SEX PLEASE, WE�RE BRITISH
Of all the changes which might be noticed by the visitor to London, the most striking is the transformation of what was once the traditional British attitude towards public discussion of private and personal affairs perhaps best characterized by the title of the long-running West End farce, �No Sex Please, We�re British.�
Once renowned for their charming eccentricity and reticence, the English who inhabit �Cool Brittania� today have become positively �shagadelic,� as Austin Powers might say.
Perhaps it is the recent introduction of central heating into British homes, the example of Princess Di, or the widespread drinking of coffee rather than tea, but it is obvious to even a casual observer that the British are now sex-obsessed -- and not inhibited from sharing this preoccupation with all and sundry.
Good taste appears to be no consideration.
Tradition is no longer a factor to be entered into one�s calculations. The British have abolished their hereditary House of Lords.
On a British Airways flight to England, one discovers the Union Jack which once graced the tails of the aircraft has been replaced by psychedelic patterns. The cabin interior is done up in a palatte of lurid day-glo colors.
Arriving at Heathrow airport, a tourist patronizing a newsagent is confronted with a spread of newspapers ranging from the tabloid Sun to the once-venerable Times of London. All have similar banner headlines detailing the sex life of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie.
The articles describe, in grisly detail, the specifics of Cherie Blair�s pregnancy and the prowess of the couple in conceiving their newest offspring during a stay with the Queen at Balmoral castle.
President Clinton and the First Lady are compared unfavorably to the British Prime Minister and his wife in articles which point out that the American President was able to conceive only one child and unable to impregnate Monica Lewinsky and that Hillary Clinton appears to be barren, while Blair is a �real man� whose 45-year old spouse can combine her full-time career as a Rumpole of the Bailey type of barrister with great fecundity.
It is no fluke. The carnival atmosphere in London has been rendered permanent. The Millenium Dome and 480-foot high Millenium Wheel which towers over the Houses of Parliament seem to have transformed the once-fusty capital into a cross between Disney World and Las Vegas.
Waking up in the morning, the tourist turns on BBC radio, hoping tohear the kind of witty chatter Americans enjoy on quiz shows like �My Word� and �My Music.� Instead, Radio Four, the British equivalent to National Public Radio�s �Morning Edition,� features a morning program on widespread child sexual abuse in England, complete with details of incest and pedophilia.
Another issue of the Times of London arrives. This time there is a big spread on a Playboy Bunny reunion at Hugh Hefner�s Beverly Hills mansion.
Turning on the BBC one evening, the viewer discovers a program featuring couples in psychotherapy talking with their analyst about the most intimate details of their marriage on national television.
When a new adaptation of Dicken�s Oliver Twist is broadcast, it turns out to be untrue to the original. Alurid tabloid-style opening chapter has been invented by the BBC�s adapter-- apparently unadulterated Dickens isn�t �sexy� enough.
A visit to the National Portrait Gallery finds a millenium-themed show of glamour photos of celebrities, taken by Vogue photographers, featuring Madonna and the Spice Girls.
Dropping in on the new flagship Waterstone's bookshop, which occupies the entire building which once housed Simpson's on the Strand--famous for roast beef made unpalatable by the spread of Mad Cow Disease--one finds five feet high stacks of Shere Hite's new book Sex and Business.
Artist Tracy Emin�s unmade bed on display at the Tate Gallery of Art, which was short-listed for the Turner prize (and her earlier tent featuring the names of the all the people she had slept with) clearly reflects a major interest of Britons today.
Once upon a time, Americans seeking to escape their violent and passionate young country travelled to England to absorb some tradition, self-control, and civilization.
England was everything that America was not. While Yankees were perpetual adolescents, the British were sophisticated men and women of the world.
They were well-read, witty, charming, and perhaps a little shy.
American views of the British were formed by Noel Coward, Rex Harrison, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard and more recently by the lavish costume dramas produced by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.
The Beatles had an Edwardian charm, and even Mick Jagger was, somehow, old-fashioned in his sexuality.
But today, the streets of New York City are safer--and cleaner-- than those of London. American news media, apparently recoiling from the excesses of the Lewinsky scandal, are reassuringly sober in their reporting.
When a London production of �The Blue Room� arrived in New York, featuring a nude Nicole Kidman described as �pure theatrical Viagra� by British reviewers, it was panned by the critics of the New York Times and quickly vanished.
Luckily, Starbucks has recently opened branches in London painted a soothing, tasteful, and low-key brown. They are packed with English patrons.
Perhaps they serve as little American embassies of Puritan sanity and sobriety in a nation which has apparently gone sex-mad.
