I blame Jeremy Clarkson and his idiot fans.
Biggirl, I liked the stream of consciousness.
Michael Ellis I disagree with JC’s politics and on his own he’s a bit of a cock. But when the three of them are together they make a thoroughly entertaining triplet.
Oh and, JC is a cock for making Langness no longer a public right of way. I don’t have a dog, but when I did it was the best place to walk it.
No argument about his effectiveness with Hammond and May, but alone he’s awful. And I just wanted to gratuitously blame him for something.
A good idea. In the spirit of things I have decided to blame him for my dog dying.
haha it did!
Can you do crisps and chips?
I’m grateful that the U.S. hepled us in two world wars and the cold war.
I admire the U.S. for putting men on the moon asnd for space exploration.
I admire the U.S. for inventing Disneyworld/land,its easy to go all pseudo intellectual and sneer at it but I consider myself reasonably intelligent and LOVE the place.
The next may well surprise you,especially younger Brits/Brits with short memories.
When I was growing up service in any shop,cafe etc. was total shit,you were served as a favour because the server was just as good as you and made sure everyone knew it.
Also if you bought a meal out it varied immensly as to the quality of the cooking.
We’d just had quite a few years of “Stop moaning,you’re lucky to get it,dont you know theres a war on?”
I wasn’t born until several years after the war finished but the attitude still held as rationing on certain items didn’t finish until several years after wars end because we,basically were broke.
But I can still remember when we got acceptable service, as in politeness,a smile and a desire to please plus regulary edible food,not raw one day,O.K. the next and burned the next.
And it was brought to the U.K. by my least favourite American burger chain.
I dont like the fact that you either have to be wealthy or have wealthy sponsors to stand for political office in the U.S.
I dont like the fact that you have to pay for medical treatment.
I don’t like the high levels of violent crime in the U.S. though we’re fast catching you up.
I don’t like the fact that various Presidents involve the western world in military adventures that basically are untenable.
I’m no pacifist but it annoys me that we get involved in basically pointless and unwinable wars.
The U.S. are without doubt our best friends.
The Aussies,Kiwis etc.are not friends they’re family.
America. Where else can a young black man become an old white woman?
You pay for medical treatment everywhere, whether in private insurance or, as in the UK, through taxation. And if we want prompt treatment in a clean hospital then we Brits have to go private anyway.
Myself and everyone I know who’s been to an NHS hospital for free have praised their experience. If anything the only bad thing about my last stay was the other patients.
That reminds me. British hamburgers suck.
They’re all the same?
Which ones are you refering to?
I’m kind of neutral when it comes to the Angles and their Kingdom. I’m not a big Anglophile, except when it comes to our shared language, but that is in a philological sense, not a sense of superiority or inferiority, only parity. Yea, I guess that is how I think of the Brits… as parity, neither good nor bad. Although, I am a bit embarrassed to say that I don’t find Brits automatically sexy, I guess I have a bit of a stereotype or prejudice about them, that translates to “Frumpy”.
I am excited bout our shared history good and bad, because it is nice to relate.
Wimpy? 
shudder
And to be honest, London was a nice city, but perhaps my least favorite European city. Of course, to be fair, I only spent a couple of days there and it was mostly touring.
I see nothing in Washington D.C.‘s 10-day forecast over 94 degrees. And that is a spike; most days are in the 80s. And don’t tell me about humidity, because I grew up in the southeast. Ninety-nothin’ is hotter than 110+, no matter what the humidity is. You guys are a bunch of pussies.
Do you find any nationality automatically sexy? I know I don’t. But maybe I’m in the minority.
There are sexy people and unsexy people from everywhere. I’ve never qute got why any one nationality has a reputation for being sexy. For every sexy person of X nationality who’s famous, there a famous person from there who is deeply unsexy.
And seeing as we only tend to know famous foreigeners, rather than Joe Bloggs randomer foreigners, that’s all I’ve got to go on.
Exactly my point… I see all of the Creative Anachronists, Anglophiles, and Accent Lovers as quite bizarre. Many Americans seem to idolize and sexualize Brits out of a sense of “exotic-familiarity”. It’s rather artificial and keeps the American from the Britain. It is, I suppose, a fetish.
I remember, back in the 90s when Wimpy were in the process of going bust, seeing a news report on their latest relaunch. They had an in-depth interview with the CEO, detailing how they were going to re-connect with “the yoof”, become “more relevant” and generally starting to do all those things that fast food chains must do to survive. Only a churl would have denied that this was a company that knew what was what.
The segment finished with a shot of the CEO eating a Wimpy burger. With a knife and fork.
It was then that I knew they were doomed.
This is a complete load of bollocks. My mother (a senior nurse) moved several years ago from the NHS to the private sector, and the contrast is frightening. If you want prompt wallet lightening for minor conditions, then the private sector is certainly for you. If you want safe treatment for serious conditions, it most certainly is not. My mother has personally had to save one patient from having his life savings decimated for a vascular operation he could have had free (instantly) on the NHS. The man emptying his wallet was not even a vascular surgeon.
To repeat: a man with no experience in vascular surgery was going to operate on a man with a life-threatening condition, and force him to re-mortgage his family home for the privilege, despite knowing perfectly well that he could be treated for free by an expert. My mother had to surreptitiously arrange for an NHS vascular specialist to “happen by” in order to get this man moved to the NHS, where he was treated instantly, gratis.
In doing so my mother risked the sack for compromising her hospital’s revenue stream. Her hospital’s main response tactic to medical emergency is to call an ambulance and have patients transferred down the road to the NHS (risking death on the way, and imposing far greater cost on the NHS). So you’ll excuse me if I object to this portrayal of private hospitals as some sort of relief from NHS hell; as far as I can see they’re three star hotels with medical overtones.
As for the perception of NHS hospitals as being filthy, this is largely a media concoction. The spate of tests showing widespread MRSA infections are largely traceable to a single “laboratory”. I use the scare quotes with reason; the laboratory in question was in fact a garden shed, run by one Chris Malysewicz (who has since died in a car crash). Independent analysis of his work showed that not only did many of the samples he said contained MRSA were clean, his equipment was simply incapable of accurately telling MRSA from perfectly normal bacteria. This from the estimable Ben Goldacre is highly illuminating:
“Why do my MRSA swabs come back negative?”
'Scuse me if this has got ranty, but it’s a personal bugbear.
Brits are kind of like panty hose. I don’t find them sexy…
Perhaps English Sex is like English Food?
…Blood Pudding and spotted Dick.