one problem with this LA-London hypothesis is that most Americans
do not understand Cricket, they are absolutely clueless regarding Cricket.
Ashes Test starts this week

Ah but contrarywise I find myself one of the few Brits who understands (and enjoys) baseball.

Well, true, MM, but still, I'd say if you were going to bank on areas of the US where people actually cared (or knew about) soccer, Los Angeles, with two pro teams (Chivas and the LA Galaxy, where Mr. Beckham...erm...probably wasted a good deal of his time, but still) would probably be one of if not the best bets.

And after Googling Ashes Test to see what the hell that is...

Is there a live stream of that online? I STILL don't know how cricket works (I've tried and tried, read and watched, but still...I get you're supposed to guard the poles with the bat, and it seems like your pitchers/bowlers like to throw the ball into the ground or curve it so as to try and hit said poles, and you get points for...hitting it or hitting the poles or...something, I don't care if it IS a take-off of rounders, I'll take baseball any day, lol) but I've got time to kill while I fill out applications, may as well see good teams play, it's not like the Mets are doing all that well this year...

I only know of one cricket player-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5l6f2y2_xM

Why DON'T Americans and Brits have more sports in common, though? Baseball/cricket, that's no good...no one really cares about American football besides America, Canada, and a few Germans (even though the NFL plays annual games in London now...there's talk that one day there'll be a team in London, but that doesn't seem likely, a 5-hour time difference just to play East Coast teams and an 8-hour one if they played my San Francisco 49ers?)...not a basketball fan myself so I don't know if the British really care about that, but I've never heard or seen anything to indicate it's too big of a deal over there...you'd think maybe we could get together on Hockey, after all it's a cold-weather sport and right after teaching you that all British people wear bowler hats, drink tea incessantly and are permanently trapped in a world of top hats and Dickensian workhouses, American TV makes damn clear that winter's a cold, snowy affair in the UK! ;)

So why isn't there more of an interest in hockey? I find it hard to believe California, home to 3 great hockey teams at the moment in San Jose (boo!) Los Angeles (boo!!!) and Anaheim (GO DUCKS GO!) is more naturally-inclined towards a cold-weather sport like hockey than, well, a place that actually gets snow rather regularly.

"Ah but contrarywise I find myself one of the few Brits who understands (and enjoys) baseball."

+1 :)

There is a hockey league in the UK, the EIHL, with teams mostly in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. One NHL player came over in the lockout (can't remember who.)

A friend from Connecticut used to tell me that American news channels used to descirbe the British weather thus: "And in the UK today they had two inches of snow and there were widespread powercuts and the country ground to a halt, the people unable to get to work.
"Meanwhile we had another three feet last night, but the roads should be clear by now; just take a little extra care on the roads this morning."

Huh...well, in that case, why don't English players come over and just play in the NHL, or hell, GET a team in the NHL?

There are so many floundering teams in places that really don't support, need or (frankly) deserve hockey (Florida does NOT need two teams...Carolina and Nashville are both borderline...Dallas is going under...Phoenix is a disgrace, whoever heard of a hockey team in ARIZONA?)...

Why doesn't London just get a team? I'm sure the NHL would go for it...

Or at the very least why don't English players come to play in the NHL? If Russian, Slovakian, Swedish, Czech and other such players from countries much further away and with much bigger social and geographical challenges to overcome make the trek and are staples in the NHL by this point, why aren't UK players doing the same?

For that matter, why not play in the Winter Olympics?

Unless...unless you just...*sniff*...don't want to play with us...I understand...

Though it's (still just barely) mostly Canadians playing (I want to say 55-65%, with Americans and Eastern European players making up an ever-increasing percentage) so if it's because you don't want to play with rowdy American cowboys, 1. They're (usually) not the types that play or watch hockey (they're too busy painting themselves red and rooting for Alabama or Auburn or Florida State or other college football teams) and 2. It's OK, Canada (aka the good, polite child of the UK...I guess that'd make us the arrogant showoffs, Australia the red-headed stepchild, South Africa the troubled one, and New Zealanders...well, they exist too) is the big driving force behind the league...

Even if Gary Bettman seems determined to do everything he can to ruin that.

The UK is behind the other European countries, developmentally. I'm not sure what the average attendance is but it has to be in the 2500-5000 range. Not enough to support an NHL franchise. Also, it would fall foul of the same disadvantages as a London NFL team, namely the time-difference. It's mostly a skill level - although there are requirements that each team in the EIHL has a certain number of UK players on their roster, they're usually relying on imports for the real skill.

well for a start there is Hockey (played on a proper christian field with a grass surface, or the modern astroturf surfaces similar to what is used on Tennis courts )
and Ice Hockey which is a game for Hooligans who skate on ice & assault each other.

There are subtle indications of differences in "national psyche" when one considers the way that the populace of the Indian sub-continent chose from British "civilisation" to embrace Cricket & the Japanese embraced Golf
Traditional English Cricket was a team game & to some degree "populist" in that members of most social classes could be participants
Golf is much more an elitist game
& I think the way Cricket is played in India & Pakistan is in a more populist way
to the way Golf is played in Japan / Asia

As for Test Cricket, the whole concept of playing for 5 days and having Drawn games
( as well as win & lose ) is quite alien to those who have been inculcated with the
"instantaneous" modern culture of the American colonies.

Ashes Test Cricket is a contest exclusively between the national cricket teams from
Australia and England and players can achieve national GLORY or DISGRACE with
their performances.
In Australia the position of Captain of the Australian Test Cricket Team is held by the public to be of greater importance & repute than the Prime Minister ( Leader of the Government ) so while we will elect a womaniser & drinker to be our Prime Minister & regard him with affection ( Bob Hawke ) we would not tolerate that sort of character being the Captain of the Australian Test Cricket Team
We don't mind that sort of chap being a member of the Test Cricket Team if he can play the game, but he cannot be Captain

The English have the butler, we have Will and Carlton. What more is there to say?

The British now have a Men's Wimbledon Tennis Champion,
after a 77 year "drought"
---- the Scotsman Andy Murray

London and LA? I'm not sure... London and New York is perhaps a closer match. Both are awful places to live full of people convinced they exist in the centre of the universe.

As far as US sports go, it is often long forgotten but we Brits did venture that way once. My Grandad when he was alive told me stories of when he supported baseball in Liverpool and went to a game where Britain played the US. My Gran's family where big ice hockey fans, back in the day when GB was the World and Olympic champion.

The trouble is the games were a bit shite, and people lost interest.

Derby FC (football aka soccer) used to play in a stadium called the Baseball Grounds; they'd play baseball during the off-season, in the summer.

The dominant sport in countries like India and Japan can be directly tied to whether they were part of the British Empire. Hence the Test Nations in cricket are all former territories of the Empire.

basketball is probably the most widespread 'american' sport, like the nfl they have games in london every year, but it's also quite common in europe (not as the top sport, unless you're lithuania), there are serious leagues for it, and if you're good at basketball but don't get into the nba chances are you play in europe.

Not all cricket playing countries were part of the British Empire. It is popular in the Netherlands. And the highest ranking non-Test Cricket nation is Afghanistan!

"As for Test Cricket, the whole concept of playing for 5 days and having Drawn games
( as well as win & lose ) is quite alien to those who have been inculcated with the
"instantaneous" modern culture of the American colonies."

Pardon me for wanting to watch a sport that doesn't require that I take an entire week off of work.

And the English are awfully high and mighty over the usage of "soccer" even though its a term that they originally coined.

Stephen Fry is a gay upper-class twat who wants to kill himself
This is the reality of the US/British differences, check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUdaPNXC_68

Is that by any chance from a straight lower-class girl who doesn't want to kill herself?

Seriously, you have given absolutely no argument why Stephen Fry would be wrong. I haven't watched any video and I don't think I will, I just noticed you were talking shit.

@nudge

Afghanistan, while not really directly incorporated, was at various times occupied by and a satellite of the British Empire.

@NigeeBaby

'gay upper-class twat who wants to kill himself' - he's gay so what? He's upper-class so what? He has tried to kill himself due to mental illness, I don't see how that is a criticism. Twat on its own is a bit meaningless.

Fry is a legend in his own lunch-time. His comment that the US is dominated by class and Britain is not .......... what a nonsense, spoken like a true idiot. Highly intelligent, no common sense.

I think he probably exaggerated a bit but I think he has a fair point. I have relatives over there and they live in gated communities with maids and all the rest. Many rich Americans do. I know people of similar socio-economic status in the UK and they do not live like that. In terms of visibility if nothing else, classes are more stark there than here.

I don't think he meant to say that there is no such thing as a class system in the UK.

"London and LA? I'm not sure... London and New York is perhaps a closer match."

Well, yeah, I'd imagine so...I was just pointing to the fact that, even though they're 8 hours apart in terms of time zones and a greater distance away still on the globe, the general ideology of Los Angelinos is closer to that of Londoners than some in their own country (I maintain folks here in LA have more in common with the UK than with the Deep South...LA/SF/NY/Boston and the Bible Belt is about as different as it gets here in the US.)

"Both are awful places to live full of people convinced they exist in the centre of the universe."

You mean we're not? ;)

New York, London, Paris, Rome,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico City, Amsterdam,
Washington D.C., Chicago, Munich, Berlin,
Chicago, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Madrid,
Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Vienna.

That's the whole world, isn't it? Everyone cool in the Western world lives in or near one of those 20 places, right? ;)

(Hey, I wouldn't say no to relegating myself for life to those 20 locales...or even 1/4 of them...now I wonder how people would rank those 20 places in terms of greatness and where they'd like to most/least live...)

I mean yeah, LA folks act like they live in the capital of the pop-laden world...but then again, WE DO. This is the Greater LA Area, Hollywood and all! We're the folks proudly pumping out sequel after shitty sequel...and maybe once in a blue moon we break the mold with a good movie, but then that's usually a mistake and gets ruined by 4 sequels and a drunken tirade by the director or something like that.

But hey, London and LA are Top 10 cities, economically and otherwise...

I'd rather live in a place where folks have tremendous egos and I can alternately try and be somebody or else just sit back and enjoy everything...I'm a big city person--and the bigger and brighter the city, and the bigger and more bombastic the ego, the better.

;)

"Derby FC (football aka soccer) used to play in a stadium called the Baseball Grounds; they'd play baseball during the off-season, in the summer."

So the New York Giants played baseball in a place called The Polo Grounds (where polo was never actually played) and you had a soccer team play in a place called The Baseball Grounds...lol... xD

"Stephen Fry is a gay upper-class twat who wants to kill himself"

Stephen Fry is a gay upper-class GENIUS, the man's awesome. This is not up for debate.

"basketball is probably the most widespread 'american' sport"

It's that or baseball...

Baseball's basically the unifying Sport of the Americas.

North and South America differ on which "football" they enjoy, but all the countries from Canada to the US to Mexico, Cuba and Caribbean Nations, Venezuela, Nicaragua...a LOT of Latin American baseball teams, leagues and stars, and of course Canada and the US play and have teams in MLB...

And then of course there's Asia--Japan's addicted to it, South Korea's caught on and has a national team and sends players to play professional baseball in the States now...

So basketball/baseball are a close #1/2, I think.

Then there's hockey, and that's Canada's game, but that's popular enough in northern countries...really only American Football's almost entirely an American game.

"His comment that the US is dominated by class and Britain is not"

We're a century or so behind England in terms of national identity.

We were in that Victorian, unstoppable, King-of-the-World stage after WWII...

Aaaaaand the bubble just sorta burst in this last decade or so, didn't it?

Give us a few decades, we'll pick up the pieces, fight another, big war when that comes ('cause if there's one thing sure about America, it's that as long as we exist in this state of being, we're gonna fight wars, especially unpopular wars in the desert that France loudly disapproves of and accuses us of being cruel towards Muslims while they go and ban the burqua, which WE don't, but anyway) and after our economy gets even worse and in time we elect our first female President and she turns out to be one of our most polarizing leaders ever (Hillary 2016? It's Thatcher with the ideology in reverse...don't read too deeply into that, I kid, mostly)...we'll be nice and down to earth and alright then. ;)

I think we do at present emphasize class and wealth more in this country than England's done...but then, while class has always been a thing in Britain (to put it mildly) if literature's to be believed, why, that period of Dickens and George Eliot...the Victorian period...when England was on top of it all--that's when tons of writing on class happens.

And before and after, obviously, in the Enlightenment beforehand and then after in the Modern period, I'm just generalizing here...when I think of "English Lit + Class" the first period I think of is the 1800s, and the Victorian period in particular.

That's where America is right now--right on the cusp our "Victorian" era ending (it's growing old and dying with the Baby Boomers.)

So I think class is a bigger deal in America because America's not as socially progressive as Britain...we're told that we left that sort of class system behind when we had the Revolution, but let's face it--it was a Revolution spearheaded by brilliant men...

But men more concerned with class you won't find--elderly white male plantation owners and businessmen who owned slaves and denied women the right to vote while setting up a very distinct have and have-not society. That (in theory) there was more of a chance to change your station in life doesn't change the fact that it's still a class system and still one we haven't fully conquered yet.

" In terms of visibility if nothing else, classes are more stark there than here.

I don't think he meant to say that there is no such thing as a class system in the UK."

...Or what Hereward said, that works too...

Baseball v rounders?

Fry is an entertainer and he is a good talker and he loves to be heard but his comments about class could only come from somebody in the social elite such as the rich or famous, fortunately for him he is both.
The reality is the class system is alive and kicking in the UK, whether it be education, politics, housing, the armed forces, the police force, civil service, banking, employment, entertainment, sport, etc, etc. Too many examples.......

I disagree. My background is by no means public school, rich and upper class and I think his comments were generally accurate so those comments can come from elsewhere.

The class system absolutely exists in the UK, I don't think he was saying it doesn't. He was saying that a more formal and distinct class system exists in the USA. We don't have that here any more

What, in your experience, has led you to believe with such conviction that it does exist so clearly in the UK?

Nigee... seriously?

The class system is present EVERYWHERE.

Everywhere. Seriously.

"What, in your experience, has led you to believe with such conviction that it does exist so clearly in the UK? "

Not sure if this is a serious question or you are trolling or just a johnny foreigner, because of that I am unable to take you too serious.
An interesting example of class was in British Leyland before they failed miserably as a business and people commented that there was no way you could make cars profitably in the UK, there were 7 different canteens/restaurants all designated for different levels of management. When the Japanese built the Nissan plant in Sunderland they had one canteen for all, the senior mgmt ate with the shopfloor workers...... they taught us a lot about management and how to work successfully with a unionised labour force.

I am neither trolling, or a johnny foreigner. I'm British. It was a serious question.

That is an interesting example and a fair point. Is that canteen split really an example of 'class' though? Even if it is, how are unionised labour forces any less divisive? I've always thought that unions were just as bad at perpetuating class differences. Not to mention corrupt, hypocritical and incompetent most of the time.

My knowledge of the motor industry isn't brilliant but as far as I was aware even the foreign car companies in the UK are struggling so is that really down to class or something else?

"I've always thought that unions were just as bad at perpetuating class differences."
I think they were as GOOD at perpetuating class differences, the them and us situation; the Unions were actually created by the class structure although that is slightly off-topic.
Although I do enjoy listening to intellectuals like Fry pontificate on a range of issues I think he is fundamentally wrong on this one.
Class is fundamentally about breeding, about education, social status.
Not so much about fame or success or money.
I appreciate though that in a melting pot such as the US there is an incredible struggle for social status between different races and cultures, there seems to be a pecking order based predominantly on race/religious grounds, then there is a separate social status based on fame and fortune that is slightly lost on the British, for all Richard Bransons fame, success and wealth he is still viewed as a uncouth yob by the British Upper Class.

Good spot on the union wording. That is of course what I meant to say but arsed up!

I broadly agree with some of what you say. In fairness though how can you know what the British upper-class think of anyone? For a start the true 'upper class' are a tiny number of people. The group I see most attacked for its status is the upper-middle class. All of this illustrates class exists in the UK, obviously. The difference is, as pointed out above, that the lines are blurred and the traditional characteristics of a class divide are much more apparent over the Pond than they are here.

Good subtle point about the truly upper class and the upper middle class, to appreciate that nuance you must be English.
I have always found truly upper class people quite unaffected and charming, self-assured. Usually more generous and paternalistic.
On the other-hand the upper-middle class are usually trying way to hard to define/prove/protect their own social standing and it makes them more competitive, materialistic, greedy and selfish; I find these trait quite unappealing.

Not to personalise this too much but I am in what would normally be called the upper-middle class (for context both my parents started out very working class) and I often find the picture you paint is an unfair one.

Competition? Yes. Materialism? Sort of, it ties in with the ambition. I see nothing wrong with social climbing, ambition, competitiveness and striving. All of those are values of the upper-middle class.

I disagree that avarice and selfishness are more prevalent in the upper-middle class than in other classes. People often assume that wealth (not that all upper-middle class people are 'wealthy' or 'rich', a very common misconception) means avarice. It really doesn't.

In any case, I think that the groups we are discussing are anything but clearly defined, going back to the point about visibility and existence of defined class systems. As you pointed out, the differences can be very subtle. I would view it more as a spectrum myself.

I respect the hell out of MM for recognizing Murray as first British Wimbledon MEN'S Tennis Champion in 77 years. A lot of the media have been omitting that necessary distinction. Necessary due to the fact that Bournemouth's own, Virginia Wade won the Women's in 1977.

Oh, and American hockey players are pussies.

"I disagree that avarice and selfishness are more prevalent in the upper-middle class than in other classes."
I didn't say it was more prevalent, it is just a characteristic. Putting it in context with say the educated middle class, the professional classes such as doctors, the legal profession, senior teachers and civil servants, IT professionals, etc.
It is a spectrum I agree, it's very qualitative and subjective

By saying it is a characteristic you imply that it is NOT a characteristic of other classes. If something is a present in one group and not in another, it is more prevalent in that group no?