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’Net Junkie Shawn "Speedy" Lopes |
Sites offer Anglophiles
a jolly good timeYour diet consists of steak and kidney pies, pork bangers and black pudding. You wash it down with a nice, steaming cup of tea and cap it off with a serving of creamed rice or spotted dick pudding. You observe the queen's birthday every second Saturday in June. You adore Nell McAndrew, Anna Friel and David Beckham. Yet you've never set foot on British soil. You, my friend, are an Anglophile.
At Britain for the Anglophile (http://community-2.webtv.net/cheryl550/BRITAIN), you'll find a lengthy list of links "all about merry olde England," from its history (Anglo-Saxon England, Elizabethan England, child labor in the 19th century, the British Empire, etc.) to geography (Western European islands between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, northwest of France, 244,820 square kilometers total, just slightly smaller than Oregon) to culture and media (British TV comedies, the BBC, the Beatles).
Though I am far from an Anglophile, I do love a good game of Premiership soccer -- oops, football -- on Fox Sports World and I enjoy occasional screenings of British TV comedy "programmes" like "The Office" (see our main story), "Coupling" and "Manchild." I must also confess to a liking for such legendary comedic fare as Benny Hill and Monty Python, and lately, thanks to a chance Internet discovery, I have taken a fancy to British TV personality Jasmine Lowson.
I'm no Ryan K. Johnson, though. Johnson, an American living in Seattle, has at least a dozen tapes of TV shows sent to him each month from England, just because. He gives you the lowdown on more than 700 U.K. TV shows, from "Aaagh! It's The Mr. Hell Show" to "You Rang, M'Lord" at www.eskimo.com/~rkj/brit.htm.
Interesting U.K. Web outposts abound, like www.lifestyle.co.uk, which features links to over 150 different subjects for Brits and Brit wannabes. There's mtv.co.uk, where Yank pop stars like Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera vie for audience share with The Rasmas and Benny Benassi, and The American's Guide to Speaking British at www.effingpot.com, where Brit slang like cheesed off, duff, faff, naff, knackered, parky, pukka and rat arsed are explained. Luvvly-jubbly stuff for potty Anglophiles. Horses for courses, of course.
Note: Web sites mentioned in this column were active at time of publication. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin neither endorses nor is responsible for their contents.
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’Net Junkie drops every Monday.
Contact Shawn "Speedy" Lopes at slopes@starbulletin.com.
