Catch Up With June
The Special Relationship
For over sixty years our ’special relationship’ with America has always been cited as a central pillar of our foreign policy. Recently I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the US, and this week I’ll be in both NY and LA.
It’s fair to say that there is a bit of a Brit invasion going on in America at the moment, what with David Beckham signing the biggest contract in American sports history, Piers Morgan landing his own chat show on NBC and not forgetting our very own ‘Mr. Nasty’ Simon Cowell, who is easily now one of the most famous or rather infamous men in America. Not to mention the countless number of talented young Brits who are popping up in Hollywood blockbusters left right and centre. This invasion along with my frequent trips has made me think a lot about Britain and America’s special relationship, it’s importance and relevance in the current climate.
We Brits often mock our transatlantic cousins for their lack of subtlety, over obvious humour and ‘bigger is better’ mentality. Meanwhile we still obsess over all things Hollywood, give daily thanks for the holy Google just before a Diet Coke break and all in the space of a New York minute.
However, with any true friendship there is a role for the friend who is honest enough to tell what you don’t always want to hear. The type of friend that says ‘Yes, your bum does look big in that’ or ‘No, I don’t think he’s the right guy for you’ or maybe even…. ‘Invading Iraq might not be such a good idea’.
Similar to Miranda and Carrie, we all need a friend who loves us enough to be honest without worrying that they’ll leave us off the guest list. After all, if you can’t be honest with a friend, how special is that relationship? Well let us hope that this is the type of honesty Britain has with the next American president, whoever that may be. This is our opportunity to influence the change in American foreign policy that the world has been waiting for.
To steal a phrase from Barack Obama ‘Yes We Can!’
For a great read on the special relationship between Britain and American, check out ‘The Atlantic Ocean’ by Andrew O’Hagan, it’s a fantastic group of essays that chronicles Thatcher to Katrina and everything in between.
Nowt to do with a ’special relationship’ as such. For sixty years, we’ve all known that unless we are nice, and kind, and pleasant to our American ‘cousins’, they’ll whip the goodwill tit from our mouths and we’ll be left to do business with the rest of Europe, thieving, idle bastards that they are. Let’s face it, we have been militarily and economically feeble with regard their status for many years now, largely because all the important global conflicts that have happened since their all-too-recent birth have been this side of the pond. The special relationship has amounted to nothing more than their ability to persuade us to stand up and take one for the team when needed, and park their weaponry in our gardens. Good old Maggie! Good old Ronnie!
June … were exactly DOES Simon Cowell and Derek fit into the world of ‘politics’, exactly? Between them, they could buy half the West Indies outright and I shudder to think what goes through the mind of Derek’s blancmange-brained missus when her handmaidens read her the news (very slowly) every morning before her shopping extravaganzas. Are you so sure he’s made anything of a scratch on the American conscience? Cowell is the quintessential ‘English’ bounder (which is so hackneyed, it’s not true) but what for a free-kick taker and his tuneless pipecleaner of a wife, huh? It’s nothing to do with ’special’ (unless ‘needs’ are paired with it) or even ‘relationship’. They’ve sodded off to LA because they think they’ll make it big in chatshows and movies. I thought everyone knew that? America isn’t anything of much as a freind, is it? It’s a wealthy braggart of a neighbour who you’d rather have tea with than the shady, swarthy chaps next door who’d steal everything you own apart from your tattoos and piercings. You know that mixing with this boastful, fatuous person will lead you into all sorts of trouble, but it’s apparently better than eating on your own. He’s got all the best coffee, the best cakes, the best toilet-peper, and a shotgun over the fireplace. Not exactly something to write gushing platitudes about, y’reckon?
Stun’s right in many ways. I know what you mean but truly, citing the individuals you mention Becks, Cowell and Morgan isn’t what it’s about. Sure Becks signs such a deal. Good luck if he can keep wadding the megabucks. Fine, gifted, footballer - not great - but up there. And then he opens his mouth and frankly it’s all over.
I like Cowell. He’s been down the pan so he knows that getting back up there means he has to hang on to it - whatever the cost. Which is very American.
But Morgan, Morgan bless’im epitomizes all that is naff, untalented, arrogant with-no-good-reason-to-be-so, supported by equally naff folk, and the kind of Z listed celeb who hangs round like a bad smell. That NBC has given him his own show says it all.
It’s the US ‘red letter box’ ‘black cab’ ‘Buck house’ ‘Bobby’s on bicycles’ view of Blighty. Crass. Mind you where they have stolen a march on us is in the drama/comedy broadcasting stakes. TV’s in a parlous state. ‘The wire’ is superb. And there’s so many from SATC to Sopranos to ER to Malcolm In The Middle to,..well you name ‘em.
What do we get? Yup! ‘Harley Street’ Utterly execrable. Made by morons for morons. Maybe Piers can get a guest appearance in that?
America is a friend and a strong ally but they’ve dicked us any number of times (Marshall Plan for one, only finished paying for it in St Blessed of Tone ‘let’s leave everything in a mess and go make a zillion bucks in the US’ tenure of No 10!!) and we’re right to be wary. But it’s still (and forever will be) the golden country so many - whatever religious persuasion or culture - gravitate to, to be part of the ‘ you can do anything you want to’ philosophy.
Thing is June I don’t know whether you’ve been watching the excellent retrospective on Charles Wheeler’s life and times but he exemplifies political reporting at its best. Now I’m not suggesting you should get real heavy as I quite appreciate you have to have a balance but it’d be good to get some blogs which get inside the Westminster Village (with which I’m sure you’re familiar) and touch on current people, issues and what’s happening. Which is what I thought they’d more likely be.
You could also have a kinda ‘3am’ (Mirrior) slot. You know - who’s doing what, to whom - allegedly. And what happened in the Commons tea room the other day. And what Minister did what. And what Lord..ahem..well y’know etc. Would sure beat the hell ‘outta GMTV!
now now pls no 3.00am slot, so far so good the spice so far is just right.
we need to keep our “cousins” happy tht i agree.