A single people, separated by the Gulf Stream

By sheer accident, I happen to live in the British enclave of Los Angeles. I don't know why Santa Monica is so popular with the British, I suppose it's because it's a bit like Brighton. It has a pier, a beach, a pedestrianised town centre, and Rod Stewart lives here. The main attraction though is that there are a lot of other British, hence one can spend an entire career working for one of the big studios or cable companies (most of the British here are media technicians of some type) without ever having to deal with a foreign culture, even one as similar as the Americans'. The same phenomenon can be seen in southern Spain, but at least in Spain there is the flimsy excuse of not wanting to learn to speak dago. The insularity of Santa Monica's ex patriot contingent must come down to that curious patriotism that any ethnic group feels when they are exported from whatever crap-hole country it is that they worked so hard to escape in the first place.

I don't really mix with the Angelano English. Back in London I didn't spend much of my spare time talking in pubs about David Beckham with mildly racist Daily Mail readers, and I don't intend to do it here just because we have the unique bond of a passport. As a result, I've something of an outsider's view of the English in Santa Monica (and by inference the English in general), and have come to the following conclusion.

The English are the Texans of Europe.

At a first pass this might seem like a surreal statement, possibly even a heretical one. However, there are striking similarities between the two 'cultures'.

1. Nobody else much likes them: Despite both groups having the reputation of being almost painfully polite, they are mainly regarded by outsiders with a dose of contemptuous resentment. Everybody non-Texan is happy when the Dallas Cowboys lose, just as everybody in Europe will cheer for whatever side is playing against England. Just ask any Welshman.

2. A purely passive obsession with football: Same name, different sport, but the general principle remains. If you ask a stranger what their interests are and they reply 'running', one naturally assumes that they regularly go running. If they reply 'golf', it's fair to say that they probably own a set of golf clubs. In TexLand, it's a fair bet that if anyone replies 'I'm passionate about football', then it means that they spend their time in front of the TV drinking beer.

3. Physical appearance: The Italian concept of bella figuranever quite made it across the Channel, and Californian vanity is not big in the Yellow Rose. There are exceptions of course, and the salons of the Houston and Surrey suburbs do their best, but alas I fear the war for beauty is lost.

4. The historical delusion that their state is in any way significant: The Alamo was a long time ago, and so was Dunkirk. The only thing the TexLish have left to offer the world is high-tech service industry (at least until it's all been moved to Hyderabad).

5. A common stance on immigration: The TexLish despise illegal immigrants and have started calling for the most extreme efforts to protect the borders from Johnny Foreigner. This is despite the fact that both Texas and England have consumer economies that rely on a steady stream of hard-working illegal immigrants.

6. A certain type of American will try to pass themselves as being from Texas/England: The current President is a Connecticut blue-blood trying to pass himself off as a Texas redneck. I've given up counting the number of people here who tell me they're English when they were born and raised in Duluth, or San Diego, or somewhere else a long way from England.

I rest my case. I am calling poste-haste for the secession of Texas from the Union, and the withdrawal of England from the UK, thence for their unification as the Republic of TexLand. You bring the T-bone, we'll bring the beer. Y'all.