I've written before about the mirror effect of Anglophilia -- Brits who are obsessed with America. In just the last couple days, the media came out with two fascinating interviews touching on this. On NPR, Robert Plant spoke about his love of the American south, which he continues to explore. Like Jagger and so many others, they knew they owed everything to the geniuses in Memphis, the Delta, etc. and payed homage when they could. The fascinating part is that my generation heard their take, assumed they invented it and became obsessed with life in Manchester, Leeds, etc. And thought rock and roll had to be sung with an British accent. In thgis weekend's Times Mag, Deborah Solomon interviewed Phil Collins, who turns out to be Motown fanatic and a collector of objects from the American frontier, including stuff from the Alamo and Davy Crockett. Funny world.

Photo of Robert Plant from Ella Mullins

Screw the Phone Hacking Thing

For weeks, I've been trying to compose a post about the phone hacking scandal, but I couldn't figure out a way to make it interesting. Yawn -- it has something to do with accessing people's voicemail and covering it up and then stopping and restarting and investigation about said offence. Yawn.

Then I saw this one Facebook. It depicts my friend, Billy Cometti, meeting Chuckie himself!!!!!!!!

Wow, Billy, wow. You've come a long way from the Cameron Diaz Biography we did together, my friend.

Russell Brand in the Chokie

I was alerted to the tragic news after the Jewish holiday by a tweet from Wossie: "Good morning everyone. I am currently baking a cake with a file and hack saw in it for my dear friend Russell."

Seems the comic bad boy was involved with some typical celebrity bad-boy antics. While attempting to approach the terminal at LAX, he and domestic partner Katie Perry were completely surrounded and harrased by paparazzi (notice I didn't use the double plural ... that drive me crazy). I guess the yoga master suffered one humiliation too much -- according to Perry, the photog tried to shoot up her skirt. Well, I don't have to describe it to you. Here is it. These are paparazzi after all, so it was bound to get caught recorded for all to see.

Ill Papa!

As everyone knows, the Catholic Church and the Church of England have been at odds for -- well, since King Henry VIII.

Thirty years ago JPII visited the the UK in a grand gesture of reconciliation, even as the Troubles continued in Ireland, and other disagreements brewed. Now, even with the RCs turning to the right and the Anglicans turning to the left, who knew that Rome's biggest bone to pick would not be with the Archbishop of Canterbury, but with the British people themselves!

The row escalated when one of the former German cardinal's top aides, another German cardinal (I point this out because it's not like the Germans and the Brits have had an easy time of it over the last 100 years or so) responded positively when asked if Christians were discriminated against in the country his boss was about to visit. He railed against the UK's "aggressive secularism," calling it [gasp] a "third-world country." Ouch. And quite pot-calling-the kettle. I mean, which one is more of a dictatorship?

Cardinal Kasper's comment comes as a letter signed by 50 top Britons -- people like Dawkins, Fry, and others -- hit the news. It says that the Pope is leader of a religion, not a head of state and is therefore not entitled to the "honour" of a state visit.

So, again: Interesting times -- the churches are playing nice but the people are snipping. Progress? I'm not sure but according to Guardian, the pontiff was barely off the plane when he started with the anti-secularism talk.

BBC America have been maintaining a blog called Anglophenia, even longer -- and with far, far more regularity -- than Phonybrit.

I like it, I suppose. It does have excellent entertainment news, especially stuff related to TV content. And the clips are great -- all what you would expect from the Beeb. After all, their first priority is going to be making sure people watch BBCA.

I'm just starting to plow through stuff and I'm happy to say that you can still enjoy both this blog and theirs without too much overlap. I don't see much personal writing and almost no politics, for instance, in the cursory read I've given it so far.

But it is an excellent resource and I'm happy to tell you about it. No Britain-junkie should have to do without it.

Oh, Tony!

I'm writing a longer post at the moment on a different topic, but in case you missed it, you must read about Tony Blair's new autobiography. It's just out now and near as I can tell, it is taking Britain by storm.

The Guardian is the best place to get the highlights.