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Gwynie’s Stupid Smugness

One truism of the cynic abroad is that she becomes unexpectedly patriotic and defensive the minute she hears someone from her host country denigrate her homeland. A strange but related phenomena might be the expat who puts on airs with her sophisticated new neighbors about how god-awful lowly and provincial "back home" is. By now you've heard that Gwyneth Paltrow thinks two things about America (which is exactly two things more than I care to know from her about anything):

1. "The British are much more intelligent and civilised than the Americans."

2. "I love the English lifestyle. It's not as capitalistic as America. People talk about interesting things at dinner – not about work and money."

Well, it's at least good to see that the native promiscuity of the Yank tongue hasn't quite left the Ice Queen of the Spence School since she almost certainly meant materialistic, not capitalistic — unless your Thanksgiving was full of talk about the private ownership of the means of production.

Anyway. Gwynie's getting it from both sides now: "Don't let the door hit your bony ass on the way out" seems to be the consensus here, while the Brits — who love to revile American pretensions to Anglophilia almost as much as they love to revile the lack of them — think Mrs. Chris Martin is pronouncing judgment without a cultural or intellectual by-your-leave.

My favorite blog in the universe — Harry's Place — may be democratic socialist by design, but even if its writers were to the manner born, they'd still manage to come up with a frost-covered reply like this one:

[W]hat does a woman who called her first child Apple and second one Moses consider intelligent dinner table conversation?

HP might have added that someone who considers Madonna fit sororal company in voluntary exile is NQOKD (Not Quite Our Kind, Dear).

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