The English at their most typical , a queueTrivia
Studies show that in America a Pizza will arrive quicker than an ambulance,
The Pepsi slogan "Pepsi Comes Alive " was translated in China as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave ".
Brown On Tour
Hopi Sen is not impressed with the standard of coverage accorded to Brown’s stateside tour. He thinks it should be more serious . Wrong .Obama has already signalled his relative disinterest in us ,and since he does not care what a political corpse thinks a farce is about right .Much will be said , I have no doubt , about the special relationship and, bored as I am ,with Brown and his drowning /waving ,I have had been medidating about our two nations .
Divided By More Than Sea
We worry about Englishness.Can you be black, Muslim and so on ? Americans have no word for American-ness , it doesn't arise because the automatic answer to all our questions would be ‘yes’, barring outright racism. We worry about identity and they do not . On the other hand they worry about destiny and ‘The American Way’ .What is our destiny ? To lose at cricket eternally, what could such thing mean ? They have Un-American activity , what would un-English activity be , eating croissants , showing your feelings , bothering strangers ....?.
That is the key to the myth .Identity and Destiny , we wish to be , they wish to do. Language can actually confuse things, we think the Irish are like us because they speak English , actually their easy tolerance of corruption and approach to “truth” are more typical of Italians . The English rarely lie, on the other hand they will never, ever ,tell you the truth . We queue ,and if I had to pick one image of the English its an orderly queue , the Continentals barge , the Americans move on . Anyway ,despite our common language with America ,we are in some ways less alike than it appears .
Stat attack
Oppose or disagree with right to Abortion US 46% UK 17%
Proud to be American/English US 97% UK 76 %
Taxation is too low US 1% UK 62% ( at end of Blair period )
Believe in The Devil US 45% UK 13%
Support ban on handguns US 32% UK 83%
People on 40% or less of median income US 14% UK 5%
Millionaires per % of population US 0.74% UK 0.58%
Gun Deaths oper 100,000 US 10.6 UK 0.3
Executions per year av. US 78 UK 0
Defence spending per head $ US 1059 UK 576
Government spending /GDP US 30% UK 42 % (ish)
We worry about Englishness.Can you be black, Muslim and so on ? Americans have no word for American-ness , it doesn't arise because the automatic answer to all our questions would be ‘yes’, barring outright racism. We worry about identity and they do not . On the other hand they worry about destiny and ‘The American Way’ .What is our destiny ? To lose at cricket eternally, what could such thing mean ? They have Un-American activity , what would un-English activity be , eating croissants , showing your feelings , bothering strangers ....?.
That is the key to the myth .Identity and Destiny , we wish to be , they wish to do. Language can actually confuse things, we think the Irish are like us because they speak English , actually their easy tolerance of corruption and approach to “truth” are more typical of Italians . The English rarely lie, on the other hand they will never, ever ,tell you the truth . We queue ,and if I had to pick one image of the English its an orderly queue , the Continentals barge , the Americans move on . Anyway ,despite our common language with America ,we are in some ways less alike than it appears .
Stat attack
Oppose or disagree with right to Abortion US 46% UK 17%
Proud to be American/English US 97% UK 76 %
Taxation is too low US 1% UK 62% ( at end of Blair period )
Believe in The Devil US 45% UK 13%
Support ban on handguns US 32% UK 83%
People on 40% or less of median income US 14% UK 5%
Millionaires per % of population US 0.74% UK 0.58%
Gun Deaths oper 100,000 US 10.6 UK 0.3
Executions per year av. US 78 UK 0
Defence spending per head $ US 1059 UK 576
Government spending /GDP US 30% UK 42 % (ish)
9 comments:
great post. The Yanks do love us though, their TV is entirely a copy of ours which is something we should most definitely be ashamed of.
Thanks CU nice to see you
Britannia rules the airwaves eh CU?
Shame it only costs 3.4 billion in revenue from the licence fee.
We could buy a small bank for that.
I'm obsessed with history, local, national and family, As you know, Newms, and over the years have spoken to a large number of Americans on the local and family history mailing lists. Two characteristics stand out:
Their love of Britain in general, though England in particular, because nonconformist Essex was the cradle of the colonisation of America.
A substantial proportion of Americans love what they see as our quaint islands stuffed with history, heritage, pomp and circumstance, royalty, castles and ennobled aristos, mostly because UK is the home of some of their ancestors.
This love, however, is always deeply underscored by the desire to promote their own interests at the expense of all others'.
Their adoration of the English upper class accent stems partly from the belief/ hope of so many of them that this is how how their ancestors spoke. Yes, Americans' meritocratic hearts love the whole system of unmeritocratic, aristocratic privilege, but that is because so many American family historians dream of finding their family's castle, long lost titles and money...until they are rudely awakened.
Their love, is always sharpened by the arrogance, superiority and grasping selfishness of so many Americans who love nothing better than to feel they have Brits at their beck and call, be it our service people in Iraq/Afghanistan or a free ride to genealogical records paid for by the British taxpayer. They'll be all over their Brit cousins until they have what they want, then drop us like stones once it suits.
Any special relationship will always be shot through with fickleness. Most Americans have roots all over Europe and UK, Obama is perhaps uniquely able to exploit these connections and the divided loyalties they entail.
Nowadays the so called special relationship with Britain is only as good as the Brits' willingness to serve America and American interests - in exchange for US promotion of the job prospects of our PMs? Due to the imbalance of power and the grasping, poodle nature of recent PMs, ordinary Britons will always be by far the greater loser in the exchange.
On balance however, I believe we lose far less via our relationship with the US than we do via our so many of our PMs' corrupt designs towards the EU elite.
Do Americans really love Great Britain, or do they just love what they think Great Britain is?
I'll never forget all those American right-whingers praising Blair to the skies, when Tories hated him & always have. Shows how much they fucking know.
Also tourists who never venture outside London. They need murdering.
What do Americans think about immigration btw? That would be a good one.
Nowadays the so called special relationship with Britain is only as good as the Brits' willingness to serve America and American interests - in exchange for US promotion of the job prospects of our PMs?
I think thats overly cynical myself Flo .
What do Americans think about immigration btw? That would be a good one.
It is indeed Asquith and it has not ben problem because of the imagined community of the US which people went to join .
The Mexican invasion is a diffrent thing as is the Black experience for obvious reasons
Its mistake to assume one migration is of the same nature as another. The Anglos Saxons did not conquer the Britons they just migrated and occupied it gradually .
At the mone t we have a problem with Islam that bearsc no relation to the Wets Indian immigration which has followed the usual pattern
Major, Blair and from the look of it, Brown, all used their jobs as platforms to lucrative work in the US.
So why is it overly cynical?
And, assuming Blair is given the position of permanent President of the EU, it may be argued that he he used his job as launching pad for that too.
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