There’s a whole lotta hatin’ going on Facebook and Twitter about tomorrow’s Royal Wedding.
True, the news media is filled to bursting with coverage — all the minutiae on Kate and Wills, their families, the wedding parties, the route, the ceremony, the receptions, the ridiculous souvenirs.
It’s almost as annoying as NBC’s promotion of The Voice.
But how can Americans spew such bitterness upon these nuptials, when we typically lavish such love on all things British?
Don’t we get all excited each summer come Wimbledon… even though its finals fall on or around our nation’s Independence Day? Sure, we have the US Open in September, but their tennis tournament has the Duke and Duchess of Kent, strawberries and cream, and spiffy tennis whites.
It’s so proper. It’s soooo not us.
And don’t we love the actors and actresses who hail from the British isle, with their superior dramatic training and — most importantly — their glorious British accents? 
Didn’t we just bestow the Best Actor Oscar on the very worthy Colin Firth for his performance in The King’s Speech? We love him ‘exactly as he is’ — for his Mr. Darcy-ness — a quality that could not be achieved if he were not British.
You know it’s true.
So, America, try to recapture some of the love for the British that was in your heart when you gave The King’s Speech the Best Picture Oscar…when the very prickly, very American The Social Network clearly deserved to win.
It’s there. You’ve just forgotten.
(Ad campaigns will do that to you.)
Fit for a queen
People in England speak English. It makes foreign travel a bit easier for we language-challenged Americans.
But they still talk funny.
Not the accent — it’s lovely. The words and phrases they use in street signs, menus, and casual conversation.
This photo reminded me of my favorite ‘Huh?’ moment during my first trip to London.
If you’ve been there, you recognize the instructions at the entrance of the subway trains in the Tube. “Mind the gap” (don’t fall in the crack between the train and the platform) — so wonderfully British in its phrasing. I liked it so much, I bought a postcard.
And now, on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I post this photo. Because I’ve taken a lot of subways during my trips to England…
But I’ve never met the Queen.
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Posted in Humor, Life, News, transportation, Travel, Vacation
Tagged Americans, commentary, England, English, fit for a queen, Humor, language, language-challenged, life, London, mind the gap, postcard, Queen's Diamond Jubilee, subway, terminology, Travel, Tube, turn of phrase