American Pie: Only In America?
There was a time when British folk thought that some of the crazy things which happen in America could never happen in the UK. John Merchant suggests that the "craziness gap'' between the two countries has narrowed.
"Only in America" used to be a popular retort in Britain, and perhaps still is. It was often a newspaper reader's or TV watcher's response to a news item describing an unlikely and often bizarre event that had taken place in the USA. Evil Kneival, the stunt motorcyclist comes to mind as the perpetrator of many such events. Serial killers and political conventions are also on the list. Whatever the story, the British public had a clear conviction that nothing so crazy could ever happen in the UK.
Although the craziness gap between British and American culture has unfortunately narrowed over the years, it is still there, if only in the matter of degree. It was therefore with some surprise that my eye caught a headline in that pillar of understated reporting, The New York Times. The headline read "British Cocklers Rescued!" The exclamation mark is mine.
In the first place, I doubt that more than about two percent of the NYT's readership even knows what a cockler is, and even the knowledgeable would have to wonder why a cockler would ever need rescuing. Mountaineers, speleologists, round-the- world sailors yes, but surely not that most unadventurous, obscure and self effacing worker, the cockler.
As I read the account, I became more and more incredulous. The incident didn't just involve four or five shell-fish gatherers, but 136! Not only that, but 60 were Scottish and 76 were Chinese! Chinese? Given that Chinese immigrants aren't usually the best of English speakers, and the Scotts, to be polite, have their own, very special version of the spoken language, one can only imagine the exchanges that took place between the two groups.
Surreal, is the best way I can describe my reaction to the added information that the cocklers were not just cut off by the tide, as one might expect, but were in two vehicles that had collided four miles off the Lancashire coast at Morecambe, or as Americans often pronounce it, Morrycamby. I'll allow that it is often hard to explain why two oil tankers collide in the vast oceans of the world, but how much cockle traffic could be off the Lancashire coast for heavens sake?
Then there's the 98 percent of the NYT's readership that hasn't a clue what a cockler is. Any of them who have visited Britain and have been exposed to some of the quaint village games and customs that have survived since the dark ages, probably assume cockling is another such event. And it wouldn't surprise any of them to read that cocklers do it four miles out to sea in a truck.
Yet others, suspecting that British society might have developed a head start over America in modern society's decent into bacchanalia, likely read some sexual connotation into the word. As I write, charter flights probably are already booked solid with sensation-hungry Yanks, drooling at the prospect of cockling all night. Well they are in for a rude awakening, but at the very least, the cocklers of Britain have done much to level the "Only in___" playing field, if only in my view.
