We Are Not Amused!
Don’t get me wrong, I love my native Britain, and would still be there but for an out of the blue event that came into my life over 8 years ago, which resulted in bringing me to the U.S. In short, I met my love, and I am very happy here, but I do get homesick for certain things at times. I miss family and friends that I’ve left behind, and the places and traditions that I grew up with that remain in my heart. I catch up with British shows on Netflix so I can longingly gaze at the places I recognize, and partly because my other half says I’ve lost some of my London accent and need to get it back again…….yes dear! However, there are some things that I would have hoped I could have left behind, but they have followed me here relentlessly. Things like the many singing acts that Simon Cowell churns out on a regular basis, and Royal Family Mania.
I do understand the fascination for another country and its traditions. We often look elsewhere for something that we feel is better than what we have. My own daughter loves all things Japanese, which include sushi and Anime, and ironically now has a ‘fan-crush’ on two British girls who have a YouTube channel. God knows I grew up watching American TV shows and movies with my mum, and dreamed of the time when I could come for a vacation to New York or San Francisco, never knowing that I would one day be living here (North Carolina! Not my choice, especially as I’m not religious and certainly not straight. I am burn-at-the-stake material here you know!…..It was just where my girl happened to be living). However, there are some things that I would rather not be bombarded with now that I no longer reside in good old Blighty.
First…..One Direction! Until recently you could hear me cry “Who the hell is One Direction?” Well, since then I have now been educated on their existence. Apparently they are an English-Irish boy band who appeared 2 years ago on Simon Cowell’s British show The X-Factor, which is similar to the likes of shows like American Idol here, and they are now the latest wet-knickered dream of 5th graders here and probably everywhere else, not least of course in Britain itself. Again, don’t get me wrong, I too would plaster my walls with posters of whoever I was into when I was a kid. In my day it was David Cassidy, David Essex, The Police (the band, not the boys and girls in blue) and Starsky & Hutch, to name but a few. Yes I am showing my age here! So, I do understand the process that little girls go through as they are about to enter puberty and realize that boys aren’t the grubby little snot-buckets that they thought they were not so long ago. Now attraction is taking hold, and both sexes are starting to appreciate each other for the most part, no matter what you find your sexual orientation to be (I’m sure One Direction has an ardent gay following too). But do I really need to see and hear about them multiple times a day in whatever form of media I’m currently looking at? Do I begrudge them their fame and fortune?…..Nah of course not! Many a time, as a kid, would I stand in front of my mirror, holding a hairbrush, while pretending I was a famous pop singer, shouting “Mum!!!” every time my female parental unit would walk into my room without knocking first and catch me prancing around like a doughnut (that’s what we Londoners call someone who is a bit of an idiot…..it’s more of an affectionate term than telling someone they’re an idiot). I encourage them to make the most of their 15 minutes of fame, and hope that they have a good team of financial people (and stable parents) around them so they have something to show for it when the tweenies turn to the next flavor of the month in a year or two. What I just can’t stand is grown people on the likes of ‘Good Morning America’ gushing about them performing at Madison Square Garden, reportedly at $800 per ticket. Who the hell buys their child a concert ticket for $800??? My kids have to pledge a lifetime of servitude to me and the missus before we part with $5!
Recently, we canceled our cable tv package. I thought we’d miss it so much more than we actually do. We can get a few channels through an antenna, and I realize now that we really don’t miss the hundreds of channels that we had before. You know why? Because we find ourselves no longer paying extortionate amounts of money per month to have the same crap rammed down our throats on multiple channels at the same time. Yes, we still get some of it, but to a much lesser degree and on only a few channels rather than hundreds. Thankfully, we also get a good deal of PBS stuff that is of the meaningful and educational kind so that we can educate our little brains rather than have them beaten to a pulp. The freedom is wonderful! What’s my point here? My point is that now, instead of wasting so much time channel hopping only to find the same old reality show crap on the majority of them that the rest of society’s clones can’t seem to live without, we’re now done pressing buttons on the remote within a few minutes if we don’t see anything that takes our fancy. This encourages us to go and do something way more satisfying, useful, and less mind-numbing. The older I get, I can do without the mind-numbing. I need all the brain cells I can hang onto thank you very much!
Second…..Now, for Royal Family Mania. I could rant about the coverage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s news of the future patter of tiny feet……..no I’m not referring to a new Corgi puppy they could have bought the Queen for Christmas. But, to be honest, I really don’t have the energy for that one right now.
Maybe tomorrow.
Over and out for now!
Wold On The World 