New Jersey and The Roland Effect

Moving to New Jersey has obviously had devastating effects. Our arrival coincided with The Garden State losing it's place as richest U.S. State.

Back in 2005, the median household income of New Jersey was higher than any of the other fifty states, but Tina and my arrival apparently nudged that average down. Now we've been overtaken by Maryland, where the median household income is $65,144 a year (674 dollars more than in New Jersey.)

It highlights an interesting disparity in American lives. If you live in Mississippi, the median household income is a mere $34,473 - almost half what it is up here in the Tri-State.

It's another reminder that America is a big place - and the fifty individual states are very much like their own countries, with customs, traditions and economies all of their own. Life in Mississippi must be more affordable than in New Jersey, because it would be tough to support a household on just $35,000 here in New Brunswick.

That being said, I am constantly reminding myself about The American Experience as compared to life back in blighty. In the UK, Tina and I had reasonable incomes and jobs and we barely scraped by. Every single month, we'd see more money trickle out of our bank account than came in. Here in America, even with the poorly paid temp jobs we'd been working while we got settled in, our bank account remained fairly healthy.

It's cheaper to live in America, plain and simple. Despite all the cars and the roads and the apparent crime (luckily we haven't encountered any so far) the quality of life in America is clearly better because two working people can afford to live here. In England, despite never going out, never spending money unnecessarily, we couldn't. We were teetering on the edge of a big black hole and thank goodness we left when we did - before it swallowed us whole.

A lot of fuss is made about the plight of the working Joe in the USA. From my own experiences, I have come to realise that the situation's far worse in England. It's the people who can afford it least who get squeezed the most and the gap between rich and poor is getting more and more insurmountable every day.

Here in America, there's the American Dream. Whether that's riches and glory - or just a white picket fence and a Bengal leopard cat - you get far more opportunity to achieve your dreams in America than you do back home.

Richest and Poorest states of the Union

The British are Coming

I like to think Tina and I have cleverly timed our triumphant return to America. It seems the States are going through another one of their regular 'Brit Love' phases.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on television, currently stuffed with British celebrities and British shows roughly shoehorned into American formats.

Leading the British resurgence is a man of whom I'm an enormous fan. Hugh Laurie.

Hugh Laurie is a comedy legend in England. Teamed up with Cambridge pal Stephen Fry, he split the nation's sides as Bertie Wooster, co-hosted the hilarious A Bit of Fry and Laurie and was the secret highlight of Blackadder as gormless George. He's also made a name for himself in Hollywood movies and wrote the fantastic adventure novel The Gun Seller.

But it was his portrayal of grouchy super-doc Gregory House that really won him the hearts of the American television audience. Laurie plays the chief of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Every week, he and his team of doctors figure out increasingly mysterious medical conditions.

It's like an episode of CSI, except it's a disease or disorder than needs to be unmasked at the episode's climax, rather than a criminal. Hugh Laurie is consistently brilliant - even if his American accent isn't. He won a Golden Globe for House in 2006.

Another regular British face on American television is Parminder Nagra, star of the 2002 movie Bend it like Beckham. She features in popular American hospital drama ER as Anglo-Indian medical intern Neela Rasgotra. Originally meant to be an American character, ER producer John Wells was so impressed by Nagra that he adapted Neela's role to suit Nagra - and let her keep her British accent.

When I lived in New York, British stand up comedian Eddie Izzard had already earned himself a pretty devoted following. His rambling comedy and 'executive transvestite' style of dress appealed to stand up audiences in Manhattan. Minor roles in Hollwood blockbusters like The Avengers and Ocean's Twelve earned him credits in the movie industry.

Izzard's hard work paid off. In January of this year, FOX television announced the production of a new show starring Izzard and fellow Brit superstar Minnie Driver. The Riches is a drama series following Izzard and Driver's gypsy characters as they assume the identities of a dead American family and attempt to settle into suburbia.

Izzard admits adapting his personality to suit conservative American audiences took some effort. He's more likely to be seen wearing a natty suit these days than the high heels and lipstick British audiences are familiar with.

His co-star, Bedales educated Minnie Driver, has already rooted herself firmly into the American entertainment industry. Her flawless American accent served her brilliantly in hit movies like Grosse Pointe Blank and she shone on the small screen when she cropped up in hit comedy Will and Grace. The resurgence in 'Brit Love' can only help her popularity.

Small Screen. Big Personalities.

It's not just British movie stars who are making it big in America. On the small screen, an increasing number of British TV shows are finding popularity with American audiences.

Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah from TV's What Not to Wear, pop up often on Oprah Winfrey's television show. Kim and Aggie, who root through disgusting residences in How Clean is your House, have made the jaunt across the Atlantic too. Nanny 911, the American version of Little Angels, sees celebrity British nannies attempt to sort out truculent toddlers, while boring British show Scrapheap Challenge really found it's feet when reworked for gung-ho American audiences as Junkyard Wars.

What's remarkable about these exports is not that American audiences enjoy them. It's that the Americans haven't just hijacked the show's format. They've also recruited the stars. Scrapheap Challenge's Robert Llewellyn, best known as Kryten from Red Dwarf, baffles the yanks with his bizarre antics, while Jo Frost, the aptly named nanny from British export Supernanny, terrifies kids into obedience with her icy stares and shelf like bosom.

It seems the British accent means something in America - and the format doesn't quite work without that English element.

The two poster children for America's love affair with Brits must be polished record producer Simon Cowell, who's snide asides have made American Idol compelling viewing for the last five years, and Gordon Ramsey, who's abusive kitchen behaviour in The F Word has riveted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Whatever you think of these shows or personalities, one thing is clear. At the moment, in America, Brit is It. Hopefully that's something that will help me find my feet when I arrive.