Expatriates Solve ‘Cats Eyes’ Mystery

After puzzlement was expressed here over an English sign that said “Cats Eyes Removed for 1 1/2 Miles,” I heard from half the British expatriates in California.

The sign did not denote the presence of a mad scientist in the neighborhood, I was told, but the absence of reflector dots down the center of the road (probably removed during construction).

“At a distance, they create the same appearance as lights reflecting in a cat’s eyes,” wrote Arthur Gimson of Redondo Beach, “and are of tremendous help while navigating narrow, winding country roads.”

“Cats eyes” are one of many English phrases that seem foreign on this side of the Atlantic.

British expat Malcolm Reeve of Encino recalled the strange look he got here “when I remarked to a colleague that I preferred wearing a jumper to work rather than a shirt and tie.” Reeve’s wife then explained to him “that a jumper in L.A. is some sort of a dress--not a sweater.”

ENGLISH LESSON (CONT.): Jan Franklin Jackson said one of her favorite country road signs in England warned: “Hounds Gentlemen Please.” In this case, hounds actually referred to hounds. It was an appeal to drive carefully because fox hunts were held in the area.

Gimson of Redondo Beach said that “while living in the UK from 1988 to 1990, my California-born wife kept a notebook of interestingly different road signs. Her two favorites were ‘Loose Chippings,’ for a warning against the perils of freshly installed gravel, and ‘No fly tipping,’ which advised that dumping of rubbish was not permitted.”

Finally, Father Tom Elewaut of St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria pointed out that “what we call speed bumps, the English call sleeping policemen.”

STAR-CROSSED: Back in America, Roy Kamen of Covina found an intersection in Burbank that seemed to pay tribute to the mother and daughter Judd singers (OK, Wynonna was misspelled).

I’m adding that to my collection of inadvertent street-sign tributes (see photos), including one naming an intersection after a veteran leading man in Beverly Hills, the other forming the name of a Spanish-born star in Mission Viejo.

STUPID BICYCLIST TRICKS: Hopping across the Pacific this time, we bring you word from Patti Garrity of Manhattan Beach, who says the traffic is wilder in Tokyo than here--and she means all types of traffic.

Garrity vividly recalled “a young lady wobbly bike-riding in the rain, pedaling on four-inch platform clogs she probably couldn’t walk in, miniskirt hiked up, holding an umbrella with one hand, the other hand on the handlebar with a cell phone tucked between chin and shoulder as she chatted on the traffic-clogged street.”

Good thing she didn’t hit a sleeping policeman.

LAUGHTER IN THE DARK: Is the Hollywood community’s love for Bill Clinton fading over his sloppy exit from the presidential stage? During a star-studded tribute to Barbra Streisand at the Beverly Hilton on Thursday night--attended by everyone from Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood to Elizabeth Taylor--two clips of Clinton were shown. In one, he was in the audience while Streisand sang at an inaugural ball. In the other, he was delivering a congratulatory message. Each time his face appeared on the screen there was some derisive laughter from the audience.

miscelLAny:

A letter addressed to “Sir or Mad” was sent to Bob Borden of Kay’s Stationers in L.A. “What luck,” Borden said. “I’m both!”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.