Thursday, 11 August 2011

Americans in Britain

The Office of National Statistics here estimated that there were about 189,000 American citizens living in the UK in 2009, or around one third of one per cent of the total population. I noticed this long discussion in the Evening Standard blog titled Why do Britons Hate Americans so much? Just about the whole range of opinion on the subject is expressed in these contributions, except one: Americans are stupid.

Back in the 1980’s I heard a phone-in program on the BBC Radio WM. I can’t even remember now what it was about, but I do remember an exchange where the BBC moderator disagreed with a caller’s statement. At one point, the caller said, “… Americans are stupid.” The BBC host interrupted him saying, “Yes, but…”, that is "Yes, that’s common knowledge" ; "But, I don’t agree with whatever else it is you’re saying."

Jeremy Clarkson, the Top Gear guy, used to have another program on the BBC, a sort of variety thing. He sat at a desk with a big world map on the wall behind him. All the countries of the world were shown with one exception: where the USA would normally appear, the map was blank.

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