A.A. Gill on Brits in New York

Is there anything more bracing than a well-written rant, delivered by a man with a gutload of venom, a sense of timing and a way with words?

A.A. Gill, in the most recent Vanity Fair, unloads on Brits in New York City, and specifically a little strip of shops on Greenwich Avenue, around the corner from where we live:

What I mind is that they've re-created this Disney, Dick Van Dyke, um-diddle-diddle-um-diddle-I, merry Britain of childish grub and movie clichés, this Jeeves-and-Wooster place of mockery and snobbery, and I'm implicated, by mouth. Made complicit in this hideous retro-vintage place of Spam, Jam lyrics, bow ties, and buggery.

Lovely.

Although reading a scathing critique of Brits in New York City in Vanity Fair is a bit like seeing an op-ed criticizing the doctrine of papal infallibility in The American Catholic.

Letter From New York: Brits Behaving Badly (A.A. Gill, Vanity Fair, March 2007)

Related: Campaign For Little Britain In The Big Apple