On my last two trips to the UK, I could not help noticing (although I tried VERY hard not to, of course) how bluejeans were displaying the luscious bottoms of so many UK ladies to very best effect. This phenomenon is not confined to the UK, of course. One German lady I am very fond of looked great (indeed, spectacular!) in them too. Heterosexual men all over the western world owe the good old US of A a debt of thanks for jeans.
Likewise coffee. Yes, I know, the hegemony of Starbucks is annoying, and beginning to smack US cultural and economic imperialism. But does anyone remember UK coffee before the Starbucks onslaught? My first visit to the UK (1970) still stands out in my memory for the utter wretchedness of the coffee. It can be recreated today only by leaving a scant cup of dripped coffee on a warmer for hours, and the mixing it 50/50 with cheap instant coffee. Bad, in other words. Today, all is well on the coffee front in the UK. As one UK journalist recently put it, "Gone are the days when Londoners thought 'macchiato' was a South American knife, or that 'Monsooned Malabar' a weather-depressed town in India."
Thanks, Uncle Sam!
