"If you had to go back to America now, you have seen the most English thing," whispered the German mother of one of B's friends. We were sitting in the church hall watching the pantomime. I thought pantos were a Christmas thing, but I am still seeing ads for assorted productions featuring assorted lower-tier celebrities. This one, as the organizers hastened to explain to the audience, was very much an community endeavor put on for charity. I'd gone for the local option over one of the pricier professional productions, our holiday entertainment budget needing to stretch over a much longer period in England than it would at home, and this turned out to be probably the best decision I've made since we've been here.

The plot was a sequel to Cinderella. I need to add some context here, which is that the church and our kids' school where this function was held is about a mile from Noel and Liam Gallagher's childhood home, and they went to high school across the street. The evil stepbrothers oozed onstage in bucket hats and aviator sunglasses to wild applause. We AWWWED and BOOOED as prompted by video screens. I probably understood why people were laughing (so hard, I heard snorts) maybe 70% of the time and recognized half of the pop songs inserted at random moments. There were no references to memes, pop culture of the last decade, or current events. Lines were fed by a prompter. The dame abandoned her sparkly corset after intermission. Notes were not quite hit. Cinderella had an unexplained American accent which was pretty good in a Mid-Atlantic way, avoiding the pitfall of seesawing between cowboy and 1920s Brooklyn newsboy. Everyone on stage looked like they were having the time of their lives.

While I was on line at the bar during the interval, I heard the guy who played the Noel equivalent talking to his friends about his costume. "The sad thing is, this is just what I used to look like," he said. The parish priest was in the audience, he let me buy him a sparkling water. Some of the cast have been in the company since they formed 40 years ago. They closed with She's Electric, and I was electric too.

Saturday we went to Liverpool to see the Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the Walker Gallery. That turned out to be quite small, but the rest of the collection, mostly British art, was pretty cool. Extensive play room for kids, although it was only open at periodic intervals. Lunch at Akshaya Picture Drome, recommended by the Desi Pubs guide.

On Sunday, because we had not been sufficiently culturally immersed yet, we went with the same friend and his mother to his rugby practice. N was too old to join the little kids' practice so he spent most of his time in the clubhouse with a book. I got him a hot chocolate from the snack bar and noted that other offerings included Bovril, which is meat extract tea, and haggis left over from the Burns Night party. Cultural exchange did not extend to sampling either of these items.

In the afternoon, N had his first confession. He sat in a pew with the priest (see above) for a few minutes while B worked on an activity sheet, looking for names of apostles in the word search. It didn't take very long so his powers of condensing must be considerable. Later, took inspiration from one of the songs in the panto and had a chippy tea.