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What leads the news in the capital of the free world? Parallel parking The news that really matters in the capital of the free world? Parallel parking
(about 2 hours later)
As poets have written, it’s almost impossible to know how others really see us. But one of the nice things about travelling is the insight into how you – and/or the country you live in – are perceived. So, in Washington DC for a few days, I looked forward to reading the American take on the aftermath of the UK elections. What would the politicos of the Beltway make of a Labour party already chewing itself to bits over the leadership? David Cameron’s rejection of human rights and high-stakes gamble over the EU? Not very much, it turns out.As poets have written, it’s almost impossible to know how others really see us. But one of the nice things about travelling is the insight into how you – and/or the country you live in – are perceived. So, in Washington DC for a few days, I looked forward to reading the American take on the aftermath of the UK elections. What would the politicos of the Beltway make of a Labour party already chewing itself to bits over the leadership? David Cameron’s rejection of human rights and high-stakes gamble over the EU? Not very much, it turns out.
The international pages of the Washington Post were, day after day, all but devoid of news from Blighty. Well, there were a few bits and bobs.“Britain resigns as a world power” ran one column. Another announced “The end of Britain as we know it.” And in a boost to those who argue that the world views Britain through the lens of Harry Potter, one writer praised “Cameron’s wizardry”. Of course, as the organ of the most powerful city in the world, the Post has other things to worry about. For example, the fact that parallel parking will no longer form part of driving tests in neighbouring Maryland. Nearby Virginia and Delaware have also dropped the requirement, while there’s confusion over whether DC still demands it. Commentators are working themselves into a lather. It’s possible to discern the beginnings of a moral panic: will America ever be the same? Whatever the consequences of this step into the unknown, it’s oddly reassuring that even in this most puffed-up of capitals, the news that really matters is local.The international pages of the Washington Post were, day after day, all but devoid of news from Blighty. Well, there were a few bits and bobs.“Britain resigns as a world power” ran one column. Another announced “The end of Britain as we know it.” And in a boost to those who argue that the world views Britain through the lens of Harry Potter, one writer praised “Cameron’s wizardry”. Of course, as the organ of the most powerful city in the world, the Post has other things to worry about. For example, the fact that parallel parking will no longer form part of driving tests in neighbouring Maryland. Nearby Virginia and Delaware have also dropped the requirement, while there’s confusion over whether DC still demands it. Commentators are working themselves into a lather. It’s possible to discern the beginnings of a moral panic: will America ever be the same? Whatever the consequences of this step into the unknown, it’s oddly reassuring that even in this most puffed-up of capitals, the news that really matters is local.
Grandeur designsGrandeur designs
DC is a planned city, and shares with places such as Brasilia and Canberra a too-stretched-out quality. Grand boulevards and vast swards of green look great on the map, all rational and symmetrical. But no town is ever experienced from a mile up. You can’t help thinking the designers somehow forgot about people while they were playing with diagrams and models. The roads that line the open spaces take ages to cross, and once you’ve made it, the sun beats down on you mercilessly as you make your way across bare lawns between gargantuan monuments. Granite offices or museums, stranded behind multi-lane highways, brood at the edges. In its turn, the White House, so far from any neighbour, seems as homely as a mausoleum. No wonder Americans find it quaint that the British prime minister occupies a terraced house. Ironically, given who lives there, Buckingham Palace is much more their style: a forbidding block plopped in the middle of an unfriendly space.DC is a planned city, and shares with places such as Brasilia and Canberra a too-stretched-out quality. Grand boulevards and vast swards of green look great on the map, all rational and symmetrical. But no town is ever experienced from a mile up. You can’t help thinking the designers somehow forgot about people while they were playing with diagrams and models. The roads that line the open spaces take ages to cross, and once you’ve made it, the sun beats down on you mercilessly as you make your way across bare lawns between gargantuan monuments. Granite offices or museums, stranded behind multi-lane highways, brood at the edges. In its turn, the White House, so far from any neighbour, seems as homely as a mausoleum. No wonder Americans find it quaint that the British prime minister occupies a terraced house. Ironically, given who lives there, Buckingham Palace is much more their style: a forbidding block plopped in the middle of an unfriendly space.
The real Lincoln memorialThe real Lincoln memorial
If you thought jingoistic monument-building was a thing of the past, think again. The last decade has seen a rash of new war or nostalgia-inspired memorials. London’s crop includes a sort of temple to bomber command in Green Park and the recently graffitied hunk of bronze commemorating the Women of World War II in Whitehall. In DC, a much bigger memorial to the second world war, dedicated by George W Bush in 2004, forms an amphitheatre at one end of the famous reflecting pool. Again, the effect is cold, outsized, and alienating. Nearby, the colossal Lincoln Memorial contains a statue of the president more than three times life size. But across town, at Ford’s Theatre, you can see the box he was sitting in when he was shot, the bloodstained pillow that supported his head in the hours afterwards and, in an exhibit next door, the pistol used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him. The museum is full of primary sources and quietly affecting. Compared to this, marble and bronze are horribly blunt instruments. Much better that history should speak for itself.If you thought jingoistic monument-building was a thing of the past, think again. The last decade has seen a rash of new war or nostalgia-inspired memorials. London’s crop includes a sort of temple to bomber command in Green Park and the recently graffitied hunk of bronze commemorating the Women of World War II in Whitehall. In DC, a much bigger memorial to the second world war, dedicated by George W Bush in 2004, forms an amphitheatre at one end of the famous reflecting pool. Again, the effect is cold, outsized, and alienating. Nearby, the colossal Lincoln Memorial contains a statue of the president more than three times life size. But across town, at Ford’s Theatre, you can see the box he was sitting in when he was shot, the bloodstained pillow that supported his head in the hours afterwards and, in an exhibit next door, the pistol used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him. The museum is full of primary sources and quietly affecting. Compared to this, marble and bronze are horribly blunt instruments. Much better that history should speak for itself.