The process of cycling is indeed more difficult than the eye suggests. Last weekend to my great suprise I saw a rather portly fellow riding a Penny Farthing along a busy main road. It occured that for a moment I had reverted back to the 19th Century and was no longer concerned with driving my automobile, but rather how to be an upstanding Victorian Gentleman.

Then after reading your post it all made sense. Penny Farthing’s were made so large precisely for the reason you highlight: that is in order to not get too dirty. The beneficial hight of the contraption not only gives you the air of certain superiority but also maintains that your fresh garments stay nice and clean.

You all know the song; it’s the one everyone hums: “la la la to, before all shouting “In an English Country Gaaaarrrrdeeeen” right at the end. It’s almost a cathartic experience just to shout this last line out with a familiar group of people. However, how many of us have actually sung this song in an English Country Garden?

The noun: “English Country Garden”, makes an ordinary garden seem something quite unique to England, when in fact most countries have them. A Garden is nothing new, but I do suppose it is a status symbol for wealthy land owners, a cabbage patch cannot after all be considered a ‘Country Garden’.

“But what is inside a country garden?”

Well I’m glad you asked! According to the song there are a lot of sweet flowers, insects and song birds. Nothing that really sets apart the English garden from say a Chinese garden, which I assume also has a lot of sweet flowers, insects and song birds, but you know how we Brits try to be unique. The cuckoo and the quail, bobolink and tanager supposedly set the English Country

Garden apart from the rest, but may I ask how many people would be able to identify the ‘bobotwink’ or the ‘teenager’? Which gets to my next point; that the aesthetics of the country garden are no longer cared for in the ever increasing urbanity of modern day life. As transcendentalism encourages us; we must flock to our countryside, our refuge and our great symbol of calm and of order. It is there can we find our peace right in the heart of

In many British Universities there is a course of study that is commonly referred to as ‘American Studies’. In this course students are expected to learn about American history, politics and literature and spend time discussing and debating their views on the topics. Why then, can’t we ask; is their a similar equivalent in America?

‘English Studies’ or ‘British Studies’ could encompass the exact same principles, but students could be more enriched by the greater literature, greater history and greater politics of our (seemingly greater?) land.
The contrary argument does of course fall on the notion that America is the great imperialising power of our time.

However, can we not assume that it’s power is only short lived in a time of increasing globalisation and growing world economies? Can it really match the period of global dominance that the British Empire encompassed in it’s colonisation of 1/3 of the world?

Indeed it would be nice to see American college students learning about Thatcherism, Philip Larkin and Guy Fawkes. Also in connecting culturally with our society maybe the demonisation of America as an interior minded culture would begin to cease a little.

Perhaps these are just some of the aspects that we could expect to see on their syllabus:
- The death of David Kelly, the sexed up dossier and why we followed America to war
- The literature of J.K. Rowling and how Harry conquered the world
- The English football team’s perpetual failure to deliver glory to an ever expectant nation and the repurcussions it draws on a psychologically imbalanced society
- Why the English pub will never be an American bar
- Why we gave America up in the War for Independence

Perhaps a little more of this guy and a little less of Whitman?