Why I’m Almost Embarrassed To Be An American…

Here are a few things I’ve overheard while in England:

On a tour bus:

tour guide: If you just look down the street, you’ll see a police officer standing there; that means Margaret Thatcher is at home.

young woman with child: Margaret Thatcher? Is she someone famous?

tour guide: What?!

young woman: Is she someone famous?

tour guide: She’s only the most important Prime Minister of our time!

young woman: Oh. [pause] Well, I know Tony Blair. [pause] Well, I don’t know Tony Blair. I’ve only seen him on T.V.

Remember, that woman has already spawned and is “educating” another person.

This one I heard while standing in front of the Parliament building in London:

tourist: I didn’t know Stonehenge was in England!

And this last one I overheard while reading the stones in the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey:

tourist: Chaucer? Isn’t he the guy that wrote those tales?

tags: Margaret Thatcher, American, Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Chaucer, Westminster Abbey

3 comments

1. on July 4, 2006 at 5:56 pm

   Andy said:

   My wife and our friend from Nashville were doing that tour today. Glad you had great weather for it

2. on July 6, 2006 at 9:52 am

   Tamara said:

   Heh, “those tales”!

   Hope you’re enjoying the adventure. How was the traveling?

3. on July 6, 2006 at 12:00 pm

   celticfire said:

   I just finished an interview with Roxanne-Dunbar-Ortiz.

   A veteran activist and scholar, the author of Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War, Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975, and Red Dirt: Growing up Okie. She has played important roles in a number of movements and struggles around the world, including the women’s liberation movement, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and has fought for self-determination among various people’s around the world.

   Her writings have appeared in numerous human rights, international law, and history journals as well as such publications Monthly Review, and on the CounterPunch website.

   Check it out:

   http://celticfire.blogspot.com/2006/07/interview-with-roxanne-dunbar-ortiz-by.html

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