Oh, we also went to Nandos. It was my first time there. They do this weird half-fine dining, half-fast food thing wherein they seat you, give you a menu, but then you have to go wait in line to order at the till. But then there's table service like in a nice restaurant. But then you have to go get your own condiments like in fast food places. It's weird.

The food was okay. I didn't go for the chicken because I was trying to avoid meat products since I seem to be allergic to meat now. I guess. Going to the doctor tomorrow about this again tomrorrow, although my hands are fine now. I got some kind of vegetarian bean burger.

Checking out Facebook. A former classmate is saying "cheers" interchangeably with "thanks" in regards to happy New Year proclomations. I suspect that this is another example of British English creeping into the American lexicongraphy. "Mobile" instead of "cellular phone" is another example. And "queue" which apparently comes from Netflix's usage of the term.

It's a bit annoying. But my idea of America ends in 2005 and there have obviously been changes.

People in the Manics forums and chat room used to doubt my claim that American English is closer to the English of old but it makes perfect sense. Immigrants take the language abroad and maintain it as they remember it. It's the people who don't emigrate who change the language, adding wacky new shit. The immigrants are much more conservative in adding stuff and changing the language, et cetera.

So I'm effectively speaking the American English of 2005 and get uncomfortable when I see Americans speaking the new American English. The Americans who didn't move have changed the language whereas I've maintained the old ways. I also speak British English but I hold them as distinct dialects and don't merge them together.

Bit of a tangent, you know how some of your dumber English people will claim some ownership of the English language and its position in the world? The popularity of the English language is clearly down to the United States.

Think about it. Let's say Americans spoke Latin, as some wide-eyed dreamer shortly after the Revolutionary War suggested. So for all subsequent years, all American culture was in Latin. Huck Finn was written in Latin, the laws are all in Latin, MMMBop is in Latin, Star Wars is in Latin, Friends is in Latin, everything.

Do you think Japanese people would still want to learn English? For what? So they could watch Porridge? Or whatever low-budget crap Canada churns out? Or Australia? Forget it. Nobody is going to learn English just to watch Crocodile Dundee and read shit, boring, go nowhere, windows into 19th centrury upper class bullshit English literature.

They'd learn Latin to enjoy all of the American culture, popular and otherwise.

"Wait a minute, Baron. But would American culture have taken off without the support of other English-speaking countries?"

Of course. The support has historically been minimal. Even today it's minimal. Who cares if English people don't like the Andy Griffith Show? It's still one of those most successful sitcoms ever. And I don't think that the people who make the Big Bang Theory are making a fortune by selling the reruns to Channel 4.

"Yeah, but maybe British popular culture would have thrived without the competition from America."

I don't think so. Look at what they were doing before America was particularly competiting with the UK. First of all, the books are all shit. There's never been a good British author. Show me the Mark Twains, the F Scott Fitzgeralds, the Ernest Hemingways, etc. There aren't any.

Then look at what the British television and film industry was showing pre-19600s. American stuff wasn't really being shown in the UK at the time. So what do you have? The Carry On films? Benny Hill? It's overwhelmingly garbage. It's either base "this is what the peasants enjoy" stuff or guys in top hats. I don't want to watch any of that. There's no art to it. It's all boring class-based shit.

If anyone can name a single good book, tv show, or film that came out of Canada or Australia I'd like to hear it.

So yeah, it all would have continued along this line. Crap that nobody wants to watch. English language culture would have been like French language culture. There might be some good stuff in there but no way am I learning the language just to understand a couple of maybe semi-decent pretentious films.