A Cultural Interlude: Dancing, Dancing, Dancing!

What is it with those Brits and pop culture? Frankly, I'd live and die there for the poshness of the accent alone. I feel quite at home and connected somehow.

Do try to stay focused, there are videos to watch in a minute. Did you take your Ritalin?

That said, I'm not so wild about everything Anglo. Their famed fish and chips are just hefty planks of globber best suited for absorbing grease. This grease then doubles in volume before vomiting on a quaint newspaper.

Their syncopated system of "central" heating means never knowing a warm minute without a duvet and a water bottle.

The exchange rate left me with 48 cents, two kids, and no connecting flight in Nashville. The delay was an act of God, they told the angry man who smelled like sweaty fish and chips, and was not covered within their rooming policy. 20 hours since breakfast and I broke my sacred rule of not crying near public transportation. All was well in the end. Their policy extended to mothers and their "babies."

Where was I? Like, have you ever eaten an English Egg McMuffin? There's no tang, no hint of smoked anything--it's a poached egg on a soggy muffin with tasteless cheese for color. And mincemeat? A good mince should numb the gums from a surfeit of clove. I bought a dozen cute little pies for Christmas Day, and threw all but two away.

But look at this pair, the "Cheeky Monkeys," singing and dancing to the communal delight of the British Isles. This is mince with no clove.




I'll just say it. British popular music is predictable, unevolved and banal. The obvious strain for cutesiness doesn't pall on their palate--no, they love all that saccharin ootsiness more at home on Lawrence Welk, may his memory be a blessing, than on anything contemporary. I wasn't charmed, were you?

And Simon Cowell seems to have taken a palliative that made his heart grow nine times its size there in Whoville, UK, while simultaneously removing any faculty for critical thinking. It's about enough to make you puke, if the rick rack doesn't get you first. My what a mean lady I am.

How did the island that gave us the Beatles, The Animals, The Yardbirds, Twiggy, Donovan, The Doors and Davey Jones have so slid down the bell curve? But what gives? And no, I don't consider the Stones a treasure but I love Elvis Costello and The Eurythmics. I'd take a cold shower with Duran Duran to escape the techno/beat/pop sound of popular music over there now.




The Boy Ridiculously Dances - video powered by Metacafe

Now, these are moves.




Walk Dancing - video powered by Metacafe

But then who knew from walk dancing? The prettiest footwork in video today.