Aimee Howarth brings you an interview with The Yorker directors on the final day of the advent articles
Aimee Howarth speaks to YUSU's sabbatical officers about their Christmas Day routine for day 17 of the advent calendar
For the final time this term, Vicky Morris updates you on this weeks film news
50 years after the publication of 'James and the Giant Peach', the works of Roald Dahl continue to celebrate success.
Tourists certainly do not gravitate towards Texas. However, those who do brave its provincial, western qualities are hypnotised by its simplistic southern charm.
Images of the ol’ wild west tend to create misconceptions of what modern day Texas is like. People immediately associate an entire state with cacti, cowboys and tumbleweed; however, this antiquated outlook is juxtaposed with Texas’s contemporary character.
Although some parts of Texas, such as Houston and Austin, exhibit a trendy, nouveau atmosphere, some things in the deep south never change. Understanding an accent that does not resemble a Texas drawl is one of them.
Speaking with a British accent in a local steak house is like speaking a foreign language. Watching large populations of Scottish expats living in Houston (because of oil-related business) transform their identifiable Aberdeenshire accents into a half-hearted southern twang so they can order off of the menu is a sight to see!
Rodeo Houston, the world's largest livestock exhibition and rodeo event, attracts an average of two million guests annually.
America’s fourth largest city and home to the Astros, Rockets and most notably George Bush Senior, Houston attracts plenty of loyal Texans from around the state to enjoy everything people love about Texas.
Rodeo Houston, the world's largest livestock exhibition and rodeo event, attracts an average of two million guests annually. Houstonians proudly host the event that encompasses everything from Beyonce to bull-riding; a symbolic anachronism of the old wild west.
The Friday prior to the first rodeo show of the year is known city-wide as ‘Go Texan Day’, during which inhabitants of Houston are encouraged to go head to toe clad in good ole western attire: cowboy boots, oversized belt buckles, plaid flannel shirt, topped off with the iconic cowboy hat. The more Texan flags emblazoned on clothing, the better.
For the more chic and less traditional inhabitants of Houston who have veered away from the rustic lifestyle of cattle herding, Houston has a handful of trendy pastimes. The colossal malls are a haven for consumer-driven city shoppers. When people say "everything's bigger in Texas", they mean it; within Houston’s luxury mall, The Galleria, is an Olympic-sized ice-skating rink, 15 restaurants and a hotel for those dedicated shoppers who need an extra day or two to procure whatever consumer goods they desire. Luxury boutiques such as Chanel, Fendi and Valentino fulfill every shopper's dream...especially when the dollar is weak.
If you ever find yourself within this immense metropolitan city it might be worth hiring a car. Houston is America’s second ‘fattest’ city, so walking around would win you plenty of strange looks and confused gazes; in other words walking is not an option. Texans take pride in their cars, although perhaps the word ‘car’ is an understatement; gargantuan, gas guzzling monsters would be a more appropriate term for the vehicles driven by a majority of Texans.
The English norm is to drive a practical, preferable hybrid compact car; on the other hand, in Texas, driving anything other than a 6.2 L V8 engine will not go down well. Built to accommodate these monumental mechanisms of transportation is the Interstate-10, a 16 lane highway that goes straight through the city.
Follow I-10 West before veering North for several hours and you hit Austin, a microcosmic bubble of liberal-minded intellectuals set within a vast state of southern conservatives. Austin is home to one of America’s largest universities, the University of Texas (UT), whose student population exceeds 50,000.
The university’s "school spirit" is unprecedented, so much so that any person walking around campus without an orange (university colour) t-shirt with a cow's head (university symbol) on it will be subject to abusive comments. If you take one step further and wear the colour red (UT’s rival university colour) around campus, you might be turned into a Texas style barbecue spit-roast.
Texans take their university spirit very seriously, especially when it comes to Longhorn (name of UT’s ‘football’ team) sports. Just to put things into perspective, the Texas Memorial Stadium, home to the UT Longhorns, sits in the centre of campus with a capacity of 98,000 people. To think English football fans consider themselves dedicated when their national stadium, Wembley, only fits 90,000. Talk about university spirit - can you imagine a 90,000 person stadium constructed in honor of York sports?
Next time you plan a spontaneous road trip across the rugged American terrain don’t overlook the cowboy-inhabited, Rodeo-hosting, George Bush-loving, trendy-at-times comforts of Texas's southern hospitality. Substituting your Fiat for a Ford F-350 and weaving through eight lanes of traffic will no doubt be an exhilirating near death experience. It only takes one visit never to doubt that everything is truly bigger in Texas Y’all.
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