Cave City, Kentucky
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Tracy' started talking about us going on a holiday for a week or two in April. The tricky part is deciding where. We've been kicking the idea of South America around some time now, including a fantasy of featuring a couple of days on Easter Island somehow, but we haven't visited the US for a little while and I'm getting twitchy.
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I miss America
I miss America
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(What a difference a lower case M can make)
(What a difference a lower case M can make)
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I particularly miss the Southern States of America.
I particularly miss the Southern States of America.
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Whilst friends and acquaintances spent their affluent pre-parenthood years skipping off to exotic long-haul destinations in the Far East or Latin America, I was grabbing and manufacturing any opportunity that I could to get over to the US. I was never disappointed by what I found; shocked, amused, scared and impressed but never disappointed.
Whilst friends and acquaintances spent their affluent pre-parenthood years skipping off to exotic long-haul destinations in the Far East or Latin America, I was grabbing and manufacturing any opportunity that I could to get over to the US. I was never disappointed by what I found; shocked, amused, scared and impressed but never disappointed.
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Europeans foolishly think they understand the place. We are deluged with American TV and consumer products. We believe that we are familiar with what America is all about. And with that familiarity comes contempt.
Europeans foolishly think they understand the place. We are deluged with American TV and consumer products. We believe that we are familiar with what America is all about. And with that familiarity comes contempt.
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We haven’t a bloody clue. Judging America by its California-centric media industry in no fairer than assuming everyone in Britland speaks like Hugh Grant or with that really awful part Australian, part Cockney, part Mancunian British accent that crops up in 'export grade' British film-making. Americans don’t understand us and we don’t understand them. But we think we do. It's worse for the British compared to other Europeans because we share, well kind of, a common language and that fools us into believing that Americans are somehow less foreign than they really are.
We haven’t a bloody clue. Judging America by its California-centric media industry in no fairer than assuming everyone in Britland speaks like Hugh Grant or with that really awful part Australian, part Cockney, part Mancunian British accent that crops up in 'export grade' British film-making. Americans don’t understand us and we don’t understand them. But we think we do. It's worse for the British compared to other Europeans because we share, well kind of, a common language and that fools us into believing that Americans are somehow less foreign than they really are.
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The Iraq War hasn’t helped of course. I detest the whole thing but never, not for a minute, do I blame the American people, not even those who support their country's current course of action. They have been misled and manipulated on a huge scale. Given that an entirely similar process has taken place in my own country, how could I start making judgements or condone others who do? Maybe if we kicked that tool Blair out of office in a couple of months time we could get on some kind of moral high horse but it's looking like he'll get in again, in spite of all the lies and all the blood. What kind of idiots are we?
The Iraq War hasn’t helped of course. I detest the whole thing but never, not for a minute, do I blame the American people, not even those who support their country's current course of action. They have been misled and manipulated on a huge scale. Given that an entirely similar process has taken place in my own country, how could I start making judgements or condone others who do? Maybe if we kicked that tool Blair out of office in a couple of months time we could get on some kind of moral high horse but it's looking like he'll get in again, in spite of all the lies and all the blood. What kind of idiots are we?
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There's a long essay in me just dying to get out; one about the generosity and cruelty of America, its high and its lows, the folly of assuming that the actions of America's rulers reflect the nature of its people, the baffling contradictions present through the country, the sheer culture shock that a few days driving around some of its more eccentric States can bring. However, it's late and all I'm really after is an excuse to post a picture I took in Kentucky a couple of years ago. I came across it on my hard drive earlier today. The rest can wait for another time …
There's a long essay in me just dying to get out; one about the generosity and cruelty of America, its high and its lows, the folly of assuming that the actions of America's rulers reflect the nature of its people, the baffling contradictions present through the country, the sheer culture shock that a few days driving around some of its more eccentric States can bring. However, it's late and all I'm really after is an excuse to post a picture I took in Kentucky a couple of years ago. I came across it on my hard drive earlier today. The rest can wait for another time …
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