[Livia]

I've spent a lot of time in the USA. I would never want to live there permanently. I find people generally much less worldly-wise than the rest of the world. Most Americans have no idea at all what's happening in the rest of the world, and very few of them ever venture out of their own country. Their biggest achievements are as a direct result of expertise and knowledge from other countries, which is fine... but Americans have a big problem giving anyone else any credit.

There is no "special relationship", there never was. Americans make a big deal about "saving our asses in WW2" when in actuality they turned up only after Japan threatened them, they were three years late and they charged us for their participation. They charged us A LOT and the debt was only finally paid off four years ago.

British people would never allow this country to become the 51st State because, even though we quite like Americans, most of us generally find them hopelessly ill-informed, terribly uncultured and little bit silly. There are exceptions of course.