Thursday, March 15, 2012

What David Cameron Left Behind

Oh, my! That nice David Cameron's visiting the Obamas again,and this time he's brought his wife. Why, they say the Brits follow SamCam's fashions almost as much as we eye up what Michelle's wearing. SamCam's even got that cool, little tattoo. Only for some reason, it's not that common on her - just like that nice David Beckham. Why, he's adapted so much to Californian life, his children sound American.

Now, isn't it just peachy keen that the cherry blossoms are out, the heat is high, Downton Abbey makes the Brits fashionable again, and the US gets a visit from a British Prime Minister who's straight out of Downton, itself? And they even have that nice Damian Lewis attending the State Banquet in that nice Mr Cameron's honour ... oh, didn't you know? They went to the same school. Eton. And that nice Mr Cameron even brought his Treasury fella, that plump, little Mr Osborne - no, not Ozzy, although he'd be welcome too.

Gee, isn't it just wonderful to be British? Isn't it just swell that they're our best friends, like, forever?

These are the sentiments of so many Americans who reckon themselves Anglophiles.

Well, let me tell you something. I was raised Catholic, and now I'm atheist. Nothing makes a good atheist more than a Catholic upbringing; and nothing turns an Anglophile into an Anglophobe more than living amongst the British for over thirty years, the way I have, having married one of the creatures.

What you've seen in Washington this week, and every time you watch Damien Lewis slaughter the American accent in Homeland or the Beckhams venture out to play normal parents in the Hollywood Hills, is the British equivalent of the one percent.

I live amongst the ninety-nine percent and in a fairly built-up area of the United Kingdom (the over-crowded South Coast), and I can tell you, sometimes I almost wish I were in Alabama.

The British, particularly the English, are narrow-minded, vindictive, petty, jealous and mean. Their mouths are like sewers, and that doesn't just mean that they are victims of poor dental hygiene and tombstone teeth, although they suffer from that as well (due to their own laziness). I work in an office, the only woman amongst five men. These are fairly typical men, ranging in age from mid-fifties to a particularly foul-mouthed twenty-one year-old. Swearing has always been rife, but upon the youngster's arrival a year ago, it descended into the realms of sheer hell.

This is a kid who was educated in the grammar school system, educated to continue his education at university, but he chose not to do so. Yet every other word issuing from his mouth is "fuck" or "fucking". He simply cannot get from one sentence to another without using this rejoinder. And everything worse than "fuck" or "fucking" is a "cunt." One person, who's a bit slow on the uptake in a telephone conversation is a "cunt." Every foreigner with whom he's forced to speak is a "fucking cunt." And women, in general, are "cunts", especially.

My presence makes no difference. I've registered disapproval, but there's a tremendous disconnect. He knows what such words mean, but doesn't comprehend why they are unacceptable in polite company and shouldn't be uttered.

Then there's the racism and homophobia. Everyone outside the accepted norm is a "gay boy." Once, whilst talking in general, he remarked, "There's a white nigger who works in Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dover."

"A what?" I enquired, horrified. The n-word is as pejorative as the c-one.

"A white nigger," he replied. "He's a nigger but he's white."

When I strongly objected to the use of that word, I was sanctimoniously reminded that free speech allowed him to say what he wished, and, anyway, he shrugged, "niggers" call themselves "niggers," so why shouldn't white people be allowed to do so, because that's what they are.

How do you argue with a narrow mind like that? This is not the rural South or Midwest. This is cosmompolitan England, a place where people are way better educated than anyone in the US can ever hope to be.

Such hoi-polloi as are left behind by Cameron spend time watching television programmes like Top Gear, hosted by another English jingoist, Jeremy Clarkson, he who called for public sector strikers to be shot; or reality crap hosted by Simon Cowell, another Brit with a degree in innate rudeness. If they're not glued to either of those programmes, they suck off a diet of Eastenders, the BBC's flagship primetime soap.

Eastenders is almost a religion. People watch various people sleep their way through families of sisters or brothers - or even mothers and children, screaming and shouting all the time. A major character recently suffered cervical cancer, but she spent six weeks looking as though she had a slight cold. Her husband just wants sex.

The devotees of such programs, watch the episode, then adjourn to a series of various fora devoted to online discussions of the ethical symbolism of the episode, most of such fora being dominated by geeky, unpreposessing adolescent males aged between 18 and 23, who don't tolerate any kind of difference of opinion.

There's one comic character who's legion in his infamy - all of twenty-three, unemployed since birth, a university drop-out sitting at his laptop all day long on his parents' remit and waging war with anyone of any articulace who dares know more about any subject matter portrayed on his Eastenders than the pithy writers, themselves. The guardian angel calls himself Shamelessness, and online, he's a vicious bully, telling people to "shut the fuck up," that they're "boring and tedious" and that they "don't have a life," when Shamelessness has such an experience of life that he's even deemed unqualified to answer phones on reception in a local car dealership. Hyuck, hyuck ... but hey, Mum and Dad pay the television licence fee, and they also pay for Shamelessness's internet access, so ... that's pretty shameless, yes?

These are people who leave formal schooling at their earliest convenience, and hate anyone who pursues those goals or who has any iota of real life experience. These are people who aren't even happy in their ignorance; but they're happy putting other people down.

Such a shame that nice David Cameron didn't ask that Britain become the fifty-first state. Rick Santorum would find a legion of disciples of the narrow-mind here.

Here's a great song from My Fair Lady, whose biggest complaint is ever so relevant today. Take it away, Sir Rex:-



This is the sort of stuff that killed Pocahontas and Nancy Astor. Damn, I need to come home.

1 comment:

  1. This somewhat validates my reasons for hating anything having to do with reality TV programs. IMHO, they are a pus on the damaged souls of people whose minds are constructed in such a way that these programs are considered "must watch" viewing. They bore the hell out of me because I have better things to do than watch this BullStank. I want to be learning something if I'm going to invest my time into something. I want to come away knowing more, not less, and I'm willing to put off the pursuit of pleasure for the pursuit of truth and knowledge, but then, I've always been perceived as a square peg in a round hole world kind of person. I've sometimes been ridiculed for my vehement opposition to the spoon fed tripe one finds in reality TV programs and in soap operas. Your post certainly reveals that ignorance is not confined to one nation, and that the 1% may charm some of the people, but never all of the people. God bless those of us who are smart enough to know when others are trying to sell us a load of bull.

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