A huge part of that has been the explosion of McDonald’s and KFCs (Holy Baby Jesus, they love their KFCs in Britain!) and any other chain that was big enough to take a risk on expanding overseas to provide cheap, deep fried food to the jagged-toothed English masses. There has been an Americanization of the United Kingdom (and the world, for that matter) even in the almost 15 years since I first went to London. There’s an underlying issue here which is a completely valid one. Now that the boogety-boo of “war on terror” and “extremists” and all those other buzz words that will be to the 2000’s like “dial-up” and “cappuccino” was in the 90’s have lost their edge, the UK press has had to find another way to MAKE EVERYONE REALLY MAD ABOUT THIS BENEFITS THING!Įnter my absolute favorite way to kill two birds with one stone. It’s always fun to watch the four horsemen of the trashy UK news apocalypse (The Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Sun and the News of the World) quickly look for any ties between any relevant and perhaps truthful story about suspected terrorists who bent rules or overstayed their visas (which doesn’t get the public too worked up any longer) to the much more sexy “UK TERROR SUSPECT WAS LIVING ON BENEFITS AND PLAYED NINTENDO ALL DAY WHILE YOU WERE OUT WORKING HARD TO PAY FOR HIM TO SIT BACK AND EVENTUALLY TRY TO KILL YOU WITH A BOMB!” story. The always restrained Daily Mail called this one “The Real Telly Tubbies”. Here’s just a few recent examples of some clearly un-sensationalized stories about families on benefits. I suppose a comparable issue would be the illegal immigration debate here in the States but the more nationalized health care and public aid becomes in a country, the bigger the font and the larger the target of hatred becomes at those on the receiving end of such benefits. It’s the LOOK AT THESE FAT PEOPLE AND OR/IMMIGRANTS AND/OR GENERALLY LAZY PEOPLE ON BENEFITS beast and it rears its head daily in the UK papers. It’s the most manipulative, incendiary and cynical kind of journalism I know of and it happens every day in Britain. I will give Britain credit for banning the publication or sale of photos of a celebrity’s child (or any child who is involved in a crime or trial).īut where Britain takes the high road in avoiding some celebrity trash journalism (and one might even argue that’s just down to a much smaller number of celebrities residents in Britain which, in turn, leads them to cover the WAGs of footballers), they have a sub-genre of trashy journalism that never fails to blow my mind. And yes, American press laws allow photos of children, including the children of celebrities, to be published which only encourages ass-monkey paparazzi to chase down and scare kids to get pictures of them which they will then sell to websites who will use the pictures to evaluate whether or not that particular child is hot or not. Sure, America can lay claim to things like TMZ, Perez Hilton and (though we’ll split the credit/blame for this one with Australia) Fox News.
Pot, kettle, you’ve got a lot of mutual darkness to discuss. The smugness of Britons about how trashy, sensationalist and tabloid-y Americans and American culture is. After only a few days, I find myself missing things like sunshine and reasonably priced anything and non-chicken or kebab storefronts. The weather is fun for a day or two then it becomes a total kick to the junk. Seriously, THAT’S a zinger! But outside of Stephen Fry and James May and lunches consisting of Pimm’s Cups and those sandwiches with corn in them (I don’t know why but they’re good), I’ve been to the UK a lot and it’s not that great. Stephen Fry: “So you’re assuming this happened after the Spanish colonization of Mexico then, are you?” Stephen Fry: “I think one only has to imagine that one day one of these bugs or beetles crawls in with the maize they are pounding and suddenly they go, ‘Oh, good lord, I love this pink polenta!’”Īlan Davies: (in a Speedy Gonzales accent) “You mean, ‘I love this peeeeenk poleeeeeenta’?” Did someone just start crushing up bugs in their food one day and….” I still find the best “Awwwwwwww, snaps!” ever uttered forth to be this exchange from QI on the subject of how beetles (sorry, bugs) were discovered to have the ability to dye food red:Īlan Davies: “Yeah, but how did they find this out. My entire sense of humor was formed by Black Adder and Fawlty Towers as a kid.
I am pretty sure the list of things I would do to James May if allowed ten minutes in a darkened room with him would violate any and all Terms of Use of Blogspot. It’s true that a lot of things that I like originate from the United Kingdom. I have been accused from time to time of being an anglophile.
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