Our British Fixation

I write this while listening to Mumford and Sons, wanting to marry Matt Smith and/or David Tennant and sitting under a Monty Python poster, all whilst sipping a cup of Earl Grey.
Most people who are considered "discerning" have come to grips with this simple fact:

Stuff in Britain is just better.

From comedy to music to beverage choice, British popular culture is seeping into America. And I couldn't be happier. In my opinion, American entertainment has become too polished. The color is more vibrant, the actors more beautiful, the puns wittier, and the situations more dramatic, all to combat a growing level of desensitization. It's all about the next best thing. Who can be bigger. Flashier. Cooler. Push the envelope more. Put the most poop jokes in a 90-minute movie.

And I'm tired of it.

Which is why I like British stuff! Very few British television actors are drop-dead gorgeous. Special effects are comparatively substandard. Mumford and Sons isn't auto-tuned to all hell. The humor is low-key plays on words and situational irony. It all serves to make British entertainment both more approachable and enjoyable.

So many of the things that have become indispensable to my entertainment had their genesis in Great Britain. Hats off to the Brits and God save the queen.

TV: Dr. Who, The Office, Whose Line is it Anyway, Antiques Roadshow, Hell's Kitchen, The Daily Show, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Undercover Boss, What Not to Wear, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and more.

Music: The Beatles, Mumford and Sons, Coldplay, Muse, The Smiths, Radiohead, Keane, Franz Ferdinand, David Grey, Dido, James Blunt, Natasha Bedingfield, The Gorillaz, to name a few.

Books: William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, George Orwell, JK Rowling, William Golding, Agatha Christie, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Phillip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Oscar Wilde, Ian McEwan, etc.

And we thought The British Invasion ended in 1966.