The British Are Coming!

Today is the day we celebrate our victory over British Rule; our hard-won right to be an independent country. This is a good thing, we proud Americans think. After all, who wants to be under the thumb of a people who get upset when some tea gets dumped in a harbor?

But have we really emancipated ourselves? Are we really a nation unto ourselves? Sure they act like an ally nation. They all seem fine with us now and our little upstart country. “Oh the colonies,” they say with a pat to our heads. But I don’t think it’s as innocuous as it seems. In fact I am here to serve as a warning. It is my belief that they have every intention of winning us back under the staid and proper skirts of Her Majesty.

I have come to believe the new British takeover of America is a subliminal process started many years ago to win the allegiance of unsuspecting girls like me. Someone started me on Wuthering Heights early. Austen, Bronte, Wharton. Was it a Brit who handed me those books? My memory is foggy. I only remember the keen need to wander on the cold lonely moors. Of California.

Next was Monty Python. I believe my first exposure was around age ten. I understood this was comedy to be absorbed and emulated. It became a subconscious touch stone for my budding sense of humor. Favorite TV show? The BBC version of Coupling (not that American shite pile).

Music is perhaps the most effective tool they have. The Beatles and the British Invasion? They all laughed nervously over there as our press hit it right on the head. If we’d only known. The Beatles whipped American youth into a frenzy the extent of which has never been duplicated. But they’re cagey, those Brits. As our music taste has diversified and fragmented, they’ve come up with bands to match it. No matter what your musical taste, they will snare you. Think about it: everything from Spice Girls to Rolling Stones. The Smiths to Robbie Williams. There is something that will suck you in, nay, demand your allegiance. You cannot escape. I can’t. My capture by Duran Duran at age eleven has been well documented here. As an adult, my list of favorite bands could have been pulled from a London phone book. They have infiltrated every corner of my iPod with their musical superiority. I am powerless. I need them. Last week alone, I heeded the siren call of Brit geniuses Radiohead attending three, THREE, of four local performances.

I spent last Fourth of July with a British friend in Solvang watching that most quaint of Americana traditions: the small town parade. She seemed amused by it all. But I imagine she was mentally replacing the Kiwanis members with Royal guards in big fuzzy black hats.

Moments later I got a text message from another British friend living among us. She claimed in honor of our independence celebrations, she would mostly not try to be oppressive today. The Oppressors. That’s what they are. They are boxing us in and it’s happening so slyly, we don’t see it.

Look how pretty that new Jaguar is. I really do love tea. And scones with clotted cream. You ate a scone this week, didn’t you? I think I need a tea cozy actually. And you know words like colour and favour are richer for those extra vowels. Do you see now? They’ve been working my whole life to brain wash me and make mine a British heart. And, my friends, they’ve won. For all our perceived freedom, I am a case study of the British victory over us. I am lost. It’s too late for me but save your selves!

Or just come on by. I’ll be lighting sparklers and waving my little flag. Later we’ll fire up the grill. After all, what’s Independence Day without some grilled bangers and a pint of ale? Eh what what?