You know, the other day I learned that a good friend of mine has a violent and irrational hatred of fish. Seriously. Fish freak him out. He despises fish. Can’t stand aquariums. Freaks out at lakes and ponds. Total irrational hatred of fish.

I think this chick has the same kind of thing, only about Americans.

In both cases, my reaction is the same. “Okay,” I say with a shrug. Then I think about what I’m gonna watch on TV when I get home.

Good attitude Jeff, but how dare you pollute this comments section with reasoned reaction and common sense. Lets counter the review with some senseless anti Europeanism. Everyone knows that two wrongs make a right ! The chick in question is American by the way.
Reading the review, it says more about her current state of mind than anything else - it riles against optimism as much as anything else.

Is your friend otherwise a merry old sole? There's a time and a plaice for bashing fish - and that ain't codswhallop. Ichthyophobia - a weird fear, but on the general scale of things not the worst.

Anyway America bashing isn't racism under UK law, since Americans can not be classified into any one race - other than the hot dog-eating one! Hey! We just can't help it :P

I don't worry about America bashing much anymore. I've read articles that suggest that it's become a hot commodity. In other words, if I wanted to write a best seller that would do well in Europe, I would work in a little self-loathing anti-Americanism. It's the tune by which cash registers sing.

Is your friend otherwise a merry old sole?

LOL

It sounds like Ms. Ellman has been reading too many poems by Harold 'Free Slobodan Milosevic" Pinter. Her rant sounds like a pop-culture version of this:

Here they go again,
The Yanks in their armoured parade
Chanting their ballads of joy
As they gallop across the big world
Praising America's God.
The gutters are clogged with the dead
The ones who couldn't join in
The others refusing to sing
The ones who are losing their voice
The ones who've forgotten the tune.
The riders have whips which cut.
Your head rolls onto the sand
Your head is a pool in the dirt
Your head is a stain in the dust
Your eyes have gone out and your nose
Sniffs only the pong of the dead
And all the dead air is alive
With the smell of America's God.

America is filled with the pong of the dead and the pizza of the damned.

Pinter and Ellman's writing is so bad, it makes Barbara Cartland sound like high art. I guess the America-hating press is the unofficial dole for Britain's talentless hacks.

Blech. I hate to look her up to insure that I had never (and would never) read one of her books. I'm just closed minded that way.

I browsed the first few pages of her novel, Man or Mango, after reading a rave about it on Bookslut and the narrator was rather deranged and unentertaining. The nuts on the subway tell better stories.

Pizza of the damn -- one with anchovies.