain too much to become a true Californian. The land grows green but only briefly, the grass gets prickly, and I could never buy into the gold rush to bloom before things dry up again.

It is a strange time - during the past couple of years, our agressive foreign policies have antagonized the world, and I have met so many thoughtful, funny, gently ironic and downright lovely Americans that I want to be one of them. So we're settling in Pittsburgh, named after the statesman who did so much to ensure that English would be spoken in New Mexico as well as New England, and scene of George Washington's partriotic training in service to George III (and to the Ohio Land Company, part-owned by Washington's big brother).

So we're bucking the trend and going to an old city languishing in post-industrial grandeur, eclipsed for decades by less grinding and more glittering prosperity. A lad from West Yorkshire should fit in right well!