Boston, Massachusetts

When I was little, my mom's brother lived with his Irish wife and my four cousins in an eighteenth century house in Hingham outside Boston. We'd go there for Thanksgiving and I was impressed and intimidated by their east coast sophistication and the gourmet ingredients in the turkey stuffing.

We went to Cape Cod for our summer holidays and would visit the family graveyards in East Dennis. I was frightened by the seventeenth century headstones and fascinated by the great great grandmother who had three husbands. I have a necklace and earrings of hers.

I took all my old jewellery to the assessment department of the Victoria and Albert museum once, and the senior curator laid Ethelinda's necklace over his knee and kept stroking it. "This is the best, so American and so complex." Whatever that means.

One of my sisters moved to Boston after finishing university. She lived there for a few years, before marrying a BU guy and moving to California. I visited her there, followed the Freedom Trail, ate at Legal Seafood, partied a bit, but didn't really learn my way around.

Since then I've done qualitative focus groups there. You take a cab from the airport to an anonymous facility, chat to people with that accent, then fly off to the next fieldwork location. It is not a great way to get to know a place.

I once was hired by an advertising agency in Atlanta to develop a strategy for a mineral water from Boston. I could see the ads in my mind, Paul Revere dashing down the street, the battles of Lexington and Concord, "the water that inspired a revolution". I'd been living in England quite some time at that stage so then wondered if the nineteenth century wouldn't have more "healthy" values, Walden Pond, Louisa May Alcott and the literature scene indicating intellectual excellence.

The conventions of mineral water advertising are you're supposed to highlight the source. The source's attributes enhance the product. I had two positionings and started to do some research. That's when I discovered that a whole rethink was required. My sister suggested a further positioning about the age of mineral springs which did brilliantly in research and that won my agency the business.

The Boston radio station WRKO can be listened to or "streamed" over the internet. I've listened to the 'new media' talk show "Pundit Review" a few times. The two guys who broadcast, Kevin and Gregg, have interviewed some really interesting people. Their interviews are archived so you can go to their website and listen to their past interviews with famous bloggers like: Michelle Malkin, Michael Yon, Michael Medved, 'Blackfive', Hugh Hewitt, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, Scott Johnson of Powerline and Ann Althouse, archived here.

I "called in" yesterday because I wanted to ask the two guys, who are real characters, what blogs they recommend. I got a bit caught out when they asked me a question about British media. What have I learned? Preparation would have helped. It was a logical follow on question. I'm not a sound bite kind of a girl. Well not yet.