Rupert, Ted and the Phantom Stink of Catpiss By Silver Fox

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According to a recent survey, Britain's international prestige has taken something of a knock of late. Foreign nationals either living in or visiting dear old Blighty have been asked what they think of www.mcunitedkingdom.com and many - and not all that varied - have been the responses. Actually, to speak of our standing on the world's stage as being in decline would, it appears, be rather like talking about a kamikaze plane touching down. Predictably, much of the opprobrium heaped upon this teeming womb of reality TV stars derives from our involvement in the ongoing Fiesta of Freedom (bring a bottle kevlar vest, optional) in Iraq.

At best Britannia is perceived as Uncle Sam's faithful lapdog, yapping at the heels of Big Oil (what's that, girl? Something's happened to OPEC?); at worst, as an bloodthirsty bitch egging America on to further displays of panty-dampening machismo - a raddled, toothless lioness barely able to hunt for herself, but eagerly pouncing on such scraps the pride allows her. Hardly surprising to anyone with half an eye, I would have thought.

The writing's been on the wall for a while now - you will doubtless recall the previous year's Eurovision debacle, when spunky Scousers, Jemini, garnered the UK's first blank scorecard.

Of course, many other explanations for it were put forward - even the outlandish suggestion that their song was utterly lacking in merit and was performed with all the vim and vigour of someone sifting through shit to find an injudiciously-swallowed 20p piece. However, it is generally acknowledged that it was the result of an anti-British backlash brought about by widespread European opposition to Son of Operation Desert Storm.

And it's not just our nearby neighbours, either; most Americans, it was discovered, are barely aware of our role in George'n'Don's Middle Eastern Clambake. Or if they are, it seems that we are seen as a sort of supernumerary part of the Main Event - an ancillary force with little or no credibility, like the National Guard - or the NAAFI.

Oh, certainly, they're full of respect for our heritage and traditions, but that's about as far as it seems to extend. Britain is seen as little more than a theme park - cute, cheap, fun to visit etc - but as far as actual influence or muscle goes .. Well, they never send Goofy and Baloo out to give the Green Berets a hand, do they? As have already said, none of this is particularly surprising. Certainly, it will come as no shock to anyone who recalls the 1980s. During this time, Margaret Thatcher (besotted in equal part by monetarism, incipient dementia, and the crumbling good looks of necrotic matinee idol, Ronald Reagan), spent much of her time extolling the virtues of the UK and the US's special relationship.

Sadly, the term abusive and dysfunctional relationship would have been nearer the mark. We were half of one of those couples that you see where one partner gets their own way all the time, while the other is systematically beaten, abused, cut off from their friends and family, and has to allow their partner to use their airfields to launch bombing raids on Libyan civilians. Successive governments have done little to change this - though, perhaps, one day, a friendly country will intercede and help us pack a few things and scarper to some sort of refuge for Battered Nations.

We could get a court order, that sort of thing, just to stop Uncle Sam turning up pissed and attempting to woo us back with a heady cocktail of promises and threats. Until this happens, however, we're never going to be seen as anything more than Orwell's Airstrip One - and quite rightly. Similarly, the hostility/contempt of our partners in the EU is hardly unprecedented. Europe has always been a continent simply heaving with ancient grudges and cultural divisions: Britain and France have been at each others throats for centuries (despite two World Wars, les rosbifs and the Frogs are much more likely to speak ill of each other than the Germans).

Spain and Portugal have never really seen eye to eye (the Portuguese are more likely to speak French than Spanish on principle), while the Scandinavian countries are no better at forgetting old scores and border disputes. In fact, all that can be said for European Unity is that nobody seems to think much of the Belgians.

All that has in fact changed, is that now - thanks to the miraculous Age of Information in which we live, we now know - or at least have some statistics and pie-charts and so on to tell us - this. Way back in the 1960s, an unforgettable media sage (who's name I cant recall) coined the phrase the global village, a telling metaphor for the way in which revolutionary breakthroughs in communications would affect our awareness of the world about us.

Ted and the Phantom Stink of Catpiss By Silver Fox continued..    Here

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