Results tagged “Paul Levy measures the Angles; An AngloAmerican take on British culture” from Plain English

Having lived almost my entire adult life in England, I'm bilingual in both American and English. (I can talk the talk. Just don't ask me to drawl the drawl as I did when a child - I've lost the charming knack).

I want to blog about the miraculously mature arts scene here, only 19 miles away from the Continent and seven hours away from Manhattan, but also about the youthful energy it often generates. I look at the opera, the theatre, books and the visual arts in Britain almost like an alien, as I was born somewhere and sometime very different, in Kentucky, during WWII.

Anglophilia will sometimes become anglophobia, as the culture of my adopted country occasionally repulses and grates on me as much as it does other civilised people - and sometimes I'll really want to talk about something happening somewhere altogether different - France, Spain, Italy, Germany or Austria spring to mind, as does Australia and my native USA. And I'm very keen on China and Southeast Asia, though it's been a while since I've managed to journey to the east of either Glyndebourne or Second Avenue.