Posts Tagged: England
7

Mapping The Newest Old Map Of The World

Under circumstances shrouded by mystery, two brothers painted this on a wall by the railway tracks at Paddington on Christmas Eve of 1974.

Until the wall was knocked down, ten years later, passengers would cruise past it as their trains slowed in and out of London. It was anonymous, 45 centimeters tall, and not very colorful, but a lot of people remember it. "Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere."

In his lovely A History of the World in Twelve Maps (the Daily Mail called it "jaunty"), historian Jerry Brotton calls the graffito "perhaps the best metaphorical description" of what happens when a person uses a [...]

13

Today You Can Buy Queen Mary I's Secret Trump Card

At the age of 15, King Edward VI was dying. For his last act as king, he excluded both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession. (To get Mary out of the line, he had to ditch them both.) His Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, was named the Queen of England.

Two days after his death, Mary raised an army of nearly twenty thousand. It took just nine days for Mary—the only child born to Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon—to correct her half-brother’s final request. Coercion by force was an effective instrument, and it would come to define her reign.

At [...]

12

The Before And After Of "Monty Python's Flying Circus"

When but a girl, I used to stay up quite late watching TV (exciting in itself!) trolling for Fred Astaire or Marx Brothers movies in a sea of horrific late-night jangling commercials like those featuring, in his white cowboy hat, the car dealer Cal Worthington "and his dog, Spot" (who turned out to be an elephant, often as not). Thus it was that one night I discovered "Monty Python's Flying Circus," a phenomenon that roared like a hurricane across the plain of my tender psyche, ending in an hoarse, explosive "It's!" How can I tell you what this meant to me? It was just a TV show, but "Monty Python" [...]

1

France Smells Like Frenchman

"It is truly, truly awful – like the worst flatulent person ever standing with their back turned to you." —The centuries of conflict between France and England, relatively dormant for the last few years, are now playing themselves out as farce.

9

Twitter is Making the Brits Disgustingly American

I thought British people were allergic to self-promotion or, indeed, any kind of reference to oneself that was not heavily caked in self-deprecation. Doesn't it make you break out in tea rash? Now look at you, instructing your Twitter followers to read your blogs, "check out" your articles, etc. This makes me suspect that Britain and all of its inhabitants have been swallowed up by an apocalyptic fire and replaced by an island of replicants who are planning world domination. Amirite or amirite?

Yet retweeting compliments is to harmless self-promotion what freebasing crack is to marijuana. And, going by this analogy, it grieves me to tell you—although I can't [...]

39

Huge Tosser Makes Sense: Russell Brand on UK Riots

Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, "mindlessly," motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that's why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.

These young people have no sense of community because they haven't been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron's mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there's no such thing.

—The [...]

13

UK Prime Minister Cancels Tuscan Holiday :(

One thing you don't want to do probably is go a-thieving in a total surveillance society. The Metropolitan Police have set up a Flickr account with pretty pictures of a few people who have apparently gone robbing in North London at some point before or after these images were captured. It's the modern version of the "WANTED" poster, but en masse. Of course, some people have taken to Tumblr to do this vigilante style. In less dramatic imagery of the day, people have apparently taken to the streets with brooms to tidy up. Awww! And more to be found here.

In other, totally unrelated [...]

13

Marvelous Spinster Barbara Pym At 100

A note in Barbara Pym's diary instructs: "Read some of Jane Austen's last chapters and find out how she manages all the loose ends." Next entry, a fairly typical one: "The Riviera Cafe, St. Austell is decorated in shades of chocolate brown. Very tasteless, as are the cakes." This was written in 1952. She was 38, had published two novels, Some Tame Gazelle and the resplendent Excellent Women, and was at work on the next. It had taken 15 years of dutiful revising and circulating it around for Some Tame Gazelle to find a publisher. During the rewrites she had tried to heed her agent's advice to "be more wicked, [...]

5

London's Last Class War Street Party! Farewell Witch Thatcher, Say Aging Punks

In the early 90s, the great anarchist newspaper Class War suggested that on the first Saturday after the death of Margaret Thatcher, the people should gather at 6 p.m. in Trafalgar Square to celebrate. As anyone even vaguely familiar with lefty infighting knows, the memory of the anarchist is long and thorough, so after Thatcher died on Monday, some of the old guard and fellow travellers dutifully showed up. The original incarnation of Class War is now defunct so there wasn't anybody in particular managing the thing. This protest was neither spontaneous nor especially well-planned, so it didn't benefit from clear organization, nor did it evince the awesome, unwieldy, atavistic [...]

3

Were These World War II British Vegans the First Hippies?

Where did the whole vegan thing come from? I always figured it was a 1970s thing, or maybe it went back to Berkeley in the early 1960s. According to the Vegan Society, the non-dairy/egg-free vegetarian craze began in London back in 1944. That was not a fun year to be in London, what with the aerial bombings and rocket attacks. Here's what they said in the very first issue of their newsletter:

That freedom has now come to us. Having followed a diet free from all animal food for periods varying from a few weeks in some cases, to many years in others, we believe our ideas [...]

21

Being James Bond Also Makes You Get Really Old, Very Quickly!

America's favorite British spy/murderer is back in the new blockbuster Skyfall, and once again we are all wondering what it is about playing James Bond that makes actors get very old almost immediately. Is it some kind of English curse? Just look at Daniel Craig. Yes, a very handsome man with very blue eyes and very pronounced biceps in a state of "perpetual plyometric engagement," but the dude is only 44 years old! He's six years younger than Tom Cruise, who still looks about 25. Anyway, this so-called English Curse That Makes Bond Actors Super Old is a real thing, which can be documented with photographs, so that is [...]

5

Immigrants Also Stealing Totally Unwanted Jobs in UK

"The Daily Mail advertised ten fictitious job vacancies in towns and cities across Britain…. A 25-hour-a-week cleaning job paying £10 an hour that was advertised in London attracted in excess of 225 applications. Of these, just 17 were from British workers." — £10 an hour??? That's like $60!!! Lazy Britons. Anyway, just like in America, immigrants aren't taking your jobs; they're just actually applying for them.

28

England Forced to Notice Young, Poor, Angry People

And now we enter phase three of massive social unrest, in which the media wonders: who are "the looters" and why might they be "upset"? Literally: "The crowds involved in violence and looting are drawn from a complex mix of social and racial backgrounds." Oh I see. And: "Two girls who took part in Monday night's riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and 'the rich' that 'we can do what we want.'" Why didn't anyone tell the media before that England was populated with a huge resentful underclass? WHY WAS THERE NOT A PRESS RELEASE ABOUT THIS?

19

The End of English Society

The Ascot Gold Cup—the schmancy horserace in Berkshire, founded by Queen Anne, part of the summer season at the Ascot Racecourse—has long been on the circuit of fancy white inbred people in Knifecrime Island. And now? It is beset by louts and chavs! These must-see photographs of the disaster have the world's best captions: "Lowering the tone: A man wielding a £98 bottle of Laurent Perrier Rose Champagne gets involved as the fight breaks out between racegoers." This makes the Stanley Cup Vancouver riots this week look like a kiddy tea time!

3

Names of 'Guardian' Reader's Pets in Order of Relative 'Guardian'-Readerness

  • Bob
  • Audrey
  • Douglas
  • Sophie
  • Hodge
  • Rick
  • Otto
  • Benny
  • Elmer
  • Pepper
  • Rasputin
  • Princess Poppy Purrington
  • Fritz
  • Chumley
4

Baby Names Beyond Parody

We didn't quite believe it when we saw this on Kate Day's Twitter, but here it is, in the Independent. Biggles George Fittleworth Jackson-Kew. And his sister. Posie Betsy Winifred Jackson-Kew. Who have an older sister. Named Tuppence.

But of course, things are crazy in England. The paper also makes note of the marriage of Peter Wood and Kitty Fox, and please let them hyphenate their names. "Hello, Mrs. Kitty Wood-Fox!"

It should also be noted that another excellent baby shared this announcement page, and her name is Cora Dudgeon. I swoon.

5

Knifed Skull Found In English Garbage Belongs To Hunchbacked King

The murdered remains of another scrawny Englishman found in the rubble of a "car park" is actually the long-dead hunchback king, Richard III. This is why the United Kingdom continues to cling to its quaint system of royalty, so that a wayward stabbed king can occasionally be found in the sodden ground beneath a parking lot, to give people hope.

A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park has been confirmed as that of English king Richard III. Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch's family …. Richard, killed in battle in 1485, will be reinterred in [...]

6

Killer Mildly Regretful

"Thinking back he wasn't a bad bloke, actually." —"A convicted killer has told a jury how he strangled his neighbour with a TV flex after he flew into a rage following unwanted sexual attention."

4

England Now Has More Prisoners Per Capita Than Australia

"The prison population of England and Wales has hit a new record high of 86,608 people," thanks to several hundred young rioters being held in the system. Yup: 86,000 people are in prison out of a population of 53,390,300. Yeah… so that's .0016% of England and Wales. (The U.S. has about 2,300,000 people in prison, out of 307,006,550 people—almost five times as many, by population.)

Guess what? This means England has surpassed its tragic colony, old Prisoncrime Island, in rates of imprisonment—with all of 22 million people, Australia has only like 30,000 people in prison. (Though they're trying desperately to up their rates!)

12

Oh Noes, UK Chancellor Has to Cancel Vacation Too :(

Chancellor George Osborne, once he found out that PM David Cameron left Tuscany just a few days after North London was overtaken by riots, "immediately" left California to go back and watch London and Manchester burn. (And observe its Diesel stores get their windows broken.) When will anyone ever get a long foreign holiday??? Not as long as angry jobless yobbos exist.

In other news, Angela Merkel is in the Alps, Nicolas Sarkozy is in the French Riviera, and Nick Clegg just got back from Spain and France. (This and many more photos here.)