Normally on a Tuesday evening I would make my way to the Club for a social drink or two, maybe even play a game of snooker. But yesterday I was persuaded by a small group of close friends to join them in visiting a rather new and apparently very good drinking establishment a little up river. Being the obliging chap, I am I agreed to what I thought would be a jolly evening.
Well, what they neglected to tell me was that the establishment in question is an American themed bar which, it being the 4th July, was rather busy with a mixture of real and would-be Americans celebrating their “Independence Day”.
I know that Americans tend to make a lot of this particular anniversary, but I think the whole thing is in rather bad taste, particularly when it is being celebrated here in England. I mean, we are supposed to have a special relationship, are supposed to be friends, yet they insist on making a big song and dance about the day they broke away from us, over 200 years ago.
It’s not as if they had it bad. Far from it! They were enjoying the fruits of British ingenuity, commerce and science, and they threw it all away, all over the price of tea! And for what benefit? In no time they were reduced to being cowboys (nothing much has changed there).
The trouble with the Americans is they think they are better than everyone else. Well, let me tell you, they are definitely not. Yes, they are a big country, and undoubtedly a powerful one these days, but they owe everything to us.
One thing the Americans will never have is class. For them, money is everything. They like to think it isn’t, that there is more to their social structure, but really there isn’t. The acquisition of wealth has become the goal, and the route to power. Without money, you are nothing. If you have money, you have social standing, without it, you don’t. Thankfully that does not apply here; breeding is breeding, whether you have wealth behind you or not.
Just look at the way they revere our Royal family and the way they are continually searching for links to our great families. They have no history of their own so are trying to steal ours. Whilst they play at being republicans, in reality they are jealous of our monarchy. They could learn a lot from those pesky French who have at least embraced republicanism with real enthusiasm.
Not that all Americans are bad, just so long as they recognise, and stick to, their place. And that’s where I have problems with their current President. On the one hand, you have to admire the way he has built his fortune. He is a single minded and ruthless businessman who seems to own most of the states. But on the other hand, he is an ignorant oaf and a bully. I can’t be doing with bullies; I had enough of them during my school days and can’t stand to see it in leading public figures like Trump. He is brutish, disrespectful and has no idea how to treat a lady. He epitomises all that is worst with modern America.
For me, last night became something of a chore. And to think that Dorchester is seeing an American at the moment. I wonder if they spent the evening in a similar bar celebrating with other former colonials. I think I should pay more attention to the date in future when they chaps suggest a night up river.
Lord Robert’s Journal 