If you haven’t commented here before, your first comment will be held for MaryAnn’s approval. This is an anti-spam, anti-troll, anti-abuse measure. If your comment is not spam, trollish, or abusive, it will be approved, and all your future comments will post immediately. (Further comments may still be deleted if spammy, trollish, or abusive, and continued such behavior will get your account deleted and banned.)
If you’re logged in here to comment via Facebook and you’re having problems, please see this post.
PLEASE NOTE: The many many Disqus comments that were missing have mostly been restored! I continue to work with Disqus to resolve the lingering issues and will update you asap.
subscribe
notify of
9 Comments
oldest
newest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
view all comments
RogerBW
RogerBW
Tue, Mar 17, 2015 1:02pm

Americans are supposed to care about their cars? Surely not still being a byword for rich and glamorous?

0
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
reply to  RogerBW
Tue, Mar 17, 2015 11:42pm

Cars are a byword for freedom. Mass transit = communism.

I wish I was exaggerating.

0
Bluejay
Bluejay
reply to  MaryAnn Johanson
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 12:47am

Mass transit = communism.

Especially the subways in communist New York, renowned for its zero income gap and equitable wealth distribution. ;-)

0
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
reply to  Bluejay
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 11:43am

I didn’t say it was a rational belief. :-)

0
RogerBW
RogerBW
reply to  MaryAnn Johanson
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 10:43am

British attitudes towards American things are strange, and I suspect very highly generational: in the 1970s it was “it’s all shiny and wonderful over there” (we didn’t hear so much about the race riots), in the 1980s “they’re going to blow up the world”, etc.

0
Bluejay
Bluejay
reply to  RogerBW
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 11:59am

You thought America was “all shiny and wonderful” *in the 1970s?* Now that IS strange. :-)

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1835179.1403909565!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_1200/new-york-city-subway-crime-1970s.jpg

0
LaSargenta
LaSargenta
reply to  Bluejay
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 2:53pm

That’s not the image that was in the papers. Compared to Britain, the US *was* pretty shiny. I still remember my first visit to the UK…and the Brit Rail tea from an enormous aluminum pot. It had a certain flavor.

0
Danielm80
Danielm80
reply to  LaSargenta
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 4:26pm

See, now I’m going to picture British Rail cars that look like giant teapots:
comment image

0
LaSargenta
LaSargenta
reply to  Danielm80
Wed, Mar 18, 2015 6:07pm

In the first class carriages, you could get tea from this: http://collectionsonline.nmsi.ac.uk/detail.php?type=related&kv=443392&t=objects
The problem was, if you were elsewhere on the train, if you were lucky enough to get access to refreshments, it was more likely to come out of something far more industrial. I have a distant memory of getting tea from an urn (like coffee is) that was already sweetened and milky. It had a distinct metallic aftertaste.

0
wpdiscuz   wpDiscuz