The British satirical magazine Private Eye has for years run a column titled “Pseud’s Corner”, where pomposity, pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectualism in writing (hence Pseud’s Corner) is reprinted without comment for the reader to smile at and inwardly mock.

I was invited to an exhibition of photographs of battlefields in New York this weekend (sorry, can’t make it) but was delighted to read this pyrotechnic display of pseudery to describe the collection of empty fields:

Taken over a 10 year period, the featured photographic works, documentations of actual battlefields, call into question the autonomy of “place:” the disparity that exists between historical events and the geographic locations in which they occur. Apart from the occasional historic marker or didactic memorial plaque, little visual evidence remains to distinguish one site from another, a disconnect that evokes the transient nature of history, the arbitrary lines of the battlefield and the universality of the theaters of war.

What tosh. It’s so wonderful.

Americans have many faults, but they are seldom cynical, whereas the British are a nation of cynics. Perhaps it’s our media. There’s no real American equivalent of Private Eye or Le Canard Enchainé, traditionally taking the mick out of whatever party is in power. In Britain, the party in power always regards the BBC as an affront, suspects it is batting for the opposition, and tries its best to muzzle it. There’s no BBC in America.

So in the US, Democrats hate Republicans, Republicans hate Democrats, and both hate the Federal government. The Americans hate each other and are frightened of everyone else. Poor Obama, who does the best he can in an impossible job, has to contend with snappy slogans such as “The zoo has an African Lion, the White House has a Lyin’ African.”

Most of America’s hatred is directed inward, which leaves its pseuds free to concoct superbly crafted oceans of nonsense such as we see above. I think I might nick some of this to describe Aaron’s Time Machine: New York, which is being released soon. More strength to them. We all need summat to laff at.

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