Hello. I'm afraid that, what with this being essay and presentation season, I'm not really able to provide a new Blog entry. Instead, for your reading pleasure, I present you with one I drafted a few weeks ago during my nocturnal period. I hope you enjoy it and I assure you I shall have something properly new next month. Here you go...
You must forgive me. As these words flow from the immense, hollow cavern of my mind, through the tattered length of my nerves, out of my long and clumsy fingers and onto the screen before you (or below you or above you or within you) I have not slept. Anyone with a life substanceless enough to regularly check this Blog or my exploits on Twitter (which are still in their infancy) will know that my sleeping patterns are not quite right of late. Right now it's 7:06am on Friday 6th February. I've only been awake since 7:15pm on Thursday 5th February. Unable to pry open the firm grip of consciousness from my brain I have yielded to the demonic ferocity of its will. Two steaming mugs of finest Nescafe, three pieces of wholemeal toast, a cheese sandwich and a pint of milk later I am writing this. Only five hours until my first lecture and I reckon I can churn out a half-decent Blog entry in that time. So, to business...
We Britons often give Americans a hard time. Partly because of their actions in various wars. Partly because of what is widely considered their deficit of national common sense and intelligence, the inherent corruption in their political infrastructure and their wild, animalistic desire to censor everything in the mass media with the feces of their own moral objections. The topic of this morning's ponderings is loosely connected with that last one. Allow me to explain.
Despite its grandiose and, if I'm not horribly mistaken, self-imposed title of "The Land of the Free" the United States have long been the subject of much criticism regarding civil liberties. Many states have the most absurd laws likely to ever reach your ears. Because I'm so fond of you, gentle reader (and frightened of losing even a tiny fraction of my tiny readership,) and because such nonsense passing your delicate and judicious eardrums would cause irreparable hemorrhaging, I shall provide a few examples to be absorbed with the eyes. Please do not utter these mockeries of laws out loud. I shall not be responsible for the physical, emotional and financial damage which such recklessness would surely incur.
1. United States Federal Law states that one can be fined up to $1,000,000 for the crime of genocide.
2. In California it is illegal to wash more than one baby at a time in the same bath tub.
3. In Zion (Illinois) it is illegal to give any domesticated animal a lit cigar.
4. In Topeka (Kansas) it is illegal to serve wine in teacups.
5. In Ottumwa (Iowa) it is illegal for a man to wink at any woman with whom he is "unacquainted" within the city limits.
6. In Baltimore it is illegal (and God damn the unscrupulous cad who breaks this one) to take a lion to the cinema.
Some of these may not be true...If you want any further information you need only Google "funny state laws". The site where I found these gems offers citations for many of its offerings. I was quite impressed.
But, strangely, what I am trying to get at here is that America may be a silly place, but Britons hardly have a right to mock it in many areas. We might like to view ourselves as a liberal country with free speech and freedom of press and all that...but are we?
I have a black friend. I should probably keep his identity secret. For the purpose of completeness we shall call him Yannick (because that is his name). He has been quite shocked by the prejudice shown by the people of Edinburgh. I, in turn, have been shocked by the very same thing. He's a lovely man, with the athletic ability of an anthropomorphic panther or, my favourite, a speeding black (anthropomorphic) bullet. Deadly. Swift. Black. He's not at all against innocent jokes like that but he was rather miffed when, only yesterday, he was asked to leave his rucksack with the security guard at the door of a supermarket while the other customers roamed around, free to wear theirs with fierce pride(or probably not...). In an art gallery this would have been nothing out of the ordinary. Even in Lidl I seem to remember customers being asked to carry their rucksacks...but that is almost certainly my sleep-deprived brain exacting its subtle vengeance for my gross neglect.
On the bus on the way there he was treated in a most disrespectful manner by the driver. A trivial misunderstanding regarding the fee for the return ticket ended in the man rolling down the dividing perspex and addressing poor Yannick quite rudely and with not a little curtness in his gruff Lothian accent.
This is not the end of it. He assures me that every time he so much as enters a shop the staff and/or security prowl after him like ravenous hounds. In his own words "Nobody trusts me in this country!"
I know that, this far north, it is fairly uncommon to see a black person on the street, in the supermarket or anywhere. In Crieff this was to be expected and in Edinburgh I am not surprised too much in all honesty, but such blatant distrust bordering on verbal hostility seems entirely uncalled for.
I'm sure this is the case in many areas of the States as well, but we are the ones looking down our noses across the expanse of the Atlantic, an expanse which we claim separates racist animals filled to bursting with hydrogenated fat from cultured and globally aware, cosmopolitan Europeans.
Awful stuff. Awful.
Going back to the subject of silly laws ,an area which, more often than others, draws disdain from Brits, you might like to know, as I begin to conclude, that mince pies are a famous, yet illegal, Christmas treat in this country (there were a lot of commas in that sentence). Oliver Cromwell, a man considered by some to be quite the good egg, banned anything to do with gluttony from what he wanted to be an austere religious celebration. Christmas as we know it was banned for several years because jolly festivities and revelry were unsuited to commemorate the birth of Christ. Such shows of religious disrespect were for degenerates and bottom-bashers. No self-respecting Briton would mar the good name of wholesome Christian observance. So said one of our country's most influential and revolutionary figures. Never mind that the Greeks, from whom almost every cultural and artistic achievemnt of the past two thousand years has been filtered, were leaders in the field of debauchery ("A woman for necessity, a boy for pleasure and a goat for ecstacy").
So, there we are. You can probably see that I'm quite fond of America despite having been there only once...to Florida. Britain as it is stands on cultural foundations of an altogether colonial nature. Our cinema, our music, our literature, our advertising , all draw intense influence from the States. Sure we have Shakespeare, Ian Flemming and Bond, every decent Hollywood villain of the last thirty years, but a country can't maintain its merit solely on these things. These things won't keep Britain's head above the modern tide. Nor can these things excuse the intolerance and flat-out pigheadedness which prevails amongst more of us than I like to think.
America may be a daft and illogical place and is certainly far too huge and all-encompassing a nation for me to make any accurate generalisations (for the positive or negative), but nonetheless it seems a little bit daft and illogical to assume a, frankly, undeserved position of superiority and snobbery. Certainly not when you live in a country where a guest is made to feel unwelcome. Because that's hardly the Britain we want to promote is it?
Jamie.
P.S. It's true that you can take a cow to the pub...but it's lemonade shandies all round I'm afraid. Getting drunk with your milk-producing friend will result in you spending an indefinite period of time at her Majesty's pleasure.
You must forgive me. As these words flow from the immense, hollow cavern of my mind, through the tattered length of my nerves, out of my long and clumsy fingers and onto the screen before you (or below you or above you or within you) I have not slept. Anyone with a life substanceless enough to regularly check this Blog or my exploits on Twitter (which are still in their infancy) will know that my sleeping patterns are not quite right of late. Right now it's 7:06am on Friday 6th February. I've only been awake since 7:15pm on Thursday 5th February. Unable to pry open the firm grip of consciousness from my brain I have yielded to the demonic ferocity of its will. Two steaming mugs of finest Nescafe, three pieces of wholemeal toast, a cheese sandwich and a pint of milk later I am writing this. Only five hours until my first lecture and I reckon I can churn out a half-decent Blog entry in that time. So, to business...
We Britons often give Americans a hard time. Partly because of their actions in various wars. Partly because of what is widely considered their deficit of national common sense and intelligence, the inherent corruption in their political infrastructure and their wild, animalistic desire to censor everything in the mass media with the feces of their own moral objections. The topic of this morning's ponderings is loosely connected with that last one. Allow me to explain.
Despite its grandiose and, if I'm not horribly mistaken, self-imposed title of "The Land of the Free" the United States have long been the subject of much criticism regarding civil liberties. Many states have the most absurd laws likely to ever reach your ears. Because I'm so fond of you, gentle reader (and frightened of losing even a tiny fraction of my tiny readership,) and because such nonsense passing your delicate and judicious eardrums would cause irreparable hemorrhaging, I shall provide a few examples to be absorbed with the eyes. Please do not utter these mockeries of laws out loud. I shall not be responsible for the physical, emotional and financial damage which such recklessness would surely incur.
1. United States Federal Law states that one can be fined up to $1,000,000 for the crime of genocide.
2. In California it is illegal to wash more than one baby at a time in the same bath tub.
3. In Zion (Illinois) it is illegal to give any domesticated animal a lit cigar.
4. In Topeka (Kansas) it is illegal to serve wine in teacups.
5. In Ottumwa (Iowa) it is illegal for a man to wink at any woman with whom he is "unacquainted" within the city limits.
6. In Baltimore it is illegal (and God damn the unscrupulous cad who breaks this one) to take a lion to the cinema.
Some of these may not be true...If you want any further information you need only Google "funny state laws". The site where I found these gems offers citations for many of its offerings. I was quite impressed.
But, strangely, what I am trying to get at here is that America may be a silly place, but Britons hardly have a right to mock it in many areas. We might like to view ourselves as a liberal country with free speech and freedom of press and all that...but are we?
I have a black friend. I should probably keep his identity secret. For the purpose of completeness we shall call him Yannick (because that is his name). He has been quite shocked by the prejudice shown by the people of Edinburgh. I, in turn, have been shocked by the very same thing. He's a lovely man, with the athletic ability of an anthropomorphic panther or, my favourite, a speeding black (anthropomorphic) bullet. Deadly. Swift. Black. He's not at all against innocent jokes like that but he was rather miffed when, only yesterday, he was asked to leave his rucksack with the security guard at the door of a supermarket while the other customers roamed around, free to wear theirs with fierce pride(or probably not...). In an art gallery this would have been nothing out of the ordinary. Even in Lidl I seem to remember customers being asked to carry their rucksacks...but that is almost certainly my sleep-deprived brain exacting its subtle vengeance for my gross neglect.
On the bus on the way there he was treated in a most disrespectful manner by the driver. A trivial misunderstanding regarding the fee for the return ticket ended in the man rolling down the dividing perspex and addressing poor Yannick quite rudely and with not a little curtness in his gruff Lothian accent.
This is not the end of it. He assures me that every time he so much as enters a shop the staff and/or security prowl after him like ravenous hounds. In his own words "Nobody trusts me in this country!"
I know that, this far north, it is fairly uncommon to see a black person on the street, in the supermarket or anywhere. In Crieff this was to be expected and in Edinburgh I am not surprised too much in all honesty, but such blatant distrust bordering on verbal hostility seems entirely uncalled for.
I'm sure this is the case in many areas of the States as well, but we are the ones looking down our noses across the expanse of the Atlantic, an expanse which we claim separates racist animals filled to bursting with hydrogenated fat from cultured and globally aware, cosmopolitan Europeans.
Awful stuff. Awful.
Going back to the subject of silly laws ,an area which, more often than others, draws disdain from Brits, you might like to know, as I begin to conclude, that mince pies are a famous, yet illegal, Christmas treat in this country (there were a lot of commas in that sentence). Oliver Cromwell, a man considered by some to be quite the good egg, banned anything to do with gluttony from what he wanted to be an austere religious celebration. Christmas as we know it was banned for several years because jolly festivities and revelry were unsuited to commemorate the birth of Christ. Such shows of religious disrespect were for degenerates and bottom-bashers. No self-respecting Briton would mar the good name of wholesome Christian observance. So said one of our country's most influential and revolutionary figures. Never mind that the Greeks, from whom almost every cultural and artistic achievemnt of the past two thousand years has been filtered, were leaders in the field of debauchery ("A woman for necessity, a boy for pleasure and a goat for ecstacy").
So, there we are. You can probably see that I'm quite fond of America despite having been there only once...to Florida. Britain as it is stands on cultural foundations of an altogether colonial nature. Our cinema, our music, our literature, our advertising , all draw intense influence from the States. Sure we have Shakespeare, Ian Flemming and Bond, every decent Hollywood villain of the last thirty years, but a country can't maintain its merit solely on these things. These things won't keep Britain's head above the modern tide. Nor can these things excuse the intolerance and flat-out pigheadedness which prevails amongst more of us than I like to think.
America may be a daft and illogical place and is certainly far too huge and all-encompassing a nation for me to make any accurate generalisations (for the positive or negative), but nonetheless it seems a little bit daft and illogical to assume a, frankly, undeserved position of superiority and snobbery. Certainly not when you live in a country where a guest is made to feel unwelcome. Because that's hardly the Britain we want to promote is it?
Jamie.
P.S. It's true that you can take a cow to the pub...but it's lemonade shandies all round I'm afraid. Getting drunk with your milk-producing friend will result in you spending an indefinite period of time at her Majesty's pleasure.
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