The British Are Coming (in the form of technology)

On my new GPS unit, the voice instructions were quite harsh so I toyed around with the menus a bit. Yes, my switching the language setting to "British English" had a lot to do with my being an Anglo-nerd. But it also just sounded better (click video above, depicting a sample maneuver very near my house). We have a long tradition of British-sounding robots, from C3PO to auto-callers hawking all kinds of products. The English accent, to American ears sounds authoritative, yet helpful. It's sort of like when BBC1 radio uses that same American announcer that we get on our classic rock stations announcing the frequency. He just sounds like a rock station announcer.

But what really surprised me was during a trip to mall yesterday, at the pay station (yeah, the Westchester Mall make you pay for parking), the voice instructing you when to put in your money, etc. had a decidedly cockney accent. Not quite Eliza Doolittle, but definitely an extra "ay" in "staytion." Can it be that *any* British accent makes us like technology more -- and accept having to pay 3 bucks so that you can spend money for an hour?

Maybe it's a new version of our own economic imperialism, but going the other way. The Brits already have the best entertainment, and now they're beginning to own technology too. Earlier this week, The Guardian have bought the American business blog paidContent.org for around 15 million quid. Rockstar Games are already in millions of American homes with their Grand Theft Auto series.

Something tells me that with the plunging price of the dollar, our cousins in the UK are just starting their shopping spree.

The Second Fab Four Post

I'm shocked that there's been so much Beatles news since I started this project. This isn't a Beatles blog, but since the lads from Liverpool were and entry point to a million Anglophiliacs, I couldn't ignore it all. Apparently, there's a lot of new scholarship surrounding the crucial period when the Beatles decided to stop touring, opening the gates to Sgt. Pepper and changing music forever.

First, the president of Eastside Pictures send me this link. It seems that a radio interview including John, Paul, George, and Ringo has surfaced from a South London garage -- and it's still broadcast quality. It was recorded on April 30, 1964, just a couple of years before their momentous decision to stop playing live. According to the report, Paul says about the screaming fans: "We love that, the atmosphere in the theaters. It's marvelous." Of course, we know that in reality, they hated the extremeness of it all and the fact that they couldn't hear each other or themselves.

Secondly, two other Beatlemaniacs in my life have their knickers in a twist about this piece in the Guardian. A bootleg tape of a summer 1966 concert that the lads did in Memphis has emerged. What makes it of so much interest to scholars is that a definite explosion can be heard -- part of the little-known Cherry Bomb incident. Remember, this is right after Lennon's famously misunderstood quote, "We're more popular than Jesus now." That remark didn't go over too well in Tennessee. One of my Beatles-mad friends checked and indeed, George mentions this firework in his Anthology interview of 1995, and a contributing factor in their decided to stay home. It might even be the straw that broke the camel's back; it was starting to get dangerous out there. First a cherry bomb -- next a pipe bomb?

Haunting, of course, since George was attacked by a knife-wielding maniac and John ... [I don't have to finish that sentence.]

I'm not big on what-if games, but it is interesting to ponder if the Beatles would have/could have done what they did in the studio if they continued the road show.