American Joe vs Earl Grey. A tale of two temperance beverages.
Having bridged the language gap, I’ve decided to move on to the chasm that is temperance beverages. This side of the Atlantic we like nothing better than a ‘nice cup of tea’. That sweet golden amber nectar can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, dinner or any time betwixt. In my case, almost every time I walk into the kitchen.
On my last sojourn to the US, it became evident that this enthusiasm isn’t shared. Asking for a cup of tea is akin to asking someone if you can molest a beloved pet. You get stared at.
There don’t seem to be miniature kettles in the hotels. Teabags are like gold dust. The hot beverage of choice is coffee. There are approximately 548 variations on the theme of coffee in any given cafe. …
And why would they? Original English is a total hodgepodge.
One of the best feelings about being a British writer in a predominantly American space like Medium is the smugness you feel when you put the ‘U’ back into words like colour and favourite.
Sometimes I let the American auto-incorrect reduce the quality of my English. More often than not I hold out. I’m fickle like that.
Although we share a language and share most of a culture… football needs to involve your feet more frequently than your hands (the clue was in the name), there are many chasms between our two linguistic worlds.
Bestriding this Transatlantic cognitive gap like a colossus? Me. A somewhat roguish penguin with a background in English tuition. Here are five British phrases that got about as close to the US as RMS Titanic. …
And here’s how the Progressives will make it happen
As I’ve said many times before, politics is a long game and one best played by intelligent rather than emotional people. The recent election of Joe Biden was a closer run thing than many thought. Whilst Democrats celebrate in the street it may be more accurate to call the election a draw. It was hardly the mass repudiation of Trumpism that progressives expected.
Smart Democrats are already asking “What does the Republican Party do next?”
They beat progressives at their own game. How? By putting forward a female nominee for President in 2024. Simple. What’s more, they have one lined up, even if they aren’t aware of that fact yet. …
Or is it a whole different psychological beast?
If you look back through the history of civil rights movements you will find judicious use of the boycott. Across the 1950s — 1980s it was one of the most effective ways of disadvantaged groups challenging the status quo. The dream team of ‘The Boycott’ and ‘The Strike’
The 1955 boycott of the Montgomery bus service was not only a seminal moment in the civil rights movement, but an example of how a disadvantaged group working together can enact change. Simple personal decisions on where to spend your money can have huge impact in a capitalist world. …
Why I have no strong desire to be a Medium High Flyer and why you shouldn’t either.
I’ve been writing here on and off for a while now. I began in the heady days of 2018 when the sun was high in the sky, the birds sang in the trees and the algorithm was in my favour.
In the early days, I read all the productivity porn I could get my hands on. I did my obligatory one month of an article per day. It didn’t go well. I had a few early, random successes. As it happened, these coincided with a dip in my offline wages. The ‘Gods of Curation’ smiled at me in the early days. Was it a strategy to keep new writers here? …
What’s the psychological endgame for our digital world?
Western culture is about the individual. “I am interesting!” people yell from their digital stalls, “Notice me!!!”. Welcome to the attention economy in action.
The financial reward received for this article is dependent on whether I can grab you by the neurons — and keep you reading. That’s true of anything you write. It’s true of anything that anybody writes. Let that sink in.
We are angler fish swimming through cyber-darkness with our vocab-lures out
The abyss thrives on a culture of attention and begs the question. Are you good enough? How good could you be? …
Is the one which many progressives are least inclined to end
Imagine a company that’s been around for over a hundred years, or longer than that, a lot longer. It’s a company in which every single member of the board of directors is white and there is no way they will allow a person of colour into the top level.
It’s a company that has a massively popular CEO, unusually for this company the current head is female. This is rare, but she has the backing of the board and high approval ratings across the board.
The company can influence the political landscape, but this is usually done behind closed doors. The assistant CEO was reprimanded for lobbying outside of his jurisdiction and attempting to influence Government policy. …
Or Why Left and Right need their heads smacked together
Here’s a picture of Harry Styles in a dress. How you feel about it is likely to be informed by your political sensibilities. Styles is on the front cover of Vogue’s December edition, in a lovely Gucci gown.
For those on the left, it’s a glowing endorsement of the sort of progress we want. We’re moving towards a more enlightened state of being Masculinity, in all it’s toxicity is being thrown in the bin by progressives across the democratic West. It’s one in the eye for the patriarchy! The shackles formed by the oppressive dichotomy of gender are being broken.
Well… broken again, David Bowie (et al) have been doing this for years. …
And why words matter in the modern age
It’s been almost ten days since the election to end all elections and the rhetoric continues apace. On this platform and many others there has been a general outpouring and consternation about a Trumpian coup d’état. As I’ve said in many articles before this one. Words matter.
How Democrats talk about what Trump is doing is important.
I won’t beat around the bush, Trump’s loss in the election has brought a sense of uncertainty to the great US experiment. …
So why is everyone mashing the board like it’s Hungry Hungry Hippos?
Consider the long game. Words of wisdom from the man who taught me to play chess. He taught me how to set traps, how to pin, how to feint. Most important of all he taught me how to extricate myself from the mess I make minutes after my opening move.
Those words weren’t enough. I’m still terrible at chess. I still play impulsively. If I were on the Queen’s Gambit I would be soundly beaten in the teaser of Episode One. I may not even have made it into the series.
“Consider the long game.”
That’s the bit of political nuance the most ardent Progressives and hardlineLibertarian Trumpists miss. What’s your long game? What do you do after you’ve moved all your pieces into the middle and played into straight into your opponent’s hands? …
