“I Give It a Year” with Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall

Netflix, knowing me so well, has created a tab of British movies. I came across this one last night and, honestly, I had never heard of this movie. Was this released in the US? Google tells me it was released here last August, but I have no memory of a single commercial for it.  Anyway, I decided to watch it because a-it’s British, b-it’s set in London, c-Stephen Merchant is in it.

There are actually a lot of great actors in it: Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids) and Rafe Spall (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) play the newlyweds, Nan and Josh. 

They’ve only been dating for a few months when they get engaged, and then married. We don’t even really see them before their marriage, the movie starts with a sort of ‘first moments’ montage, and then the wedding is just finishing when we are really brought into the action.

Minnie Driver (who I love) plays that friend (who hates her husband as often as she loves him) that says ‘I give it a year’.

The action switches back and forth from the first moments of their marriage (disasters aplenty–the minister comes down with a hideous cough just as he is about to announce them man and wife, and Stephen Merchant gives one of the most horrific best man speeches in human history) to many months later, when they are beginning couples therapy with the worst therapist in the world (Olivia Colman).

There are little quibbles they have with each other. Josh is too lazy to take out the trash, so he ‘compacts’ it, so that he can wait a few more days without taking it out. Nan persistently sings incorrect lyrics to songs (We built this city on the wrong damn road, I travel the world in generic jeans, etc.)

Throughout that first year of marriage, the couple is orbited by two alternate choices. Chloe, played by Anna Faris in a bad wig, and Guy, played by Simon Baker:

Can I just ask who came up with the names for these people? Josh and Chloe are normal enough, I suppose. But Nan and Guy? Sounds like they belong in a ’50s musical about an upcoming sock hop. But I digress.

Chloe is Josh’s ex, a relentless do-gooder with almost no other personality traits that I can remember. Guy is a business mogul who immediately develops a crush on Nan. This crush is fostered by the fact that Nan hides her wedding ring when she’s working with him.

Both Josh and Nan slip from focusing on their marriage and both come very close to an affair. But the couple are determined to make it through the first year of marriage, because someone told them that ‘if you can make it through the first year, you can make it through anything’. Josh doesn’t correct Nan when she sings the wrong lyrics, and he takes out the trash when he should.

And they do, they make it to the exact anniversary of their wedding.

And then, that very night, they split up. They are so glad to be rid of this marriage that they’re almost ecstatic to get a divorce. They both run off to find their other, better matches. And these two separate new couples ride off into the proverbial sunset.

And here’s my big problem with this movie.  It’s not that it’s a bad movie, or even particularly inaccurate about the trials and tribulations of living with one person as your partner in life.  My boyfriend bites his fingernails, and it drives me completely insane. He is also guilty of the trash smushing maneuver. He’s kind enough not to point out my annoying habits, but I’m certain there are many–like me constantly asking him not to bite his fingernails, I would guess…

This movie tries to show how marriage does not always end in ‘happily ever after’. It shows you what happens after the fairy tale wedding, when reality hits.  Okay, good, I’m in favor of that.  But, in the end, when Josh and Nan break up and immediately form relationships with other people, the implication is that if you do match up with the right person, then ‘happily ever after’ is almost guaranteed. Every relationship in real life is more like Nan and Josh’s than the fairytale relationships Nan and Guy or Josh and Chloe will have.  It really irritated me to end the movie with just a simple swap and everything is fine. They haven’t learned anything, except that they’re not right for each other?  And Chloe and Guy are pretty lacking in personality. They just wait for the other two to come around and want to be with them. And then, easy peasy, they do a swap and everyone is happy and everything will be perfect from now on.

In the end, the good acting almost saved this movie for me, but since the very end was the most disappointing, it left a bad taste in my mouth.  I wish I’d liked it more, because I like everyone in it. All the hype about it being from the same producers who made Notting Hill and Love Actually...it is nothing like those movies.

Also, I found this very strange French poster for it, where the translated title is English Marriage.  Apparently the French have different problems in the first year of marriage?  Maybe there was no similar idiom in the French, and they don’t cynically predict a couple’s demise while still celebrating their creation. But if I was going to predict which country is not cynical enough for something, the French would not be my choice. And why is only one of the umbrellas the Union Jack? So many questions for whomever changes DVD posters for foreign releases..

Spaced

I recently watched through this entire series again.  I first watched it about a year or two ago, and had heard only good things.  It didn’t meet my expectations, and I didn’t enjoy it much.  But this time around, it just clicked.  Like any Pegg, Frost, and Wright endeavor (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, the World’s End), you get more of the jokes the second and third times through.  I laughed far more the second time.

Spaced stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes/Stevenson as Tim and Daisy.

They meet by chance as both are looking for new places to live.  London’s rental market being what it is (even back when this was made in the ’90s), it’s slim pickings. They find one ad that sounds nice, a flat for ‘professional couples only’.  Though they barely know each other, Tim and Daisy decide to pretend to be a couple in order to get the nice flat.  The rest of the series (2 seasons/series of 7 episodes each) revolves around them, their friends, and the characters already inhabiting the house where they now live.  There’s Tim’s best friend Mike, played by a young mustachioed Nick Frost.

Mike is in the territorial army (sort of) and is obsessed with guns and war. He’s also, just as in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, clearly Tim’s hetero life mate.  They are pretty inseparable.

Daisy’s best friend is the vapid, ego-centric, slightly cruel, very selfish, generally awful, Twist.

She’s in ‘fashion’ (aka works at a dry cleaner’s).

Once they’re in the flat, they also make friends of the chain-smoking, chain-drinking landlady, Marsha, and the artist that lives downstairs, Brian.

About halfway through the first season, the most important member of the group joins the cast–Colin!

Colin is seriously maybe the third cutest dog I’ve ever seen.  He’s always riding along in backpacks, and being just genuinely adorable.  Want!  Apparently Simon Pegg loved this dog (actual name Ada) so much, that he’s gotten Mini Schnauzers as pets ever since. Understandable.

Here’s what you have to understand about Spaced. Almost everything you see in the show is an allusion to some part of pop culture (TV, video games, movies mostly).  Sometimes there are obvious homages.  A good example is two government employees (one of which is Mark Gatiss) are after Daisy, and the whole thing is a clear-cut homage to the Matrix.  Other references are quick and easy to miss.  Hence me laughing more the second time through.  I would say the ratio of meta references: actual show is about 80:20.  If you don’t get the references, you’re not going to enjoy the show.  And I still don’t get all of them.  And since this show is already nearly 25 years old, the references aren’t getting fresher.

That being said, there are a lot of chuckle-worthy moments in the show, and you’ll laugh more the second or third time through.  Regardless of how many references you get, you’ll think Daisy and Tim (especially Tim) are adorable.  Having seen the entire Cornetto trilogy, it’s easy to look back at Spaced and see it as sort of a jumping off point to what they (Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Nick Frost) did later. In those movies, instead of making 60 fleeting references in one episode of a show, they took an entire movie and made it simultaneously an homage and a parody of a genre film.  In Hot Fuzz, they can make a lot of references, visual and dialogue-based, to different action/police movies, but it all meshes into the same theme. The same goes with Shaun of the Dead and zombie films.  And I think, more importantly, they learned how to create a story and scenes that can still hold your attention if you don’t get the reference.  

So Spaced isn’t perfect, and it can take some patience, but I think it’s worth it.  If you’re into action movies and are a boy, you’ll probably really enjoy the paintball scene and the fake gun fight scene.

Even when the humor isn’t 100% ‘on’, or you don’t get the reference, the center of the show is still the relationship between Daisy and Tim.  And they are adorable together, in a seriously flawed but still redeemable sort of way.  And that comes through really well, especially in the last 2-3 episodes. 

Cornetto Trilogy: The World’s End

Though not really a trilogy, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Edgar Wright have now created three loosely-linked comedies that they’ve dubbed the Cornetto Trilogy.  The first two films were, of course, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.  I love those movies, so I jumped at the chance to see a movie marathon this week.  From 5:30-midnight, we watched all three, culminating with the new film, The World’s End.

Let me just take a minute to say I really like Shaun of the Dead, but I absolutely love Hot Fuzz. It’s one of my favorite comedies of all time.  I don’t think The World’s End will replace it in my top 5, but I still enjoyed the new movie very much. Watching the whole trilogy also gave me a chance to compare and contrast the three movies and the characters each actor plays throughout.  Lots of food for thought there.

In The World’s End, Simon Pegg plays Gary King. He was your typical badass teenager in 1990, leaving school and full of optimism and hatred for authority.  20 years later, he’s…exactly the same person, but a lot more depressed. He wears the same clothes, has the same coat and dyed black hair.  He failed to grow up.  His gang of teenage friends, on the other hand, have all become proper adults with trench coats and nice cars and retirement plans.  Gary convinces himself that the best way to get a new lease on life is to go back and finish the epic quest they started when they were teenagers–a 12-pint pub crawl in their hometown of Newton Haven. The eponymous World’s End is the last pub on the route.

He re-enters the thoroughly normal lives of his former friends and convinces them to go along on this trip.  Though they react to him like an unwelcome re-emergence of herpes, they all show up.  There’s

Eddie Marsan as Peter

a car salesman who still works for his dad.  He is your typical bored married man, 2 kids, needs some excitement in his life.

 

Nick Frost as Andy

For once, Nick Frost gets to play the smart guy who is frustrated by his friend’s low IQ/responsibility.  This is a real departure, considering the near opposite roles they had in Hot Fuzz. Andy is a lawyer with a big fancy office, and he’s quite angry at Gary (Simon) because of something that happened when they were teenagers.  A slight flaw in Gary’s plans for a pub crawl is that Andy no longer drinks-at all.

 

 

Martin Freeman plays Oliver

People forget that Martin Freeman has been in both of the previous movies, but he has!  He had a very tiny scene in Shaun of the Dead, as Yvonne’s boyfriend.  And he was a member of the Metropolitan Police Force in Hot Fuzz. Here, he finally gets a proper part of the action. Oliver is a realtor with a hot sister (Rosamund Pike) and a curious birthmark.  I love Martin Freeman, but I cannot possibly be remotely attracted to anyone with a bluetooth headset, so that spoiled things a bit.

Lastly, Paddy Considine plays Steven

You should recognize Paddy (though he no longer has the glorious mustache) as DC Wainwright–or was it Cartwright?–from Hot Fuzz. In this movie, Steven is something of a rival to Gary–or that’s how Gary saw it in school–and the two are both interested in Oliver’s sister.  Of course, he’s dating his 26-year-old Pilates instructor, so that’s a little awful, but what can you do.

 

At any rate, the 5 guys get together for a night in the old town.  Gary hasn’t changed at all. His clothes, his attitude about life, even his car–all the same.  He plays an old song from their youth, and Steven points out that he once put that on a mixed tape for Gary.  It’s the same tape; it’s been in the tape player ever since.

Everything else is different.  The town is different.  A few pubs have been turned into soulless outlets of a chain of pubs with the same decor and the same offerings.  The local drug dealer from school is now a suit-wearing businessman. Peter’s worst bully doesn’t even recognize him.  Oh yeah, and the town is now controlled by body-snatcher-style robots filled with blue inky goo.

The movie is many things simultaneously.  It’s a nod to movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Stepford Wives–the robots just want to be model citizens and obey the laws, etc.  It’s a different take on the mid-life crisis movies/bromance drinking movies like The Hangover and Grown-Ups.  It’s a discussion about growing up and changing, and what happens when you don’t do that.  And what happens when you do it too much.

As expected, it was very funny.  I think sometimes the pacing was a little uneven.  Feverish action moments, and then things slowed to a crawl.  When you compare this to the slow build of the other two films, it’s a bit of a weakness.  And Rosamund Pike’s character isn’t given much to do, except to be a girl who exists in this world.  Something to save and a prize for the hero at the end.  These never were movies about women, let’s be honest. And I really don’t know how I feel about the ending.  Unlike Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, this is a proper apocalypse movie with a dystopian future left at the end. I don’t know how I feel about that, except that I feel like I can’t take any more books/movies about Armageddon.

Some of the in-jokes and homages were presumably lost on me because I’m not up on kung-fu movies or comic books.  But the other thing about this trilogy is you catch new jokes each time you watch.  This time through Hot Fuzz, I realized that there is a really blatant reference to the classic Jack Nicholson movie, Chinatown (which, if you haven’t seen, I recommend it but please have some Xanax ready afterward because it is a downer).  But I’d never noticed that before, and it really made me chuckle.  I predict that I will need to watch The World’s End at least 3 more times before I can really evaluate my long-term opinion of it.  But I’m happy to make that sacrifice.

Also, can I end with some ridiculous trivia I have just discovered?  As I said, most of the actors have been in all three movies.  As have a lot of other actors that just come in for brief moments. Bill Nighy was step-dad Phillip in SotD, and the Chief Inspector in HF. He lends only his voice to tWE, but he was there. David Bradley (aka Argus Filch) was in HF and plays the town conspiracy theorist in tWE.  And most amazingly is the story of Rafe Spall.  First bit of strange trivia–he’s the son of Timothy Spall, aka Peter Pettigrew.  In tWE, he has a brief cameo as a man looking to buy a house, but you will remember him from HF as DI Cartwright (or was it Wainwright?!?).

In addition to playing Shakespeare in that heinous movie Anonymous, I stumbled on his part in Shaun of the Dead.  He was the fat obnoxious kid, Noel??

Yup.  That kid, grew into this man:

Also, Petter Pettigrew has a son that looks like this?!  What the fuck.

 

My Top 5 British Everything! part one

My monetary situation continues to not be conducive to buying new movies or books.  That means it’s time for another list–a long one this time! Part one will cover Books, Movies, and my favorite places in the British Isles.

My Top 5 British Everything*

*not comprehensive.

First off, books! This is very hard for me, obviously, as a quick inventory of my bookshelf will prove that about 60% of all the books I own are British.  To pick only 5 is like picking one meal to eat every night for the rest of your life.  But, nevertheless, here are my favorites!

1.The Harry Potter Series

Of course this is number one.  And, don’t gripe about this being 7 books, not one.  This list is only my top five, and it would be pretty boring if all five were HP books, as they most assuredly would be.  The bottom line is these are my desert island books, the only books I would truly need to be fulfilled for the rest of my life, if, god forbid, it came to that sort of choice.  These books absolutely and tangibly changed my life–cured my depression, inspired me to go back and finish my degree, inspired me to read again, to write again, to enjoy and love my time on earth.  When I am sad or weary, I pull out these books and, like some sort of black market European antidepressants, they make things better. Not only do I own the original 7 novels in their American versions, but also several foreign editions as well.  I picked up the British (children’s) copy of Deathly Hallows, plus an Italian Prisoner of Azkaban (which it took me 3 months to read), a Greek Half-Blood Prince, a Croatian Chamber of Secrets, and even a copy of Philosopher’s Stone that has been translated into Latin!

These books are largely responsible for my love of British culture, and you could draw a pretty direct line from my first experience reading HP books to me creating this blog.  They are the end all be all of my reading life.

2. Pride and Prejudice

See my earlier entry for why this is such a lovely book.  I can’t say it had the same impact on me as Harry Potter, but I just finished a reread last week and even after so many times reading it and watching the miniseries, I still find new and lovely bits that are delightful.

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3. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy ‘trilogy’

The first time I read the Hitchhiker’s Guide, it was sitting in the Barnes & Noble cafe. I laughed so hard and so loud that I made an idiot of myself. For those reading this who are unfamiliar with the story, Arthur Dent is whisked off Earth minutes before its irrevocable destruction by his best friend, Ford Prefect, who reveals himself to be an alien.  But this isn’t science fiction; it never takes itself particularly seriously. What it is, in my opinion, is just funny and silly and wonderfully imaginative. The wordplay alone is enough to furnish me with great quotes for the rest of my life.  Here’s just a few to choose from:

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.

And my favorite (not technically from the series, but wonderful anyway):

I like deadlines.  I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

There is something very British (in my American mind at least) about this love of and playfulness with words and phrases.  Compare it, for a second, to something by Hemingway, whose prose has never even bordered on playful (at least, in my experience).  If you haven’t read Hitchhiker’s Guide,you should.

4.Hamlet

I’ve read a lot of Shakespeare in my life. I think I’ve taken 3 or 4 Shakespeare courses in college, plus the plays I read in high school.  I’ve read all of his sonnets and most of his other poems.  Of his 37 plays, I have read 20, so far.  I think Hamlet may have been the first one I read, back in middle school.  It has always been my favorite.  Some people think that Hamlet is indecisive and incapable of action. I just don’t see it.  He’s overcome with grief, with anger, with a questioning of the purpose of life and of revenge.  He feels trapped by circumstances and he talks his way through his feelings.  And he talks so beautifully.  I think it is, by far, the most poetic of Shakespeare’s works, and I can’t imagine anyone who has ever been depressed or suffered tragedy can read his famous soliloquy without finding echoing questions and statements in their own hearts. I think it is an absolute masterpiece, and encourage everyone to read it.  If you don’t think you can stand reading the play, please do not go get the Mel Gibson DVD.  At least invest the time in the Kenneth Branagh version, or at the very least the new David Tennant.

5. North and South

Please do not confuse this with that civil war miniseries with Patrick Swayze.  Though Elizabeth Gaskell is not that well known in America, she is considered just as popular as Jane Austen in England.  This is the story of a family who is forced to uproot from their life in the South (i.e. London and the counties surrounding it, which were agricultural, were old money, and were considered the most civilized) to the industrialized North (full of factories, the working class, unions, and pollution).  This dichotomy is a huge factor in England, even today someone with a Northern accent can be (unfairly) assumed to be less civilized than his/her Southern counterpart.  The book has the same plot as an Austen novel, and does have a truly scrumptious male love interest, but all of that is against an entirely different background. Gaskell weaves in poverty, unions, strikes, factory conditions, changing social norms, religious disparities, etc. etc. etc.  It’s a great way to get to know some of the background of the time, but to still get a fulfilling love story.  I also highly recommend the miniseries with Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton.

Honorable Mention: Jane Eyre

now, on to Movies.
Please keep in mind that I am not a cinema expert and haven’t seen a lot of what are considered the British ‘classics’. These are mostly mainstream films that were also very successful in the US.

1. A Hard Day’s Night

My love for the Beatles from an early age meant that, at the age of 9 or 10, I dragged my father to the video store every weekend to rent the same two movies: this one, and Help!.  Help! doesn’t stand the test of time quite as well as this one, but A Hard Day’s Night is a brilliant film. It captures the madness of the Beatles’ schedules and touring demands, the ridiculousness of press junkets, and the cheeky humor of the Fab Four.  It features great music, cute British boys, and lots of genuinely funny bits.

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2. Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz

I am listing these two together because, recently, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg revealed that they will be making a third in what they are calling the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. Shaun of the Dead can be described as a romantic comedy with zombies, while Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop action comedy.  But not action comedy as in Rush Hour; it’s more funny than it is action. Also, it’s not terrible, so that’s another key difference.  These movies are both hilarious, have cemented my eternal love for Simon Pegg, and spoof other genres so well that they manage to be both great parodies and great examples of the genres they are spoofing.

3. Snatch

 

This movie is just…unique.  Or, it’s unique if you haven’t seen Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels. But seriously, Guy Ritchie made this movie and it was like nothing I had ever seen before.  Vinnie Jones is amazing, Jason Statham is in his first big role (at least in the US), and Brad Pitt plays an absolutely incomprehensible gypsy/boxer.  It’s a stylish, interesting, funny film.  It also provides one with endless quotes. This movie contains both my least favorite moment in perhaps any movie (Brick Top–aka the foulest man on earth–talking about feeding corpses to his pigs) and one of my favorites (Tyrone backs into a van and claims it was at a funny angle. Vinny says It’s behind you Tyrone. Whenever you reverse, things come from behind you.).

4. Atonement

Couldn’t be more different from Snatch.  For all my bitching about Keira Knightley and Joe Wright’s version of Pride and Prejudice, they do a spectacular job with this movie.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it might be better than the book, and I loved the book.  The book didn’t have James McAvoy though, and the movie has an absolutely amazing score that actually works to help translate it from book to screen.  A word of warning, if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, it will absolutely fuck you up. I was sobbing for days.  Ian McEwan’s fiction always does that to me, but this is a prime example.  It’s either going to make you depressed or make you very angry, or both. But it’s exceptionally good.

5. Bridget Jones’ Diary

How could I not love this movie? It’s based on Pride & Prejudice, has the real Mr. Darcy playing a man named Mr. Darcy, and features an imperfect heroine who Darcy loves anyway.

I do occasionally have a problem with the fact that Bridget is a bit of an idiot, and compared to Lizzy Bennet she’s a complete moron.  But she does have a sort of wonderful, vivacious, goofy energy that is a good contrast to stuffy, conservative, Mark Darcy.

Honorable Mentions: Notting Hill, Love Actually

Now, on to my favorite Places to visit during a trip to the UK.  Let me preface this by saying I have, by no means, seen the majority of the UK.  These are just the 5 favorite places I visited during my time there.

1. South Bank of London

I spent a lot of time on the South Bank during my time in London, though I didn’t live anywhere near it.  I did go to the theatre there almost every week, and it is among the most beautiful of all the places I spent time in Europe. As the name implies, it’s on the South Bank of the Thames, and features tons of big attractions within about a block or two of the water.  There’s the National Theatre, the British Film Institute, the London Eye, the London Aquarium, the Waterloo station, the Old Vic and Young Vic theatres, and City Hall (popularly known as Darth Vader’s helmet because of its shape).  It’s a beautiful, vibrant, interesting, artistic part of town.  It should also be avoided during tourist season, but if you go when it’s not packed, it can be absolutely beautiful. A few blocks east are the Globe theatre, the Tate Modern, and the Millennium Bridge.

2. Prince’s Street Gardens and the Castle of Edinburgh

I went to Edinburgh and was blown away by how beautiful this part of town was.  The castle sits at the top of a huge cliff and the gardens sit at its base.  The history of the place goes back thousands of years, you can see the entire town from the top of the cliff, and everywhere you go in the area, you have at least some chance of running into J.K. Rowling.

3. Oxford

Talk about history, beauty, the whole thing.  You can walk around this city in about an hour, but it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.  I’m still considering going to Oxford for grad school, because can you imagine having this place for your home? Wandering around the same halls and rooms as so many of the important figures in political and literary history (26 prime ministers, 12 saints, kings, queens, Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawking, Joseph Heller, Aldous Huxley, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde…just to name a few. I could go on).  Plus Rowan Atkinson.  I think I could spend the rest of my life inside the Radcliffe Camera (reading room).

4. Bath

A place famous with Roman settlers for its healing waters, home to Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Rupert Giles, and set in a really beautiful part of a really beautiful country.  It’s a small town, but I found it really charming and lovely to walk in.  There are tons of Regency-era museums and houses open for viewing, plus the Jane Austen house, the original Roman baths, and a kickass chocolate shop across from the Cathedral.

5. Hampstead and ‘the Heath’

I lived approximately 1 mile from Hampstead, and ran on the heath most mornings during my time in London. As such, I have a lot of affection for the place.  Plus, it was home to John Keats, my favorite poet ever.  Hampstead is a small village to the northwest of London, rather trendy with celebs and the rich and famous. It’s got nice restaurants, and is surrounded by beautiful neighborhoods on one side and the ‘Heath’ (park) on the other.  The Heath itself has two basic parts, from my recollection, an open park, and a wooded section.  From the top of the hills you can see downtown London landmarks like the BT tower and the ‘Gherkin’ building (so named because it resembles a pickle).  It’s similar, in my eyes, to Central Park, because it is a place that tons of people go when the weather is good and they sit in the grass and just enjoy life.  What’s not to love?

That’s all for this list.  Next time, I’ll tackle my favorite British TV, British music, and my favorite tidbits from British history.