I like how Americans use "bunch" as an all purpose collective noun, whereas we only tend to use it for flowers. I also like the New Yorkers' idea of having numbers for street names - very practical indeed. If I ever go to New York I'll be able to find 53rd and 3rd. I like New York full stop (or period if you prefer). I don't like the Superbowl much. I can appreciate the skills involved in a quarterback throwing an inch perfect pass into the path of an Olympic paced running back just before half a dozen muscly 20 stone blokes descend on him. But I hate the pretentiousness (Superbowl XLIX in Roman numerals - it's only 49 years old FFS - what';s that all about?), the lack of any subtlety from anyone involved on or off the pitch (except perhaps the aforementioned quarterback), the excuse for jingoism, the insularity (World Championship??? - only the U.S and Canada play this game professionally). And I hate Katy Perry.
One of the main things I've found out since living in the States is that Americans utterly fetishise the word "freedom" whilst living in a society which is much more restrictive, conformist and shackled than the UK. To most people here "freedom" seems to mean the capacity to own lethal weapons, not have free healthcare and allow corporations to seize control of every aspect of society. But people here really think they are somehow very "free". I definitely feel much less free here than I did in the UK. There is no such thing as public footpaths here, for one example. "Freedom" does not mean any ability to access any land whatsoever unless it's a public park. And if you live where I do and you're in the park you need to keep to the paths (for good reasons - rattlesnakes, poison oak, ticks). So if you want some fresh air and countryside you end up walking on a path along with a bunch of other people joylessly dressed in spandex (Americans need to get kitted up for any activity - can't go for a walk without calling it "a hike" and getting a bunch of special equipment out). And the stereotype of Americans knowing nothing about the rest of the world? Or even their own country? Last week a girl, maybe 20 or so, asked me where I was from. I said "The UK". To which she replied "Oh, I've been there" so I asked whereabouts. "Germany and France", came the reply. This girl was one of the minority who has ever owned a passport. A day later a girl of similar age was not 100% sure that Washington DC was her country's capital city. So freedom from ignorance is not a big priority either. But don't worry, Spurm - there are good things about living here! Though I'm sure that the irony of suddenly being very attractive (due to the accent) to lots of women the moment you get married will not be lost on you.
I watched the Superbowl not on the BBC for the first time (I know, terrible Brit Abroad) on Sunday. And I reckon it has to be at the very least 50% adverts. Possibly more like 60%. At least it felt that way. NO analysis of the game possible. And the Americans I was with simply couldn't see how awful that situation was. They're just used to it and if anything the special Superbowl ads (filled with celebrities) are just part of the whole experience. Nauseating.
A few years ago I was in a bar in San Diego watching a college football game, and it genuinely looked like another sport: when the ball went dead they just got up and set up the next play in a few seconds, rather than the length of time for yet another commercial break like they do in the NFL, and the game flowed so much better than any NFL stop-start fest. I've always wondered how tiresome that is in the stadium, sitting there in a seat you paid for watching the players mooch around on the sidelines as the game is apparently less important than the adverts - just as much as I've wondered if they beam the commercials into the stadium to keep the crowd "happy". Since I'm on the subject, I remember some Nordamericanly challenged person complain about football as the game always stops and starts over ninety minutes - missing the fact that American football, which is supposed to take sixty minutes to play, takes the best part of triple that due to the constant stopping and starting and the ad breaks inbetween.
And why is it called Football. Apart from the occasional field kick, it rarely comes in contact with a foot.
It's all part of the self-indulgence. Why not use the name of world's greatest sport for your domestic game? I don't have any problem with the game per se - just all the grandiose histrionics
Objection! Rugby is a bloody great game!. Better than a bunch of armour clad goons banging heads together for the best part of 3 hours!...
An NFL game isn’t the best part of three hours. It’s 3 1/2, on average. You can see why my reaction to real football was amazement that I could watch a game, and actually, well, watch a game. This year’s Super Bowl (even longer than that) was enlivened by what might have been the most egregious blunder in the history of American sports. With three plays to get one yard and the winning touchdown, and a runner who had gotten one or more yards 22/24 times that game, the Seahawks decided to pass, and the quarterback threw an interception, which cost them the game. The coach of the Seahawks said he wanted to "waste a play." With forty seconds left and the winning score one yard away. Mind-boggling. As good an example of bottling it, or choking, as we say, as you’re likely to see. You have gotten many of the negatives about the US extremely well. The paradox of freedom is particularly cruel. There are plenty of good things about the US, I think, though I prefer the UK as well. No aristocracy by birth comes to mind. Great progress made against prejudice of all kinds, though this is really only true socially and not economically.
When I saw that play it was one of those moments when I thought "Either there's something very fundamental that I don't understand about this game [very possible] or that was just a huge cock-up". A bad decision appallingly executed. Up to that point the guy with the long dreads charging forward seemed to be their main tactic. Then the moment it seemed the obvious choice they abandon it. I found it hard to enjoy my car adverts after that.
It was mind boggling. It was roughly like missing the goal on the decisive pen in a tie with an outfield player as keeper. The running back also had never lost any yards all game. So he had three tries to make one yard, had never lost yardage, and had gained one yard or more 22/24 times. It does go to show how four plus hours in a hot spotlight, plus months of building pressure, can fry synapses. The ridiculous call was made by the coach, but Wilson, the QB, also was at fault. In the situation they were in, getting stopped three times trying to run for a yard, while highly unlikely, is the only way you want to fail. You simply can’t throw an interception or take a penalty. On seeing the play call, Wilson should have decided to throw the ball into the stands if the player wasn’t wide open---or. better. ignored the coach and tried to dive over the goal line immediately after he got the snap.
All good info lads, cheers. Lenny, where are you over there? I didn't know you were out there. Obviously i've been out there a fair amount so lots of things have become apparent like no footpaths (only in nicer areas), no walking, etc. I've learned things about work over there, it seems very easy to fire people. No, or not so good, employment laws. Lack of public transport and seemingly drunk driving is rife. The sport is not so good, obviously, but they do show more Prem games than over here already. As long as they keep that up thats ok. Rugby seems harder to get though which is a downer. Broadband and postal deliveries seem much inferior. I guess those are a consequence of being so big and widely spread. When the Atlanta falcons posted this for their fans about their upcoming wembley visit i showed it to the fiance, obviously i thought it was hilarious. Her response was "what's so funny?". This is an intelligent girl who is engaged to a British person and who has visited her on numerous occasions: please log in to view this image
There is that stat about the proportion of Americans who have been out of the country. When my ex-niece came to visit us, it was the first time she'd been outside her state, let alone the country. I guess the above graphic is helpful in relaying the idea that London is in another continent some distance away (although coast to coast US at it's widest is over 3,000 miles), not so helpful if you're trying to distinguish London from Alicante / Barcelona (or other cities perhaps indicated by No.3). Good find!
The U.S fears everything outside its own borders. For better or worse, it's role as self appointed, self righteous world police force tends to alienate many aliens - and it's not always the traditional bad guys who are offended. It makes Americans very insular (hence not knowing the location of probably the most well known city in the world). As I said before, there's a lot to like about the U.S and its people, but they don't always show their best side.
We worked it out (using basic google searches, no actual working out) that she lives the same distance from Hawaii as she does from London.
Believe it or not, Luke, it's actually gotten a lot better than I was. 30+ years ago, when I lived just outside of Chicago, most of my neighbours thought the world ended at Long Island!
The thing about lots of Americans not having passports is that they don't really need them. You can experience most landscapes and climates in the US, you don't need to leave the country to see a desert or go to the mountains and stuff like that. We don't have that here. What they miss out on I guess is experiencing more of a 'world view'. There are lots of things I love about the States, especially having being born there myself, but something I've become incredibly aware of seeing my cousins grow up in very, very wealthy circumstances is that being born into the right family is so important and helpful to your later life prospects, more so than in the UK. Their maternal grandfather grew up in an Irish orphanage, was adopted by a pretty normal American family, became a pilot through hard work and sheer ability and is now very wealthy - thats the American Dream. I don't think he would be able to have that success as a poor immigrant now unfortunately, not even in the Land of Opportunity. Historically speaking, the US has become in so many ways what it was founded to be against - power held by the few, limited opportunity for all, institutional and non-institutional racism - its a great sadness in a way.
It's not helped by America's idiotic approach to international travel. First of all they are the only country where you have to immigrate the second your plane touches the ground, rather than when you reach your final destination. This means that, while in any other country you can get off one flight onto your connecting flight in little time at all - for example, the period between my flight landing in Charles de Gaulle and the one leaving for Biarritz was about half an hour, which was easily done. In the US, on the other hand, this cannot be done, as I'd still be in the immigration queue as the plane left. The main reason for this is they have a hub system, meaning there's direct flights to a few cities (New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta - like anyone wants to ****ing go to Atlanta - and San Francisco), so if you want to fly to somewhere like Seattle that means you get dumped at one hub, have to take an age to immigrate, then get on a second flight - even though it's so much more logical to follow the same system that the rest of the world does. The whole system is remarkably infuriating when you see there are numerous immigration desks for US Citizens, but a handful for passengers from the rest of the world - which, given the amount of traffic that some of these airports have, means you're in for a long wait if two or three intercontinental flights land within a few minutes of each other, which is made insufferable as there's a couple of hundred non-US Citizens stuck in a queue while the couple of dozen Americans on those flights waltz through immigration in minutes. In my experience, Newark is the only airport where they show some initiative and let non-US Citizens through the US Citizen desk to get the queues down.
