A recent story about "Tweed Bikers" in cities like Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and San Francisco alarmed me. "Tweed Bikers" dress in Edwardian Garb and go retro-biking and generally acting like "good chaps". This led me to wonder if the usual suspects of a certain class in the UK were behind this.
Turns out that 'Chap -Hop" could potentially lead millions of young men and women astray into risky behaviours like wearing tweed jackets in public, sporting handle-bar mustaches, playing cricket and putting politeness before natural American competitive zeal!
Every pernicious movement has its Elvis, its progenitor of degradation and moral laxity. The Chap-Hops are no exception. Their culture avatar appears to be a "good chap" named Mr. B. American Hip-Hop is now no longer good enough for people in some nationalities apparently. The invasion has begun. My fellow countrymen, DON'T DRINK THE TEA!
Oh, dang, but this is Too Damn Funny (at least, to me - maybe you and I are the only ones who get this...)
ReplyDeleteWe shall see, Astra, we shall see.
ReplyDeleteI do hope I have not given undue offense. :-)
Here's a link on Tweed Biking and why second-hand clothing stores are being routed for old stuff your great-grandmother wore and fixed-speed bikes had better by kept under lock and key.
ReplyDeleteRuddy, bloody villains. We'll all be reading good books by the fireside, tipping hats to old ladies, talking posh and bowling a century next.
http://bikesandthecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/tweed-on-mate.html
Hahahaha, I say old chap, play the game! As a girlie I say jolly hocky sticks to you. O lawks a lordy, the misery of failing, the humiliation. I hope those fellows dressing up play the game and don't let us other chaps down.
ReplyDeleteHowever, never mind if you get it slightly wrong as long as you play up and play the game.
Come on old chap don't just stand there, give the ball another swipe before we lose the light. Then off we go to play murders with my old friend Sherlock Holmes. Hey stop pushing I saw that deerstalker hat first.
You coming with me Doug?
Funny video there!
As someone who has always found cricket incredibly boring, I have to say that I haven't been any more endeared to it by the video Doug.
ReplyDeleteIf however the US is being overun by a plague of tweed bikers I can only console you with the observation that it is a natural by-product of imperialism.
There is always a backflow from the colonies of course and tea drinking, cricket playing types running amok in America are it I'm afraid.
Globalisation has brought NFL to London and cricket to San Francisco, both equally reprehensible moves in my opinion, but that's empires for you I suppose?
Love to "hear" you talk like this. Drives me baby!
ReplyDeleteNo fear there, Cassandra. From what I can see our American Tweeds are trying to outdo the chaps and ladies over on your side of the pond with pure retro-politeness and fashion sense. Edward VII couldn't tell 'em apart from the real lot.
ReplyDeleteI suspect there might be a few "ringers" to coach the bike riders on the right quota of "chapiness".San Francisco has its share of British ex-pats who refuse to "go native" despite all the iced beer and hot dogs waved right under their noses.
I certainly wouldn't mind participating in one of those group faux-murder investigations they have on trains for getaways and fund raisers on old railroad train cars a la Holmes and Watson. (That's another popular bit of whimsy picked up from England over here.)
But I must confess I'd be better at "play up and play the game" if it was good old was nine-man-to-a-side baseball and we were allowed to stop and declare victory after nine innings.
(Those cricket matches go on for days I understand. In 1857, so the history books say, one unit of the India Royal Lancers once played a long-term match that forced them to miss the entire India Mutiny!)
In between changing political parties one afternoon, Winston Churchill had time to write "Cricket is a puzzle inside a mystery and wrapped in an enigma." Or was that Russia?
ReplyDeleteYes, AA, I thought we had shipped all the Tories off to Nova Scotia with their Redcoat pals after the American Revolution. The door was shut. The gate locked. The key thrown away.
It appears, however, that what your countrymen and women often call "The Late Unpleasantness With America Over Taxes, Trade and Snuff Powder" has been allowed to fade from collective memory, and only after a scant two hundred and twenty-odd years!
"Chappie" Fifth Columnists have indeed amok in the cities of our once-proud Republic. Is this why Washington's men froze at Valley Forge? Once again, Americanization has backfired. Just who is in charge of this empire anyway? The Queen will be on the stamps over here next! May as well start calling ourselves Lowest Canada.
Seriously, I think a lot of this is a backlash all right--not only imperialism inverted, but to a rather serious movement in American cities called "Critical Mass". Don't know if you had this over in England, but hundreds of bikers gather during commute hours regularly clog streets in San Francisco, Boston ,et al, to discourage vehicle traffic in the inner core of those cities.
While their purpose was justifiable as protest, some of the hostile and agressive attitudes of the leaders of the movements appear to have left some with the idea that going in the other direction might make for some cheerful and ironic hijinks.
Either way, personally I think its a good thing---as long as Mr. B's inspired cricketers and bikers do not replace the baseball diamond and the mountain bike entirely.