View from London
I think this most recent trip to and through London was my sixth or seventh to the city on the Thames. It is a ridiculously expensive place to visit, and I assume live, made even more so in this season of serial domestic mis-governance by the great shrinking dollar. I've read all the reasons why the dollar needs to be cheaper in relationship to the other significant world currencies, but the effect is stunning when you pony up $6 for a grande soy latte at the Starbucks I visited in Piccadilly.
London is a wildly diverse, cosmopolitan city that is bounded and spanned by street names, circles, parks, buildings, busses, cabs, post boxes, phone boxes, Bobbies, Bobby hats, and all the rest that signal history and mystery amidst the smash up of world culture.
The most recent dust up in the home isles is the pending disappearance of the 12 inch high hat the Bobbies have worn for the past 100 years in favor of something shorter, lighter, and made of plastic. There are good and sensible reasons for undertaking such a change, but the hue and cry from the chattering class is palpable. The famous busses have gotten shorter and squarer, the famous black taxi has been replaced by blobby looking transit pods that are painted all sorts of colors, the traditional red phone boxes have been ripped out by the jillions, and now this.
The hat that has served London's finest for over 100 years--it calamitously replaced the top hat that had served the local constabulary so well for the eon before--is to be replaced with a short, squat, riding helmet looking thing. Barbaric! Next thing you know the Page 3 girl will be given the old Janet Jackson to be replaced by a seven second delay and Justin Timberlake backpedaling faster than a Republican press secretary talking about the Texas National Guard.
Janet Jackson's Breast
The most famous wardrobe malfunction in recent memory still creates titters if not gales of laughter across the Atlantic. Janet's now famous right breast first came up in conversation a few days prior in a joke made by a senior European business executive in a general session meeting of 80 or 90 other executives. Everyone laughed uproariously and shook their heads at the silliness of it all. Not at Janet, but at the attendant furor in the land of milk and honey. There is apparently much that American's can abide, but a primetime breast isn't one of them.
Certainly the French like breasts, or at least don't give a rip about public nudity. Although I was visiting Nice the wrong time of year for that sort of thing, a summer day on any beach on the French Riviera is like a breast festival. In fact, they're everywhere, lurking on magazine covers, billboards, cosmetics advertisements, even television.
The British are somewhat more screwed down about the whole nudity thing than the French, but not by much. There are those pulchritudinous Page 3 girls of course. And SkyTV is loaded with educational specials on some dolly named Jordan who sports two soccer balls on her chest and has been linked with every well known male in Britain, the reality of the American Porn industry, and other equally important topics that warrant the display of breasts and other parts. Even the Economist, that staunch defender of conservative economics, took time out to comment on and display Ms. Jackson's nipple ring.
World's Best Taxi Drivers
On the way to my meetings one morning I found myself wondering under what conditions is it appropriate to leave a $6 tip for a $14 cab ride. I've ridden in cabs in lots of cities, but there isn't a ride anywhere in the world that is consistently finer than you find in London. Unlike many other cities, London cabbies actually have to pass an exam before they can drive customers. It takes two years and is called "the knowledge." I've certainly never stumped one though you'd have to worry if they couldn't find the places I go.
My first cabbie got on a roll about different people he's had in his cab and some of the silly things they say. We were both doubled over with laughter by the time we'd gotten from Thurloe Place to St. James's Street. My second cabbie of the day was a merchant marine veteran, loved the US, and had wonderful stories to tell about visiting Washington D.C., the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, San Diego, and Hawaii. We had a "loovley" time chatting about places I've lived and places he's visited.
I've paid more than $6 for worse movies. I tipped both drivers $6 for a $14 ride and was happy to do it.
The Hated Americans
My second cabbie not withstanding, the sense abroad about America is that we've collectively lost our minds. There are many reasons for this, and depending on who you're speaking of or with--the French for example--this opinion is not recently arrived at. But quite specifically, our Nation's reputation and moral standing in vast swaths of the world is shot. 9.11 was horrible, and detonating the Taliban was understandable, but launching a preemptive strike into Iraq is for virtually everyone I spoke with, incomprehensible.
No doubt the resounding failure to find even the mouse droppings of WMDs has made a wide space for foreign criticism, but it seems to go deeper than this. One dinner companion questioned me very closely and very energetically about how I could justify the thought of throwing over a sovereign nation because we didn't like the guy running the place. You can argue this seven ways to Sunday, but even the smallest sense of history confirms three points:
1) The only people who have ever launched pre-emptive, unprovoked first strikes have come to be regarded by history as madmen and tyrants. The names from just the last century give one pause: Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev.
2) Over even a modest timeframe, no first strike has ever resulted in long term success if hanging onto territory, treasury, or national reputation are important measures. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
3) No imperial power has ever won a prolonged guerrilla war. The most striking example might be the Boer War, the first modern guerrilla war fought by Europeans against Europeans in the closing days of the 19th Century. Some people know it because of young Winston Churchill's journalistic exploits and daring escape. Other's might know it for the Boer's use of modern German weaponry and hit and run tactics against dated Victorian military strategy and rifles.
Fewer still realize that the Boer War nearly bankrupted Britain, bleeding men and treasure in the name of making South Africa safe for Cecil Rhodes and his economic interests. Ultimately Britain prevailed in the sense that the Boer's laid down their guns. The Brits promptly gave the country back to the locals, and then staggered about in recession until the Great War came along to wipe out the flower of an entire generation and permanently render Britain a second rate world power. Now that was a victory to be proud of.
No historic parallel is completely accurate and applicable to current events, but it is equally true that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Why does our current administration think that the present adventure in Iraq will turn out any differently?
BeoBush
If you've traveled overseas over the years--I have many times since the late 1960s--you know that "anti-Americanism" has bloomed and withered in great long cycles. It goes along with being the biggest and toughest guy in the school yard. What's interesting about this round is how personal it has gotten: It's all about Bush (or what some wags call the Corleone family of the Republican Party).
The people I met hate him. They find him repulsive and fascinating. They're sure the citizenry has been drugged. How else to explain what they otherwise find inexplicable:
The invasion of Iraq.
The thumping great budget deficit. What happened to smaller government?
The obvious antipathy towards inconvenient truths. There are hundreds of examples, so pick one you like.
The astonishing habit of accusing opponents of things he himself does. For example, accusing candidate Kerry of trying to cut the pay of servicemen . . . when that's exactly what the Bush administration has been trying to do all along
The championing of a constitutional amendment to save marriage. If marriage needs to be saved, it's not from gays, it's from all those heterosexuals who persist in getting divorces.
The cheek of wrapping himself in the flag and the ruins of the World Trade Center while fighting off an official inquiry into what happened and doing everything possible to kill off promised funding to "first responders".
The cozy ties to the big energy companies.
The bi-polar view of the world that states, "Either you unconditionally agree with whatever I say, or you're a terrorist."
There's an opposite and probably valid point of view to every charge leveled at our President, and at some point it is tiresome to listen to a bunch of whiney Lilliputians, but I confess I find myself sharing their concerns.
Reading the news in the local papers about the latest bombings in Iraq, listening to a ceaseless wave of colleagues berate me about our present foreign policy, buying $6 coffee so we can do something about our miserable balance of payments, and thinking about a federal deficit that rivals the GDPs of all but the other G8 countries leaves me wondering: What are we thinking?
Photos
Some pictures from my walk around Knightsbridge.
Door, railing, and wall of a pretty typical flat [go]
Trash bins [go]
Columns [go]
Side entrance [go]
Dresses in a window round the corner [go]
More columns, more flats [go]
Phone booths and Harrod's [go]
Louvers [go]
The daily post [go]
Scooters are everywhere [go]
Shop on the street where you live [go]
Christo didn't do this but could have [go]
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Kevin Hoffberg
Last modified:
05/03/06