When we lived in London in the 70’s a business acquaintance form New York was in town on business. As neither of them had been to England before, the guy brought his wife along for the trip. Susan and I invited the couple for a meal one evening. They were naturally interested in in our life in London; me as a foreigner and Susan as somebody married to one.
The couple were staying at a hotel at Lancaster Gate in the centre. It seems that they had decided to take a walk in the neighbourhood of their hotel. This area of London is very densely built up with most of big, old house broken up broken up into flats. It’s about a ten minute walk from the hotel to Paddington Station. Across Bayswater Road from the hotel is Hyde Park. So, it’s a real city centre sort of area.
Over dinner they told us how much they were enjoying getting to know London, but they were curious about one thing: Why were there no supermarkets in London, where did Londoners buy their food? Of course, we explained that there were, in fact, supermarkets in London. We mentioned that we did a weekly shop at our local Safeway in Kensington. The point of this little story is that generalizing from a limited sample is rarely a good way to come to conclusions about a new place.
One recurring theme with BBC Radio 4’s commentators and interviewees is that, on visiting the US, people found American television, particularly the news programs, to be pretty bad. I’ve often wondered about this because TV here, in my opinion, is about the same level of quality as the American counterpart: some of it’s good and some of it’s not. The most common complaint about TV news in the States is that it’s all local with no international coverage. At 6:30pm most evenings we watch the BBC West Midlands regional news program. Surprise: there is no international news covered on this show; it’s local! Is it possible that Brits visiting the US turn on the TV in their hotel room and get the local New York or Los Angeles, or more likely, the Orlando or Las Vegas, news?
Generalizing from the particular, if I ever heard it!
Having lived in England , Australia, France and the US , I see the main difference being that the US seems to think the box in the corner is a device only for marketing a lot of crap you never needed or wanted ... the total advertisement time rivals the length of the program you watch ...so in the US I switched to public radio.
ReplyDeleteAs an American who was born here, I completely agree that American TV it's horrible, not only the news programs. I prefer British television which probably makes me unusual for an American.
ReplyDeleteI particularly dislike the way American tv shows constantly flash images at the viewer, as if we're incapable of maintaining attention longer than a millisecond. I used to enjoy Anthony Bourdains travel show where he visits different countries, but I find it unwatchable now due to the editing which constantly forces you to see flashing images that flicker by at lightning speed. The British seem to be much better at telling a story without using these tactics.