The newspapers in England are unique. We receive two publications. The first is simply called “The Daily Mail”. I would compare it to the National Inquirer. It has bold, sensational headlines that are not always kind. It mocks Prime Minister Tony Blair and continually carries pictures of Prince Harry or Prince William. It is also obsessed with supermodel Kate Moss who has appeared in almost every edition of the paper. Sometimes it will actually superimpose the faces of popular people onto the bodies of other people. It’s always good for a laugh! The second publication is The Guardian. It is comparable to the Fresno Bee and contains a broader perspective on news items in and around Britain. Surprisingly, I find very little news about the U.S. in British tabloids with the exception of some grotesque editorial cartoons about President Bush. While there were news stories about the Queen’s visit to the U.S., they were brief and not very detailed. Sporting news is dominated completely by soccer and each paper carries several pages of pictures about local teams. Occasionally, one sees a picture of Roger Federer or even Tiger Woods but that is the exception to the rule.
The big news in England these days is the abduction of a little girl. She and her parents were vacationing in Portugal when someone nabbed her from her bedroom. This family has been the subject of intense news reporting and have been featured on the BBC Evening News every single day. Perhaps I’m a bit jaded since this seems to happen with regularity in the U.S. but it appears to be a very new experience for the British people.
Much talk in Britain these days focuses on outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair. I don’t really understand British politics but I know that Blair (who has been in office for 10 years) headed the Labour Party which still won seats in Parliament but is going to be headed up by a Scotsman. Remember, Scotland is part of the United Kingdom (along with Wales, England and Northern Ireland) and, while each country has MP’s (members of Parliament), it is unheard of to have a Scot heading up the British government. One interesting thing is that British politicians speak ill of each other as much as U.S. politicians do. The Brits just do it with more eloquence!
