For Britain and America, despite some superficial similarities
– and to some parts of the world, that means bloodthirsty and interfering – are
very different peoples. While Britain, until recently, was a largely homogenous
culture of traditional and conservative values, the USA was always a bubbling
pot of over-excited go-getters. The stereotypical portrayal of an American in
British sitcoms was always that of an overly loud, socially gauche child with
far too much money and self-confidence. I miss those days.
Anyway, it seems America has a new ami today – oh fickle
friends – as it skips about the playground, hand in hand with La belle France.
Oh, sorry, they've always been friends – ‘America’s oldest ally’ Obama says.
Being British we will watch eagerly for the cracks to appear; this could be
great fun. No more bullets whistling around our ears; we can just throw
brickbats from the sidelines. It’s what we are exceptionally good at, although
I think the establishment calls it diplomacy. If the USA thought that the
British secretly looked down their collective nose at them, they are in for a
treat with the preternaturally huge-schnozzed Francais.
We Brits hate people getting too big for their boots. Remember
Sarah Beeny and her enormous house? Hands up how many of you secretly wanted
her to fail? And the Grand Designers; isn’t the best bit when it all gets a bit
too much for the budget and the nerves? An Englishman’s home is his castle,
they say. Have you any idea how much it costs to run a castle? And then you
have to employ people, who probably hate you for it. And you have to live the
part too.
Soon, from what seemed like just another rung on the
property ladder you’re chartering yachts you can’t afford to holiday with
people you don’t really like but have to keep in with because your daughter’s internship
depends on it. And if you want her to marry a prince she really has to be
properly blooded, so she needs a horse for the hunt. And you simply must be
seen at Ascot, Henley and Monaco. Suddenly your leap into the upper strata of
society is a millstone round your neck as the east wing roof falls in, the
scaffolding goes up and you have to relocate your annual summer bun fight to an
expensive hotel. And… and... and it’s all gone horribly, expensively wrong.
Don’t you envy the ‘little people’, the ones with the simple
honey-hued mellow stone walled cottages on the green? The ones who can live and
let live because they live within their means? Being part of a great big club
means you have to appease the great big club’s rules which, you soon find, are
not for your benefit but for the furtherance of the club’s vainglorious ambitions.
When you finally, reluctantly sell the country pile and
slide back down the social order don’t you feel the weight lifting from your
shoulders? No more rigged blackballing at the golf club. No more sneers at unforgivable,
yet trivial, social gaffes. And all that money you had to spend just to stay
treading water. No more face to save, no more lies to defend. Ah, peace and
quiet. You can keep up with the Joneses; it was keeping up with the Rothschilds
that was the problem.
Yer, ah kno'
There is a YouTube video currently doing the rounds. It
shows Barack Obama praising every country as being ‘one of America’s closest
allies’ and telling all small countries that they ‘punch above their weight’.
He has so much regard for these important friends that in order not to praise
any of them above the others he just trots out the same old aphorisms time
after time. So much for that relationship being in any way special. Great
Britain? That was hard work. Little Britain sounds bloody good to me.
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