Well, it's not really an obit but the title of the article in today's Observer does lend itself to my 'o's.
"This time I've come to bury Cool Britannia" [
Link] by Stryker McGuire: Newsweek's London-based contributing editor; he was London Bureau Chief from 1996 and started the snowball rolling in what became the root of the Cool Britannia phenomenum when his Newsweek article called London the
Coolest City On The Planet. Amusingly in only the second paragraph of that piece he wrote:
"The fun won't last, of course. London swings violently between booms and busts."
...(but nobody told Gordon!) Stryker was right, it didn't last: that optimism of a new dawn, a whiter than white era has long gone and he doesn't give any answers (he doesn't need to) but it is IMHO a good article of comparisons between when he first came over - when London reigned - and now. Well worth a read!
2 comments:
"The fun won't last, of course. London swings violently between booms and busts."
That's true but London is different to the U.K in the same way New York isn't USA or Paris isn't Texas. London is different, it changes faster than the rest of the U.K, fashions come in and out and the media regards it as the sole barometer of life in the U.K. If it wasn't for Corrie, Emmerdale or Waterloo Road I wouldn't know what the north looked like so rarely does it feature on the BBC and if you go west beyond the M25 you see a sign "Here be dragons!"
Given my heritage I'm not going to slag off the old girl but I do genuinely despise the London-centric media for talking down this country instead of talking it up. We have great people, humour, spirit, inventiveness etc and yet we are constantly belittled by people who have no soul. Ggrrrrrrrrr!
Hahaha, what you say is true of course and it doesn't show signs of fading, I know the government have made noises and some action towards a slight decentralisation but it won't go far.
My family being from the land of the pitchfork rebellion and the wyvern (Somerset dragon)
P.S. I do´'t think I could tell you where Emerdale is set...even Corrie I'd have to guess (in fact I only heard the term "Corrie" a few years ago!)
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