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I can think of nothing worse than spending a whole day eating and drinking in the company of in-laws and relatives. I mean, just the thought of having my relations, and those of any of my ex-wives, (my present wife’s parents are no longer with us) in the same room, is reminiscent of a day in Hades with the Borgias and Genoveses.

Yet, this is something Americans do every year, and they at least pretend to enjoy it. “Relations” are considered sacrosanct to such an extent that at times the US appears like a nation of families Gambino.

Which begs the question: do they really enjoy it, or is it just an old tradition turned into something expected?

My guess is the latter.

Here in the mid-West, or the Heartlands, or the flatlands, or the asshole of the US, it’s a tradition probably better tolerated than elsewhere. After all, central Illinois is the epitome of that place where life originated for the sole purpose of eating. Within a radius of five hundred miles there’s absolutely nothing else to get out of bed for. Unless, one includes shopping, but that’s usually just a means to procure even greater amounts of sustenance.

On any Saturday afternoon between May and September, the air is thick with the odor of roasting flesh intermingled with the caustic fumes of burnt fat incinerated over countless barbecues. Even the ten thousand tonnes of poisonous pollution pumped into the atmosphere by ADM and Staley Sugar, pale into insignificance alongside the ritual weekly cow-cook that is the raison d’etre of most Illinois residents.

Consider the irony of a local law that forbids camp-fires on one’s own property – “it may cause an allergy alert or spark an asthma epidemic” (I kid you not!) – yet happily ignores the pollutants from two major, unregulated, industrial giants and the barbecue output from fifty thousand homes.

This evening, as the Thanksgiving holiday draws to a close, my wife and I give thanks for the wonder of isolation. We spent our vegetarian Thanksgiving with the best company to be found on the planet – each other. No animal was injured or killed in the making of our meal. No pollutants were released into the atmosphere, and our relatives enjoyed the occasion, or not, in the company of other relatives – well away from us.

We hope your Thanksgiving was as delightful, peaceful, free of argument and screaming kids, and as full of love and joy, as ours.

Filed under: Happy Holidays

As the eve of Thanksgiving is upon us, we pause a moment to think of the wealthy people of Mumbai, India, enduring the horrors of terrorism as armed thugs invade their five-star hotels and lay waste to the foie gras and Château de Chasselas.^[1]

How comforting for them, and for us, to be assured our respective American and British governments have lost no time in “condemning” the violence. British prime minister, Gordon Brown, was heard to suggest a rapid-reaction force be deployed, but an aide quickly whispered in his ear, reminding him we’d left the days of Empire behind, and the Indian armed forces must now deal with the problem unaided.

Meanwhile, at Bangkok Airport, protesters have prevented flights from leaving for the second day running.^[2] The BBC news this morning aired the grievances of one American gentleman, complaining to a female Thai airport official:

“Have you any idea of the tens of thousands of people whose plans you’ve screwed up? Tomorrow is a real big holiday in the States and many people will miss it because of some cockamamie little protest that you’ve got going.”

How terribly, terribly, American of him.

(Note: ‘cockamamie’: an Americanism – “ridiculous, pointless, or nonsensical”)

Meanwhile, at the US White House, George W Bush is much happier knowing the crimes and atrocities he’s been responsible for over the last eight years will not be coming home to roost. He can live out his retirement without fear of retribution. According to reports, he was today officially pardoned by a turkey.

A Happy Thanksgiving to all Sparrow Chat readers.

^{[1] “Mumbai rocked by deadly attacks” BBC, November 26th 2008}

^{[2] “Thai protesters shut down airport” BBC, November 26th 2008}

Filed under: What a wonderful world

If there’s one thing that could be relied on about Monty Python and its ilk, it was good, clean, honest-to-goodness, humor.

Where’s it all gone?

Television today provides the most appalling service of any industry in the history of mankind. It’s not just American television, though this nation leads the field in cheap, nasty, unrelentingly boring tat, peddled under the misnomer of “entertainment”.

If the British public are to be believed, their service has similarly descended into a pernicious pit of pigswill, spewing forth noxious odors from a veritable volcano of vomit labeled, “Reality TV”.

Where once the BBC could be relied on for meticulous period dramas and high quality variety entertainment, by comparison, tonight’s peak-hour line-up now consists of ‘on-couch’ chats with unknown ‘celebrities’; the inevitable soap opera; a grindingly boring sports quiz, and an overly long-running series called “Spooks”, in which “a teenage boy stumbles upon a government conspiracy and is absorbed into the world of MI5”.

Needless to say, there are other British channels. They serve up cold left overs from ABC, FOX, Hallmark, or any one of a thousand other US cable outlets.

Where have all the “Monty Pythons” gone?

No, I don’t mean the plethora of perpetual repeats of that iconic, but grossly overexposed series from the early 1970’s. Where are all the similarly titillating, charming, side-busting, modern day equivalents?

The simple answer is: there aren’t any. Comedy is dead. It’s been replaced.

What’s it been replaced by? I’ll tell you – in one word:

FUCK!”

That’s what makes people laugh these days. Just one little word, but it’ll set the theater on fire when uttered by Lewis Black, Jon Stewart, or any number of other would be Pythonesque students. Who needs jokes when one four letter word, uttered in the right way, will get you all the laughs you could wish for?

The ‘piece de resistance’ of TV channels dedicated to providing an audience with enough tat to decorate the walls of the local Wal-Mart, has to be that great ‘hands-across-the-ocean’, trans-Atlantic bastion of all things British, BBC America.

Designed to bamboozle the American viewer into believing the average Brit lives solely to raid attics in search of valuable antiques; is ready and willing to switch from a diet of burger and chips to three lettuce leaves a week if only he can go on television to do it, or is happiest when divulging the disgustingly filthy state of his post-war semi-detached to an international audience, this television station has survived for years by repeatedly repeating repeats of repeats of repeats of repeats until eventually the video becomes too grainy to be viewed ever again.

For an occasional break from the domestic grunge of the average English family, BBC America will allow us a glimpse into the artistic talents of top chef, Gordon Ramsey, as he goes about his business of serving unsuspecting viewers with generous helpings – of the word, “FUCK”, while castigating his unfortunate kitchen staff in a manner scarcely tolerated by lowly Victorian scullery maids, who definitely weren’t exposing themselves to ridicule on international television.

Sadly, those glorious days when the television medium was a crucible of talent, birthing young starlets into a genteel world of Bronte, Austen, and the Oxford Footlights Revue, have long since vanished into obscurity.

No more will new Monty Pythons grace our LCD or LED screens – their demise as assured as the very cathode ray tubes that once glowed with the cutting edge humor of Palin, Jones, Chapman, Idle, Cleese, and Gilliam. A humor certainly not reliant on four letter expletives for effect.

In fact, it can be reliably stated that the word, “FUCK”, was never once used by the Monty Python team on British television.

What?……….. okay…….are you sure?   Damn!

Well…… almost hardly ever……

Filed under: Something completely different