"Steve Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>...To many middle-class Jewish Americans (like me), Britain represents
>an El Dorado of Refinement and Good Taste (we tend to ignore Sidney
>James and Benny Hill and those mountains of stale sandwiches in the
>shop windows).

I must come to defend Benny Hill: In all the buffoonery there is an
underlying subtlety that fits with both the British Good taste, and the
appreciation of subtleties characteristic of most people who are devotees
of good music.  As for the stale sandwiches, the last time I was in
London they had all but disappeared, to be replaced by very good (and
very expensive) fare.  For example, check the sandwiches etc.  at the
cafeteria of the New Tate.  (By the way, dreadful architecture with
wonderful content.)

Peter Harzem