Tuesday 17 March 2009

A coffeeless Seattle

Jon Stewart in last night's re-run of some material from The Daily Show had a brilliant piece on Gordon Brown's visit to the US. The comparison of clips showed that Brown had lifted a number of phrases, admittedly some of them rather vacuous, straight from Obama's speeches.

Stewart reasonably pointed out that there was something a bit odd about the British prime minister coming on a rescue mission to the US. (To me it was reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher going to the States to rally the troops when Ronnie hit a bad spot). After all, the UK economy is probably in a worse state (more detailed analysis of this soon) and has less traction power.

Stewart pointed out that Britain only sees the sun about two days a year and likened it to a coffeeless Seattle which I thought was very funny. I have lived and worked in Seattle and it's a great place to live, but there is quite a lot of cloud and drizzle. It's a rare day when you see the mountain in all its glory.

In the past six months I have vistited colleagues of my age at their homes in the States and Australia (city home and estate in New Hampshire in the US case). Sometimes I think that the biggest mistake I made in my life was staying in Britain.

No comments: