Little Britain In LA And NY: Posh ‘n’ Becks, Bangers ‘n’ Mash And Village Idiots
THE plan to create a Little Britain in New York occupies no minds here in the UK.
As Paul Berger, Anorak’s man in New York, writes:
The marketing company behind the Campaign for Little Britain claims it “was conceived to help a small, quirky, local business survive the onslaught of homogeneous global brands who are causing three to four fold increases in rent in the area, that inevitably only they can afford.”
Isn’t it a little ironic then, that the main sponsor of the campaign is none other than Virgin Atlantic, a homogeneous global brand that recently pissed off a swathe of New Yorkers with a tacky citywide advertising campaign that pretended the company knew and cared about the nuances of New York’s various neighborhoods
And it ‘s not just in NY that the British are going ethnic. Over in Los Angeles, Beckham has arrived.
Naturally, there’s a problem with this British cultural imperialism: even the British in LA are beginning to find the British in LA annoying. Nothing seems to be immune. The once-staid Los Angeles Times, for example, is becoming the Daily Mail. Nothing else could explain the supplement dedicated to Posh Spice on Sunday, in which she deployed some of the most inconsequential anecdotes this side of a Paris Hilton memoir. Gems from the article included the revelation that a friend of Posh’s mum had once failed to buy her a pair of black satin trousers, like the ones Olivia Newton-John wore in Grease. “I still look at her and say, ‘You cow!’,” huffed Mrs B. “You should never promise a child something and not come up with it.”
I’m baffled. Since when have Americans, never mind Angelenos, had so much time for all things Blighty? Didn’t it used to be the other way around? Even British food is in vogue: a new “gastropub” in Melrose Avenue, the Village Idiot, has just started to serve bangers and mash and warm beer – on 110F summer days. As for shopping, everyone from Paul Smith to Stella McCartney has an LA store: just this week, in fact, a new miniature Topshop opened in Charlie Chaplin’s former dance studio.
How long before some American Beck-ham fan goes up to our roving ambassador for mobile phones and female Y-fronts and coos “I love your accent”? And the British in LA laugh into their Harris tweed sleeves…
Posted: 17th, July 2007 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
