New York & London's 'Special Relationship'?
- Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Live Without 'Em


By Larry Jaffee


Once in the late 1980s I was at a friend's party where a particularly snotty English girl was putting down all things American. My friend Keith couldn't take it any more. He looked her straight in the eyes and bellowed: "We have holidays that celebrate the killing of British people." She didn't utter another word the rest of the party.

I was reminded of that incident this past mid-March when you couldn't escape the so-called "special relationship" between New York and London. It was the subject of a cover story in New York magazine, which had two New Yorkers who lived in London for an extended period analyse the rivalry between the supposed twin cities to claim to be the world's capital in terms of culture, finance, fashion, music, food, real estate, celebrities, gossip, etc.

Then the same week, Vanity Fair ran an article, written by an English theatre critic, critical of the way Brits in New York generally behave.

Timed perfectly was the public announcement of an effort to christen part of Manhattan's Greenwich Village "Little Britain," in the same way New York has neighbourhoods known as Little Italy and Chinatown, due to a large number of British-owned businesses that have settled locally.

The campaign is the brainchild of the married, transplanted Brit/entrepreneurs Nicky Perry and Sean Kavangh-Dowsett, whose restaurant Tea & Sympathy and adjoining British gift shop and fish & chips eatery, are among nearly two dozen British-owned businesses in the vicinity. They include fashion designers Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen and a new pub, The Spotted Pig.

Nicky and Sean have been long mates of the Walford Gazette, although I'll never forget her irate phone call to me when I published a review critical of British food in the very first issue of this newspaper in 1992. How dare I?

Virgin Atlantic Airways, the campaign's main corporate sponsor, flies over half a million people between New York City and the UK each year. New York is important to the history of the airline, which launched its inaugural flight in 1984 from London to New York, and has carried over 13 million travelers between the two cities.

A short film, made to promote the campaign (see it at www.campaignforlittlebritain.com), was played for the media at a well-attended press conference, including the Walford Gazette. Hot Brit songstress Joss Stone, whose new CD was released that same day, was on hand to endorse the Little Britain campaign.

Naturally it's in the Gazette's interest to support any effort that brings attention to British culture in our backyard, so please sign the petition on the campaign's website.

Meanwhile, A.A. Gill wonders in Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/04/brits200704), "Why is it that the English continue to get it so wrong in New York? There is something particularly, peculiarly irritating about the Brits over here... The Brits believe that they have a birth-given sincerity and that it's not what you say but how you say it that matters. And that all silly, gullible Yanks, from policemen to society hostesses, will wave us ahead on life's road when we open our euphonious mouth.

"The British in New York are not good mixers. We hunker together, forming bitchy old boys' and girls' clubs where we complain about and giggle over Americans like nannies talking about difficult, stupid children. An English girl, newly arrived, has been picked up by the expat coven and asked for tea. And rather nonplussed, she says, 'It's sad and sort of weird. This is the way our grandparents used to behave in Africa and India.'"

Getting back to New York magazine's hypotheses. The fact remains it really makes no difference which city thinks it's the world leader. The rest of the world at the moment hates the US and the UK, and it will stay like that as long the political climate doesn't improve—which isn't likely any time in the foreseeable future.

I recently came across a book first published in 1946 by George Orwell called Why I Write, which turned out to be more of a post-WWII, left-wing critique of English nationalism than what makes a great writer (1984, Animal Farm) tick.

"England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly," wrote Orwell at the time.

With Blair's "Cool Britannia" going out the door any moment now and the way Bush had annexed the UK to become the 51st state and support its immoral military action in Iraq, it would seem that Orwell's observation is spot on.

I think a 20th century quotation that best captured the unique relationship between the US and the UK comes from Ludwell Denny in his book, originally published in 1930, America Conquers Britain: "We shall not make Britain's mistake. Too wise to try to govern the world, we shall merely own it."

Unfortunately, after all is said and done, China is on its way to control the international economy.

Let's hope that it does not make the same imperialistic errors to protect humanity.




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