LONDON – Greetings from the Old World, where Thanksgiving is a curiosity and cranberries are just for scones.
I’m not really in England but I’ve got to briefly pretend to be because, as the holiday approaches in the colonies, the news has wound down on this side of the pond.
There are some midlevel stories and developments, but no essential reads I can find.
For all the latest news all the time, check out the 24/7 website the Walking Duck.
The Bidens are on Nantucket; Donald Trump met with Kyle Rittenhouse in Florida.
But by far the two most interesting stories I have found this morning are out of London, which accounts for my faux dateline.
1. Boris Johnson is in a pickle because he, uhm, gave a rambling speech that included a reference to Peppa Pig.
LONDON — “Is everything okay?” is probably not a question any world leader wants to be asked, especially in relation to their competence.
But that is the question politicians, newspaper headline writers and much of social media were asking Tuesday, after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost his place in his notes for 20 seconds while delivering a speech to business leaders, then imitated the noise of a car engine and, perhaps most bizarre of all, spent an awkwardly long time declaring his love for the popular amusement park Peppa Pig World.
The 25-minute speech, in which the prime minister also compared himself to Moses, was delivered Monday in Tyneside, northeastern England, for the annual Confederation of British Industry conference, an event considered to be the highest-profile on Britain’s business calendar. (Washington Post)
2. And this is not the beginning of the end of British culture, nor is the end of the beginning. It is the beginning of the beginning of the United Kingdom joining the community of nations.
As the New York Times reports, a lot of the hullabaloo has to do with Brits confusing scones and biscuits.
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You don’t have to be some sort of modern day Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville to know that the so-called Popeyes Invasion is simply a proportionate delayed reaction to the provocative invasion that took place only a few decades ago.
The Wall Street Journal has an early, boffo review of the event of this or any other week:
Joyous, tedious, euphoric and fab, “The Beatles: Get Back” feels like a documentary made yesterday rather than 52 years ago, an epic reimagining-cum-excavation by director Peter Jackson of the “Let It Be” studio sessions, the famous rooftop concert, and the breakup of the band because of Yoko Ono —or Paul McCartney’s ego, or manager Allen Klein’s chicanery, or George Harrison’s frustrations. None of which is true from what we see, which is often chaotic but more frequently bliss.
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In response to Peggy Lee’s famous musical question…
….the answer is, again, I did not take the morning off; the news has largely taken the morning off.
I read widely so you don’t have to. Focus on stuffing and stuff.
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Mark