Monday, October 20, 2008

Stephen Fry in America

The BBC have a new show with the indomitable Stephen Fry - and it makes me angry.

On visiting Miami, he mused: "I'd rather be curled up in a snowy cabin with a hot whisky or, quite frankly, a Horlicks than I would spend half an hour in this rotting place."

Oh, shut up Stephen.

Don't get me wrong. I love Stephen Fry. He's a wonderful actor, writer and a British institution. [He's even been institutionalized - Editorial Bear.]

That being said, I am absolutely bloody sick of that sort of dreary rubbish (typical of the BBC.)

It's lazy and it unoriginal, this self-important British bullshit of going somewhere exotic and then immediately thinking it's clever and witty to complain about how awful it is there.

Yes, I GET IT, we're British. We naturally think all foreign places are somehow a little backwards and queer. I mean, did you know they put maple syrup on their bacon over in America? And some crazy evangelicals actually believe the world is only 6,000 years old?

But I'm getting bored of the dreary same-old - the stiff-upper lip, jolly-good-show and forced nostalgia about drizzle and umbrellas and Coronation Street and how there's nothing better in the world than a 'nice cup of tea' (an oxymoron if there ever was one.)

Brits abroad! If all you've got to say about some place is that you'd rather be back home, why don't you just do yourself (and all of us) a favor and just bloody go there, then?

4 comments:

Sukhaloka said...

LOL! No comments really, but it's funny the way you write it.
And hey, don'cha insult a nice cup of tea! I love my Darjeeling at much as anyone from Bengal :D

Anonymous said...

It was that cup of tea that helped allow "the sun never sets on the British Empire". Ya'll boiled the water.

If you get a chance check out No Reservations on the Travel Channel, Tony Bourdain. He doesn't worry about boiling the water, he drinks and alcohol will kill damn near anything. He's so New York in your face, gotta love it. Funny as hell, unless you're a Brit and have no sense of humor and everybody in the world knows that's true, except the Brit's. ;p

Anonymous said...

You make me laugh! I'm back home.

Anonymous said...

Actually he loved Florida and only said that about Miami. I think it's a wonderful portrait of America and it's history and people. He clearly loves the place.

Sounds like you'd already made your mind up before the show was aired.