Word: englishness
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...drab as the film paints them! They don't aspire to glamour; they renounce it. Cloistered at Balmoral, knitting and nattering in their plain wool sweaters, caring more for their pets than for their children, the Royal Family seems a parody of the pettiness and insularity of the English middle class. They might be the extended clan of Wallace and Gromit or cousins of Mrs. Proposition and Mrs. Conclusion, the shrill suburban housewives from Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's as if the Windsors want to prove that although they're worth billions and practically define the term "idle...
Aside from Charles Dickens or Franz Kafka, not many novelists get their own adjective. But there is Ballardian, in Collins English Dictionary: "Resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J.G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes[an error occurred while processing this directive] and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." A mouthful, but Ballard has earned every word of it. In 20 novels and 20 story collections over his half-century as a writer, he has created an anti-utopian gulag of ostensibly placid communities - island resorts, luxury apartment towers...
...Similar observations pile up - about the links between shopping and boredom, shopping and politics (the talk-show host acquires a political following). An incipient fascism sweeps the English motorways from one deracinated mall-town to another. If Kingdom Come has a flaw, it's dialogue that sounds like a lecture on social theory. To liven things up, Ballard marches his shoppers to the brink of armed apocalypse, and he displays an attention to detail that can lull you into suspending disbelief. Especially if you have traveled the new English landscape of soccer thugs, superstores and paved-over villages where...
...Irish bar in Tartu, Jagomägi flicks at his phone and accesses the information provided by the school attended by his younger son Vootele, 10. It lists Vootele's schedule, his grades and his absences. Jagomägi scrolls down and clicks on homework. "Monday," it reads. "English: Page 14, Exercises...
...Schwarzenegger, who is not known for his command of the English language, was caught on tape during a private speech-writing session in March making a ridiculous conjecture about why a Puerto Rican state assemblywoman was so feisty. “I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot,” he said. “They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes...