Posted on 07/08/2005 12:29:05 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late Douglas Adams enjoyed worldwide popularity, but like much of British pop culture parts of it were lost on those of us outside the Isles. In particular, one character, who appears human and (when the novel begins) lives on Earth but is in fact an alien, goes by the name "Ford Prefect," selected because his early research suggested it was a common name that would be "nicely inconspicuous." Since the Ford Prefect was released in the UK but never in the U.S., the joke -- that the alien has mistaken automobiles for a dominant Earth species -- goes over many American readers' heads.
I thought of the Adams books in the wake of the London terror attacks yesterday, in particular the slogan on the front of the eponymous guidebook carried around by interstellar adventurers facing ever-more-ridiculous problems: "Don't Panic." It's a version of that classically British trait, stoicism -- "stiff upper lip" and all that. As Andrew Sullivan explained yesterday, "Brits regard the best response to outrage to carry on as if nothing has happened. Yes, they will fight back. But first, they will just carry on as normal."
As Bob Tyrrell reports, by the afternoon all of London was doing just that. A Londoner emailed Kathryn Jean Lopez, "I'm writing this sitting in my office in London working as normal... The overwhelming feeling round our office is 'Is this best they can do?'" Another emailed Sullivan, regarding the disruption in public transportation, "Work's over but there's little chance of getting home right now. Most of us are just going to go to the pub until the traffic has died down. It's not callousness or indifference to carry on as normal, it's quiet defiance." One British blogger noted how packed the local waterholes were at two in the afternoon: "Nice one, Al Quaeda -- you profess to be from a teetotal religion, and you've given the pub trade a massive mid-week boost."
Notice how the Brits maintain their sense of humor (or humour, if you prefer). It calls to mind how The Weakest Link, the British game show, caused an uproar in Asia. The domineering host disparaging contestants intelligence and dismissing them with a stern "you are the weakest link -- goodbye," was, to Britons (and to many Americans), absolutely hilarious. But when the same shtick was tried in Hong Kong and Thailand, audiences were appalled. Asians come from a "face culture," where values are driven by pride and shame and such treatment was genuinely humiliating to contestants; a Thai schoolteacher wept after losing and begged her students not to think her stupid.
Islamist terrorists also come from a face culture. They no doubt expected this attack to be humiliating and demoralizing; one Islamist website made the absurd claim that Britain was "burning with fear and terror" in the wake of the attack.
The fascist monsters are wildly mistaken. One might say that they just don't know what a Ford Prefect is.
John Tabin is a frequent online contributor to The American Spectator.
What a difference between the Spanish and the British. But I shouldn't be surprised.
God, ya just gotta love the Brits!
I think I have a couple bottles of HobGoblin Ale stuck in the back of the fridge somewhere. Time to hoist them!
LOL. That sounds so British. I have no doubt the Brits are going to recover from this. They are a tough people. But, it's time for them to do a bit of house cleaning. They have way too many radical Muslims living within their borders.
Or, as President Bush would say, "Bring it on!"
We are going to have a couple of dozen less if they don't surrender pretty promptly when the anti-terrorist squad catches them, which I have no doubt they will pretty soon.
In such situations, the police hand control to these guys.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4467433,00.html
Suddenly Lock heard a voice shout out his name and yell for him to get out of the way. Lock was amazed that the SAS man knew his name. Tom burst in through the door and opened up on Salim. Trevor looked round at the suddenly lifeless body. "There was a line of bullet holes going diagonally from his eye across his chest. No blood, just the holes." Tom showed no emotion. "There's a very distinct sound when a bullet hits a body. It's like a thud. I've shot deer all my life up in Scotland and you get the same sound when you hit a deer. Salim would have been dead before he hit the floor."That's the way to do it.
When they announced what the casualty figures were on Fox yesterday, that was my first thought as well. Rush came on and asked the same thing! As the late Sam Kinison would say to the Islamofascist cowards, "Hey buddy!!! Is that it?!"
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