Party speech-writer…’
Seasoned members of the BBC audience will know immediately from that introduction – with the political affiliation rammed to the forefront – that the following story will not reflect well on the Conservatives. Even they, though, might be surprised just how insignificant, and how old, the ‘scandal’ it reports is. However, for the trusty BBC team it is, of course, front page news.
LOL!!!
Gawd I wish I could do that! Then again, if I could, I would be British. Sometimes I read the posts here and practically fall off my chair. My favorite was the one, I can’t remember how I got to it, where the muslims arrived and screwed themselves into the ceiling posting rants about the “peace” of Islam. The posters here had a hay day – all very properly, of course.
Sometime in the next couple of years my husband and I will go to Devonshire to visit friends, I haven’t been back to Britain since 1981. I hope to find it as fun as it was before, Anonymous assured me the sausage rolls are the same. I hope to find the place as friendly toward Americans as it was then.
Thanks for the fun stories!
TPO that was meant for you, and I forgot to address it to you.
Thanks again 🙂
betyangelo | 02.10.08 – 11:27 pm |
So glad I could give you a laugh.
Memory serves me right you were based at Bentwaters in Comms, or was it Lakenheath. Is that when you started writing?
Not sure of what’s there now. I know Mildenhall is still going strong (well someone has to handle those rendition flights)
Do hope you have as warm a welcome as I received in the US when you visit Devon. I do know the beer’s pretty good down there.
On your earlier post about the language and feeling a dunce, you shouldn’t.
Take as you find. It’s fashionable for the Metropolitan Liberal elite chattering classes (BBC and others) to sneer at all things US, but I have to say that in all my travels I’ve found the average American to be far more articulate and have a wider ranging vocabulary than your average Brit, whose vocab range is little more than 400 words:
F**k Off, F**k Off, F**k Off, ad infinitum.
With that I must go and feed my 3 year old daughter (how many 61 year olds can say that!). Take care.
Betyangelo:
Re: US vs UK
I’d like to second TPO. In 1988 I spent six months on a solo trip from NY to LA, via Boston, Toronto, Chattanooga, Dallas, Vegas, and many places in-between, driving a white 1965 Austin Princess limo, exactly like this one, which I shipped from Liverpool to Port Elizabeth NJ for the purpose.
I had an absolute utter blast. The hospitality, politeness, friendliness, and trust of everyone I met on my travels was just amazing. Out of nearly 200 nights over there I must have paid for motel rooms a total of 20 times at the most – it wasn’t that I forced myself on people, but rather that I was unable to resist their charm and repeated invitations to stay. I should have written a book when I got home. I do hope you find your forthcoming trip to England as heart-warming.
As for we Brits as wordsmiths, recently I came across an anecdote in the Sunday Telegraph magazine which had me in fits. Sandi Toksvig wrote:
I hate being in a hurry, for I love both sending and receiving a good letter. … I leave you with my favourite piece of correspondence of all time. It was written in 1943 by the British Ambassador to Moscow to Lord Pembroke at the Foreign Office in London. It is polite and extremely well constructed, but I have to warn you it has adult content. If you are easily shocked please do look away now:
My Dear Reggie,
In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours, and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow, and I do not want to be mean about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time.
So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life, and tell you that God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me he is called Mustapha Kunt. We all feel like that Reggie, now and then, especially when spring is upon us, but few of us would put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.
Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr
Precious…
If you find yourself in the NW of England look me up • you’ll find my e-mail address in Section One of my website.