Bill Bryson: Things are bad in Britain. But America is worse

https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/bill-bryson-interview-short-history-of-nearly-everything-glc9vgb5h

21 comments

  3. Things are really good here compared with America tbh Bill …..

  4. No fucking shit. How is these even a headline?

    Edit: i love that the first four immediate comments are all variations of ‘no fucking shit’.

  5. Thinking the seventh circle of hell would be a preferable holiday location than the USA right at the moment.

  7. Don’t know who first came up with this, but it’s funny, so I’m repeating it: “The USA and the UK are in a competition to make the worst political decisions. The UK took an early lead with Brexit, but the USA had a Trump card.”

  8. Yeah anyone with a brain can see that, it’s that we’re on the same slippery slope that’s the problem we’re just not as far down yet.

  9. Eh, shitting on The Other as a distraction from one’s own country falling apart. That’s a tale as old as time. 

  10. I make the best of it. Control what I can control. Life is short as it is.

  11. *The Road to Little Dribbling* was published in 2015 and is essentially a litany of complaints about the UK, so I’m not surprised he still thinks things are bad over here.

  12. Yeah we’ve literally got a gestapo force running around.

  14. So happy to help make the Brit’s feel better about themselves.

  15. Am I mad in thinking that the internet has made stupid people politically active? Before these folks would have been ranting in a pub. Now they have a huge network of equal idiots and the people who know the right things to say have an easily accessible audience. It wasn’t long ago where Farage was a sideline character in British politics who, despite what seem to be his views had to hold his tongue.

    I think education is the only way. UK can hopefully plow lots into education and then, frankly wait until they become old enough to bring back sanity.

    These might be the views of a ‘radical leftist’ (social liberal), but feck

  17. Careful Bill, depending who’s in power you might get arrested for this post.

  19. No one actually read the article? Perhaps I’m the only Bryson fan here. He’s updating and releasing “a short history of nearly everything”. They buried the lead under some hokey headline.

  20. Yeah I’d say paramilitary and military groups storming cities, kidnapping people based on their skin color or accent, and then tear gassing and shooting protesters with rubber bullets is worse.

  21. So it’s ok because it’s worse somewhere else? People should wait until society has collapsed, like in the USA? And yes, it has collapsed. Nobody should believe elections are fair anymore (not that they have been for 30 years). Government departments are all being dismantled by having control transferred to idiots who have an agenda with said dept (eg RFKjr in health). The courts are stacked. Armed masked thugs patrol the street arresting anyone they want, simply inventing stories to do if needed. Companies donate to Trump or work “deals” aka fraud with him or his kids. He has toadies who grovel before him at press conferences. And gold leaf on everything because it doesn’t look “rich” enough. Have to have that illusion of wealth and power. People believe anything. If they don’t, just change the language and rage bait and adjust the social media algorithms and we’ll make it change. Trump openly extorts universities to control them and limit educated thought.

    But because the Disney channel still runs and there’s football on tv and most people still have jobs, who care, right? Doesn’t matter that gay and trans people and brown and yellow people are going to be eliminated… they’re not coming for me?

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