It took me 10 years to keep out of Parliament a person who believed that The West Wing was a documentary, not only about its own country, but about this one, which he thought was the same one, and thus also scripted by Aaron Sorkin.
Marina Hyde
Covering the Beijing Olympics for The Guardian, the hotel that was my home in the Chinese capital was called – in an irony impossible to ignore – The Foreign Experts Building.
Marina Hyde
Covering the Beijing Olympics for The Guardian, the hotel that was my home in the Chinese capital was called – in an irony impossible to ignore – The Foreign Experts Building.
Whether that name had lost something in translation would be for the bilingual to say: all I know is that it provided the most chastening of perspectives every time I used my room key.
The Olympics is a vast – and vastly exposing – event, and there is nothing like looking down at the words "Foreign Experts" and thinking: "Christ, what if I get sent to the dressage tomorrow and have to type like I have an iota of a clue of what is going on? Is that a paso doble? Or has it got something in its hoof?"
Had I been less than 180 hours of Linguaphone off being able to order a taxi, I would have requested transfer to The Foreign Frauds Building without delay.
This, I imagine, will not be the daily insecurity
of former Obama strategist David Axelrod, once he is fully in situ on these
shores and masterminding Ed Miliband's 2015 election plan.
Nor do I picture Aussie Lynton Crosby, his Tory counterpart, suffering any pangs of self-doubt as he sparks up a complimentary fag and ponders which stripe of the native poor he might hammer today.
As for widely respected Canadian Bank of England governor Mark Carney, he probably doesn't pay in shops by apologetically opening a purse of baffling currency and indicating the person at the till should simply take what is required.
And after he'd trousered his gazillion pound kiss-off, you can be sure the former England manager Fabio Capello sauntered off into the sunset thinking: "It's not me, it's you."
Nor do I picture Aussie Lynton Crosby, his Tory counterpart, suffering any pangs of self-doubt as he sparks up a complimentary fag and ponders which stripe of the native poor he might hammer today.
As for widely respected Canadian Bank of England governor Mark Carney, he probably doesn't pay in shops by apologetically opening a purse of baffling currency and indicating the person at the till should simply take what is required.
And after he'd trousered his gazillion pound kiss-off, you can be sure the former England manager Fabio Capello sauntered off into the sunset thinking: "It's not me, it's you."
The Italian was probably right.
Certainly, there is something exceptional about the news that the England squad are being helped to prepare for penalty shootouts by a native – even if it is Steve Peters, the erstwhile Rampton psychiatrist credited for successes by Ronnie O'Sullivan and the British cycling team.
It's not so much that England football's headspace feels unravelable only by the finest the Viennese psychiatric schools have to offer.
It's more bemusement at the unfashionable idea that there is not a foreigner better equipped to advise us when we have all but given up entrusting any remotely important jobs to one of our own.
Certainly, there is something exceptional about the news that the England squad are being helped to prepare for penalty shootouts by a native – even if it is Steve Peters, the erstwhile Rampton psychiatrist credited for successes by Ronnie O'Sullivan and the British cycling team.
It's not so much that England football's headspace feels unravelable only by the finest the Viennese psychiatric schools have to offer.
It's more bemusement at the unfashionable idea that there is not a foreigner better equipped to advise us when we have all but given up entrusting any remotely important jobs to one of our own.
Miliband's appointment of Axelrod seems a case in
point.
Given that Obama and Miliband are – how to put this delicately? – blessed with varying presentational skills, one might assume they are such different candidates that the Labour leader would have done better to enlist the help of someone with more tailored local expertise.
But then one would be forgetting the fawning West Wingery that has misshapen a generation of British politicians – and ably assisted their real-life White House overlords in misshaping a couple of Middle East countries.
Given that Obama and Miliband are – how to put this delicately? – blessed with varying presentational skills, one might assume they are such different candidates that the Labour leader would have done better to enlist the help of someone with more tailored local expertise.
But then one would be forgetting the fawning West Wingery that has misshapen a generation of British politicians – and ably assisted their real-life White House overlords in misshaping a couple of Middle East countries.
Appointing chiefs of staff, fancying that the spin
room after our inaugural election TV debates resembled America's megawatt
version of the same, prime ministers looking like they've won a contest to
attend White House summits: these are the excruciating affectations of a
post-imperial satellite that long ago lost confidence.
At least Axelrod is a real-life Washington man.
When the late John Spencer – who played President Bartlet's chief of staff in Aaron Sorkin's drama – was in town on promotional duties, Tony Blair's own chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, actually invited him to No 10.
I suppose it was a bilateral of sorts.
At least Axelrod is a real-life Washington man.
When the late John Spencer – who played President Bartlet's chief of staff in Aaron Sorkin's drama – was in town on promotional duties, Tony Blair's own chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, actually invited him to No 10.
I suppose it was a bilateral of sorts.
Yankophilia has passed for strategy for yonks now,
and anyway it's hardly a surprise that hiring British has gone the same way as
buying British.
The prestige candidate these days is foreign.
David Cameron is frightfully concerned about British jobs for British workers, except on occasions like his recent appointment of another former senior Obama adviser, Jim Messina, to his 2015 campaign team.
No doubt Messina is a super-smart and reasonably priced chap, but the way these appointments are sold as a great coup always feels suspiciously substance-free.
It takes a certain type of self-doubt to insist that we don't just want a guy like that – we want that guy.
That exact one, even if he's going to advise us on key marginals or whatnot from a US base, as Messina is.
The prestige candidate these days is foreign.
David Cameron is frightfully concerned about British jobs for British workers, except on occasions like his recent appointment of another former senior Obama adviser, Jim Messina, to his 2015 campaign team.
No doubt Messina is a super-smart and reasonably priced chap, but the way these appointments are sold as a great coup always feels suspiciously substance-free.
It takes a certain type of self-doubt to insist that we don't just want a guy like that – we want that guy.
That exact one, even if he's going to advise us on key marginals or whatnot from a US base, as Messina is.
Quite why no one from Delaware is helming the
campaign against Scottish independence is a puzzle, when convention
increasingly demands the English be saved from themselves by a foreigner (as
indeed does the independence debate itself – an emotional scene in which I
picture myself hanging on to Scotland's leg and screaming: "Please don't
leave us! We'll become insanely rightwing without you!").
Then again, perhaps the most significant intervention in the argument thus far has come from the aforementioned Canadian, Carney, who has cast doubt on the possibility of an independent Scotland keeping the pound with any ease.
Then again, perhaps the most significant intervention in the argument thus far has come from the aforementioned Canadian, Carney, who has cast doubt on the possibility of an independent Scotland keeping the pound with any ease.
Huzzah for our foreign experts, then.
I like to imagine them all living in the same hotel – London's version of my Beijing billet – in which Lynton Crosby could be found propping up the bar with whichever American is tipped to be the next director general of the BBC, and whichever South American is soon to turn down the FA's offer of the England job.
As for our elected politicians, do let's hope we're now on the very last generation of homegrown.
Unlike some, we'd love our prime minister to have been born in Kenya, and 2030 aspirants should consider a birth certificate forgery at their earliest convenience.
I like to imagine them all living in the same hotel – London's version of my Beijing billet – in which Lynton Crosby could be found propping up the bar with whichever American is tipped to be the next director general of the BBC, and whichever South American is soon to turn down the FA's offer of the England job.
As for our elected politicians, do let's hope we're now on the very last generation of homegrown.
Unlike some, we'd love our prime minister to have been born in Kenya, and 2030 aspirants should consider a birth certificate forgery at their earliest convenience.
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