America is rough and lacks the interesting

A refined, upper class English woman told me that years ago in London. If you drive up the middle of Nevada, as I did last week, you might agree. There's nothing to see except the odd McDonalds and a few Shady Lady brothels. Of course when you swing over to California you are entering a verdant paradise of orchards, lakes, mountains and oceanfront an Englishman can only dream about. And the people are very interesting and well educated. We spent an evening dining al fresco on one of those soft summer nights discussing art, music and literature. Not too rough. We even devoted an evening to watching a video of “Swan Lake” by the Maryinsky Ballet and since we had all been to St. Petersburg and some of us spoke Russian, we could enjoy it about as well as the average bloke in Basingstoke. Dickens also complained in “American Notes” (1840) that the Americans he met were boring businessmen and traders. Well, they weren't as exciting and devious as Bill Sykes, Fagin and Abel Magwitch. DeToqueville understood us best, but then he was a Frogie Frenchman, wasn't he? I happen to love England but I do prefer a cold beer on a hot day to a warm one on a cold day. The one who understood England best was Orwell. He wrote in his diary in June 1940 about an item in the Tory Telegraph lamenting that the rich would have to give up their cooks during the war. He wrote, “apparently nothing will teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist”. Make that 100%.

The greatest race never run.

I could have gone to the 1948 Olympics in London when I was 13. I don't say I was Bob Mathias or Emil Zatopec but I ran my kind of race. I could probably be in the 2012 Olympics in London even though I'm 77. Unfortunately my event has never been sanctioned by the sanctimonious. arrogant elites that run the IOC. I'm referring to The Three-Legged Dash. You know, the one where they tie the inner legs of two people together and send them hopping off to the finish line. Today's Olympics are a television event or how would you describe beach blanket bikini volleyball, BMX motorcycle races and synchronized swimming, diving, schlepping? Even the time-honored Triple Jump seems like a form of aggressive hopscotch. I don't say they have to go as far as the Monty Python group that put on women's clothes for Drag Racing, but there has to be something for the non-steroid viewer. It's all politics,isn't it? Backroom arm twisting and blackmail. Greece is bankrupt and so is the Olympic Committee. In Orwell's “Animal Farm” the motto of the triumphant animals over the farmers was “Two legs bad, four legs good”. Well, I say, “Two legs boring, three legs thrilling”.

Facebook! Farcebook! Fleecebook!

I'm an adult so I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account. I don't believe in them because I believe in privacy. They are just Big Brother on your computer screen. Don't kid yourself, you are under constant surveillance around the clock. One of the aspects of Orwell's “1984” was “Facecrime”, the dangerous condition if your thoughts were deemed suspicious in a public place. Dossiers are being compiled on you right now by some service that is tracking your capacity to buy and spend. Harmless you say, well, read Andrew Keen's book: Digital Vertigo-how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing and disorienting us. Facebook has nearly one billion “users” so I am just a lone voice pleading for reason. Well, I'm not totally alone. The late Gore Vidal said, “It's of no consequence what people think of you, the only thing that matters is what you think of them”. I don't often quote Ayn Rand, but in The Fountainhead she has the villain, Ellsworth Toohey ask the hero Howard Roark, “What do you really think of me?” and Roark replys, “I don't think of you at all.” So we now have this mighty company that began trading in May at $100 billion valuation. It's now about $60 billion and heading south daily. Of course the underwriters and Mr. Zuckerberg have banked their proceeds and the public is left holding the bag. I'm not sure you can sell “liking”. It's an unreal product and not very essential to everyday life. And advertising doesn't fit comfortably into the popular mobile format, probably why GM and other advertisers are dropping out. Only time will tell but it's good to remember Prohibition's speakeasy queen, Texas Guinan who traditionally greeted patrons with a hearty “Hello suckers”. Hello Zuckers!