Oh i do like to be a Brit in America. Since moving out here I have discovered that the natives will deem even the most Burnt Oak of accents the mark of intellect and compliment us by imitating it. Things we take for granted, such as newsagents on every corner, unfriendly bus drivers, and cheap bread are notably absent; even electric kettles are like fresh milk in France. To make us feel at home, however, we have a newspaper, one that I only really discovered this past weekend. It’s one of those free ones you find in pubs, a bit like the ones Aussies and Kiwis get outside tube stations on west London, and it’s patriotically called “Union Jack”. Here (and not on that BBC website or anything) is where Brits get their news, and what news.

“Public Loo Closures Causing Protests Nationwide”, runs one headline. “Monk Killed in Lawnmower Accident” should be the title of a movie. “HRH Prince Andrew visits Orange County” was another; “HRH Prince Andrew”?? I’ve never heard him called that in a tabloid headline before. The paper seems to have a bit of a something for Andy, as he crops up several more times in other articles. But I can’t really poke fun at headlines, you’d get these in any British local paper (“rising bollards claim another victim” was my favourite one from the Ely Standard, or was it the Cambridge Evening News). I will poke fun at the adverts though, each and every one of them promoting some crappy little tea shoppe or something where you can spend your funny-looking dollars buying Kippers, Steak and Kidney Pies, or Mr. Kipling cakes. Except one: the word “Bollocks” leaps out in large letters, above a picture of a dog, with the caption “Real Bollocks to Hang Anywhere in your Home”. I don’t know what it’s actually selling, but who cares?! (It’s one of the things Brits really love, that even the most curse-sensitive of Americans will not understand one of our most beloved swearwords).

Other sections include some badly written columns by some old English expat wallies turning out any old shit that relates to British American relations (hold on a minute, isn’t that what I do..? ), and a load of other useless bits of month-old non-news from various bog-standard towns around the UK, dog loses pen in port vale, that sort of thing. The saving graces of this paper – let’s face it, this ridiculous rag with too many British flags on it not to be slightly suspicious – are a couple of detailed columns letting us know what i currently going on in Eastenders and Coronation Street. Now that’s the sort of thing Brits really want, updates on the soaps; expats who’ve lived abroad so long all the characters have changed and they can’t follow any of it anyway. It was however the appalled-in-woking reaction of the columnist herself that made me guffaw the most: “It was hard to describe how violent and disturbing those Vic smashing scenes were. I personally hope they don’t do anything like that again.” They have a real cutting edge TV critic there in the Union Jack. Victor Lewis-Smith, you’d better keep an eye on your job. The rest of us had better keep an eye on our bollocks.

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully

Last week I was in the bookshop talking to the guy behind the counter, to whom I was giving some dvd footage I had shot of the Harry Potter event in July (I’m a very slow editor), when a guy in a cyclist’s helmet, who had been struggling to write a cheque (in this day and age), looked up and interrupted. “Potter?” he rasped, accentuating the double t in what appeared I believe was an attempt at a British accent. Slightly off-ended (if not exactly offended), I shot him a quick look and carried on. He said it again in case I hadn’t heard him the first time, and I nearly responded “Malfoy?” but chose to ignore. He stayed quiet and went back to writing his cheque (they spell it ‘check’ here, you know). After a few minutes he approached me and apologized, he hadn’t meant to make fun of my accent, he was trying to compliment it. Oh, ok, I replied with as little rat’s arse as I could find. But this was not the first time, and it will not be the last, that I will be complimented in such a way. You see, it is apparently socially acceptable – even compulsory – for many Americans to affect a British accent whenever they meet someone from across the pond.
And they really don’t mean to offend – I think they find it charming, or quaint, or perhaps they think we will applaud their efforts – they are after all trying to be like me, I should be honoured. The thing is, if a Brit were to do the same, they would very likely be doing it to take the piss. An American however might not understand why it’s greeted with cold British sarcasm, such as recently in Sacramento when I congratulated the woman in the saltwater taffy shop for her incredible Australian accent (“I thought Bea Smith herself had walked in” ). But it wouldn’t be ok for them to, for example, imitate a Chinese accent, or respond to their German customers with Fawtlyesque attempts at humourous Teutonic mimicry.

I wouldn’t mind, but I feel like I’ve developed a British accent since living here. I would not have pronounced any of the t’s in ‘Potter’ before, they would all be washed away in a downpour of glottal stops. I’ve spoken to other CA-based Brits, and they too have been the victims of spontaneous imitation.

Apart from the hilarious faux-brits, there are the ones who make requests for certain words. Sometimes I happily oblige, especially when some Cockney rhyming slang or other comes to mind (although I was out with Tel once, and he kept asking girls about their thre’penny bits). Sometimes I feel like a tired actor, sick of repeating a catchphrase; one time, a shop-girl at a supermarket checkout asked me to say ‘bloody’. “Why?” I asked. “Oh I just love it when you guys say ‘bloody’! It’s so cool!” My first thought was to react with a tirade of classic Watling Avenue vocabulary – everything but ‘bloody’ – but I just politely refused, sorry, I just want my green beans and my milky way, thanks. I think I know how Harry Potter feels now.

Originally posted at 20six.co.uk/petescully