Do you really live in Titty Ho?

There was a hilarious article in the New York Times last week about British towns that have some incredibly blush-inducing names. You’ve got to admire the fortitude and allegiance to tradition of people who continue to live in places with names like Titty Ho, Crapstone, and even “Ugley.” In the states these names would have been changed ages ago by local chambers of commerce or town marketing committees. Anyone out there ever been to Crotch Crescent? I bet it’s lovely this time of year.

Read the article here >>

Armistice Day

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

These famous lines are from a poem Rupert Chawner Brooke, who died in World War I.

Read the complete poem >>

Yesterday (November 11) was Armistice Day (now Veterans Day in the U.S.), the anniversary of the end of the war that claimed the lives of almost 900,000 British soldiers.

Profile of an Anglophile: Madonna

Madonna, Lady of the Manor

Of the estimated 250,000 Americans living in Britain today, the most famous is undoubtedly Madonna (or, as the British tabloids refer to her, “Madge”). The star is known for reinventing herself, for adopting entirely new personae more often than the rest of us change hairstyles. In her latest self-invention, she is lady of the manor: In 2000, she married British film director Guy Ritchie, moved to a 1,000-acre estate in the English countryside named “Ashcombe” (which sounds exactly like the kind of name I’d invent for an English estate if I were writing a bad Regency romance novel), claimed she had taken up hunting, and posed for photos in tweeds and riding gear. In an interview with the BBC in 2005, she used Englishy words like “laddish” and “cheeky” and said “I see England as my home.” She even adopted a cringe-inducing pseudo-English accent (I mean, I love English accents, but c’mon! She’s American.).

In July 2007, “Masterpiece Theatre” executive producer Rebecca Eaton told reporters, “Britishness is very cool at the moment” in the U.S. Madonna can no doubt take some credit for this. But last month, she announced she was divorcing Guy. Will she be divorcing Britain as well? Will Anglophilia go out of style when Madonna abandons her role as English aristocrat? We diehard Anglophiles will remain loyal, of course, but we may find ourselves a little lonelier…

American Goes Native in Albion

An American anglophile recounts her move to London from New York back in 1982 – and how her anglophilic illusions were quickly shattered…

…perpetually grey skies, aloof people who resisted my overtures of friendship and a freezing house with the toilet in the backyard…

I couldn’t get my head around the idea that Britain was not the arty wonderland of my delusions…

She eventually came around, however, and recently she went so far as to become a British citizen. Now that’s a committed Anglophile. It’s a good read.

See full article >>

Fabulous Ugly Actor: Jim Broadbent

Jim Broadbent

This post is the first in an ongoing series designed to celebrate Britain’s Fabulous Ugly Actors.

Writing about Jim Broadbent, undeniably both fabulous and ugly, seems like a perfect place to start.

Jim Broadbent is pretty ugly. But he’s also fabulous. His ugliness might even be one of the keys to his fabulousness. There is something so appealing forlorn about Jim Broadbent’s ugliness, with those merry-yet-sad, slightly bulging eyes, shockingly long nose, and goofy little chin. The characters he plays are usually harmless, kind, and sympathetic, like a cold, hungry, not-very-cute puppy or that odd, lonely-looking second cousin you’re always glad to see at family funerals but don’t know quite what to say to.

I came across this short film – written by and starring Broadbent – and directed by the amazing Mike Leigh. It’s a disturbing little movie in which Broadbent plays the 23rd Earl of Leete, an English aristocrat obsessed with maintaining his family’s ancient estate at all costs. It’s called “A Sense of History.” You really should watch this. It will give you chills, but it’s, well, fabulous.

John Milton, All Night Long

As part of its year-long celebration of Milton’s 400th birthday, the English department at Cambridge is staging a really long, live reading of “Paradise Lost” on October 23. Various faculty members will read from the epic poem, and the performance is expected to take all day (or all night, if you’re listening from stateside). You can hear the whole thing online on the Cambridge University website. It starts at 4 a.m. EST (1:00 a.m. PST). If your love of English literature doesn’t inspire you to get up quite that early, you can listen to it via podcast after the fact.

Speaking of Milton, The Guardian had an interesting article earlier this year about Milton’s numerous contributions to the English language:

Milton is responsible for introducing some 630 words to the English language, making him the country’s greatest neologist, ahead of Ben Jonson with 558, John Donne with 342 and Shakespeare with 229. Without the great poet there would be no liturgical, debauchery, besottedly, unhealthily, padlock, dismissive, terrific, embellishing, fragrance, didactic or love-lorn.

Read about Milton, coiner of words >>

Brits Think Cowboys are Gay

This week a blogger for the UK paper The Guardian speculated that the humor in Little Britain USA (which began airing in September on HBO) might be “difficult for America to swallow.” This is due, he says, to Americans’ “pathological denial” of the homoeroticism inherent in our “so-butch-its-camp” culture.

Whether you agree with him or not, he makes some interesting points. And gives us a glimpse into how Americans are perceived in Britain:

In Little Britain USA, “Our Boys” (as a cheerleading UK media seem to have tagged the camp duo) have put their probing finger on one of the most ticklish fault lines of US culture: how “gay” big butch God-fearing America can seem – and how comically in denial of this Americans can be…

Rather sweetly, compared to the UK, America is a country where machismo is still sacred – despite having done more than any other country to make it obsolete by inventing men’s shopping magazines. In the US of A, it seems, anything masculine can’t be gay and vice versa.

He adds that while our macho, cowboy culture seems hopelessly, obviously gay on the other side of the pond, “all Europeans look ‘faggy’ to Americans – especially us Brits.” (See full article >>)

A writer for the Telegraph has a different theory about why the show won’t appeal to American audiences: Its portrayal of the British as crass, course, and low-class shows us something we’d rather not see:

The American director of Little Britain USA, Michael Patrick Jann, warned the comedy duo: “I told them most Americans would consider anybody from Britain to be more well-mannered and more proper.” But it seems they paid him no heed. The dogged self-deception on the part of Americans that every Briton could sit down to tea with Miss Marple and acquit themselves honourably… (See full article >>)

Any other Anglophiles shifting uncomfortably in their chairs right now?

I Miss Alistair

Alistair Cooke

We’re now well into the re-branded 37th season of Masterpiece Theatre. Oh–sorry, I mean the 37th season of “Masterpiece,” since PBS decided that its old brand was too stuffy for American audiences. As you know if you’ve tuned in to PBS to witness the travesty yourself, we now have three new “sub-masterpieces”: Masterpiece Classic (i.e. Jane Austen et al), Masterpiece Mystery (self-explanatory), and Masterpiece Contemporary (i.e. no corsets).

The re-branding effort has also resulted in a radically different opening sequence for the show. In the old one, we were swept through a manuscript-laden room, accompanied by trumpets and violins, finally coming to rest at an armchair for an informative chat with the amiable host. With the new one, you get the feeling that PBS was desperately trying to keep a few shreds of the old intro, but wanted to sex it up–make it flashier and faster, like the openers you see on commercial television. In the new intro for Masterpiece Classic, a graphic of a book appears on the screen (not an actual book, mind you), and behind it flash several of the most famous (and beautiful) faces we’ve seen on the past shows—Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Gillian Anderson (the only “mature” face is Academy Award winner Helen Mirren). Something vaguely resembling the old theme music can be heard in the background. The Masterpiece Mystery opener is just as bad, and includes a gruesomely hacked-up (and pitifully brief) version of Edward Gorey’s fabulous cartoon.

Saying they want to attract a younger audience (and new corporate sponsors), PBS has chucked its older, wiser, wrinkled hosts for younger and, admittedly, more attractive ones: the American Gillian Anderson (best known from The X Files) and two young Englishmen, Alan Cumming and Matthew Goode. Unlike Alistair and Russell, they’re not writers; they’re actors. (Should we be reading anything into that?) These young actors read their scripts pretty well, although I found Cumming’s intros stilted and uncomfortable. Perhaps because they decided audiences were bored by too much informative, thoughtful “background information,” the producers have also shortened these monologues: Russell Baker talked for four minutes; Gillian and Co. speak for just one.

Isn’t there enough bustle and hurry on television already? Don’t we tune into Masterpiece Theatre for a break from this? We used to sit in the library for a cozy chat with Alistair, Russell, or Diana, surrounded by books that made us feel OK that we were watching TV instead of reading, because Masterpiece Theatre, well, it’s almost the same thing as reading, isn’t it? We didn’t tune in to see more gorgeous young people (all the other stations are already full of flawless faces).

PBS says they’re not changing the show itself—just the box it comes in: Just its name, “just” the introduction. But can we trust this? If they’re willing to mess with the library, willing to eviscerate Edward Gorey, what’s next? I know it’s naïve to ask that Masterpiece Theatre, classy and timeless-seeming as it is, turn a blind eye to the marketplace. Just like any other television show, in order to keep the good stuff on the air each week, they need to stay in business. But Masterpiece Theatre or Masterpiece, or whatever new, re-branded name they come up with next, is never going to have the massive audiences of the blockbuster American shows. Not as long as it continues to air adaptations of dusty old novels no one reads anymore, and feature the kind of actors (Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, etc.) who would never make it on the beauty pageant that is American television. But that’s just the point, isn’t it?

Why am I an Anglophile?

What’s behind my obsession with things English? And why do so many other Americans share my enthusiasm for the cultural output of our former colonizers? I’ve racked my brain to answer this question, and have come up with a few ideas in my first post to this blog: “Why Anglophilia?”

I’d love to hear what you think.  Why are you an Anglophile?

You can read about me and why I’ve started this blog here.