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They Speak of the Green, but Not the Grey
Looking out the train window as I travel to Victoria Station, I am struck by an oddly comforting thought: "Yes – I was miserable here once." Admittedly, this may owe less to the environment than to a certain wildness of character the child-me possessed, but it is pleasant to recall that, on the whole, I do rather like Texas.
I mention this chiefly because most Americans have a falsely romantic attachment to England. I mean no disrespect to Fair Albion; it is simply that most of these "Anglophiles" have an inflated and false opinion of what it means to be English. As far as I can tell, they think it mainly entails speaking in upper-class accents, drinking copious amounts of tea, larking about on the tube, and possibly doing a spot of magic, Harry Potter style. Never mind the economic crisis poetically called "The British Disease," the dark layer of grime which coal-covers London and turns your snot black, the protracted class warfare, and the flats full of ancient plumbing.
The common level of idealization is quite beyond me, although I can understand its root. America is a desperately young country and we hunger for a history, an ancestral home. This longing is all the more protracted in an age when jobs and locations shift constantly, and it's the exception to live in a house that was your grandmother's.
Sometimes, it's nice to be jaded. It spares one a lot of disappointment. I will say this, though – it is pleasant to have escaped the land of the SUVs.
I mention this chiefly because most Americans have a falsely romantic attachment to England. I mean no disrespect to Fair Albion; it is simply that most of these "Anglophiles" have an inflated and false opinion of what it means to be English. As far as I can tell, they think it mainly entails speaking in upper-class accents, drinking copious amounts of tea, larking about on the tube, and possibly doing a spot of magic, Harry Potter style. Never mind the economic crisis poetically called "The British Disease," the dark layer of grime which coal-covers London and turns your snot black, the protracted class warfare, and the flats full of ancient plumbing.
The common level of idealization is quite beyond me, although I can understand its root. America is a desperately young country and we hunger for a history, an ancestral home. This longing is all the more protracted in an age when jobs and locations shift constantly, and it's the exception to live in a house that was your grandmother's.
Sometimes, it's nice to be jaded. It spares one a lot of disappointment. I will say this, though – it is pleasant to have escaped the land of the SUVs.