Anglosphere

The American Gift of Forgetfulness

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Presuming the residual antipathies Lex quoted in I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot to be characteristic of UK media figures, we have one more reason to regard tasteless American ahistoricity as a feature rather than a bug, because endocrine-system reactions to “Roman Catholic” are, I believe, just about inconceivable here, and certainly not because we’ve all translated into a higher plane of flawlessly nontheistic rationality.

I was going to make this a comment on Lex’s post but then realized that I wanted to pile on the links, which would choke the comment-spam filter faster than a Greenpeace activist on a tour of a nuclear power plant. So away I go with a barrage of autobiographical details, which is the price of a post written by me that’s anything other than hopelessly abstract. Gosh, you’re thinking, I can’t wait to see this!

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Happy Thanksgiving

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All best wishes for Thanksgiving to our American friends from this side of the Pond. To be honest, it ought to be a British festivity as well. They were English, were they not?

Those Nutty Brits

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I always thought that the British were mad because of what they ate for breakfast. Kippers, bloaters and liver.

I know that not every person from England eats that stuff, but c’mon! “Bloaters”?

Back in the days when I worked for the police, we would have to fingerprint corpses to see if we could figure out who they were. Bloaters were what we called the ones who had been in the sun for awhile. You had to skin the finger tips and stretch the skin on wooden dowels to get a print.

No, I’m not saying that the English are cannibals that prefer food they don’t have to chew. I’m just not about to put anything in my mouth if the word “bloat” can be used as a descriptive.

But I have found a completely non-gastronomic reason to think the Brits are completely crazy. They are sending their juvenile delinquents to juvenile court. What I mean by that is not a court that specializes in hearing cases where the accused is a child, but a court where the judges are children themselves.

The idea behind this scheme, if the word “idea” is appropriate, seems to be that young punks don’t listen to adults anyway. If the judge is also a kid, then maybe a little peer pressure will get them to walk the straight and narrow.

I always wanted to visit England. You know, do some sightseeing, visit the points of interest, enjoy all that history. If this is any indication of where British society is headed, I better hurry up and get that done before the place starts to look like it does in 28 Days Later. Except that they won’t need any virus that turns people into mindless zombies to wreck the joint.

(Hat tip to Ace. This essay is cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

“The Victorians Were Supermen”

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That was Lex’s reaction to this photo:


Chapper Rift Baluchistan

Fred Bremner, Quetta/Karachi

 
Click the photo to see it at larger size with historical information.
 
More photos and information here.
 
UPDATE: Much more info about the bridge and railway line here (courtesy of Lex). Also, see the comments for some juicy book references.
 
UPDATE 2: Via Tim Worstall comes this fascinating story about railway construction across the Andes. (Check out the rest of the railway history site too.)