Evil Oven vs. Prize Idiot

Tonight I decided to bake cookies...nothing fancy, just your run of the mill chocolate chip cookies. On second thought, I was using the Nieman Marcus recipe, so I guess they had a little extra fancy to them. Of course I had none of the ingredients, so I headed off to Sainsbury to get all my ingredients and a baking tray. After spending about an hour in the store trying to figure out the difference between 'self rising flour' and 'normal flour' and then trying to find unsalted butter all proved to be a much more challenging task then I was planning on for my calm Saturday night. I never did figure out the difference between the flours, so I just picked the 'normal flour' and hoped for the best. I came back to my flat to realize that I did not have a whisk or a mixer...just a wooden spoon. The first step of the recipe is to 'cream together the butter and sugar', 'well..' I thought to myself while looking at the block of butter and cup of sugar in my much too small plastic bowl 'this should be interesting'. I smashed, folded, and stirred the butter until I was red in the face, so I moved closer to the open window for some cool air. I decided that I could never achieve the 'until fluffy' stage, so I figured 'eh its mixed together at least'. I added the vanilla, eggs, flour, ect to my semi-creamed butter and sugar mixture until I had everything combined. I pre-heated my oven to 150 degrees C without even giving it a second thought and put in my first batch. In less than 10 min they burned into little black blobs...I have NEVER burned anything in my life. I blame the oven! So I turned the dial towards the left, just in case and put in my second batch. These burned in less than 6 min! 'HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?!' I asked my roommate. 'THIS OVEN IS EVIL!' I shouted. Smoke was filling the kitchen I flew open the window and stuck the entire tray of cookies out the window shielding my face with the window pane, with all of Oxford Street looking up at me and my burned cookie tray. It was a shameful moment. 'I have made these a million times, I don't understand...I give up' and into the bin went the rest of my batter.

Does anyone know that in England everything seems to be backwards including their dials...everything is clockwise not counter-clockwise. In the States when you look at your oven dial the smaller numbers are on the left and they get larger as you move to the right...its true go check your oven. Here in London it is the opposite, so I actually set the oven to 260 degrees C or 500 degrees F and when I turned it 'to the left', what I thought was cooler, I actually set it to 560 degrees F. I wish this story was not true, but sadly I have witnesses.  Moral of my sad little story 1. always look at your oven dial carefully, especially in a foreign country, 2. my oven isn't evil, 3. and finally as they say here in London, I was just a prize idiot!