Newsflash: Britain sends frantic Facebook message to the US: "I thought you said we were BFFs. I still love you, do you still love me?"

Ahhh, every politico and news corespondent here in Britain is in a flutter over the perceived 'snubbing' of Prime Minister Gordon Brown by Obama at the G20 in Pittsburgh (by the way, can someone PLEASE fill me in on WHY THE HELL THEY WOULD HOLD THE G20 IN PITTSBURGH?!). there has been endless news coverage and speculation about the demise of the 'special relationship' between the uk and us. in keeping with its role as the 'needier' of the two friends (i can totally relate to that) britain has been showing its true colo(u)rs by endlessly speculating that 'the united states just doesn't love us like they used to'. desperate for validation and some sort of reassurance from the us that their status as first on the list of 'top friends' the bbc and other news agencies are doing all they can to assure the worried populace that the states really does need britain almost as much as britain needs the us (if it weren't for us all of their military actions would actually be unilateral! we're the only ones that allow them to say they were multilateral! they need us!). a lot of the reassurance being offered by the bbc is falling on deaf ears, though. the people know that now that america has obama that they might not need the uk to be BFFs anymore. obama's popular enough in europe (and really everywhere OTHER than the us) to have his pick of new BFFs. seriously, britain is worried. in response america is assuring britain that they'll always have a 'special relationship' and that maybe it's just time to see what it's like to spend a little time apart ("it's not like we kicked you off the bowling team!"). adding that, "it's not you, it's us", america has slightly deferred but not squelched the fingernail biting nervousness of the people of britain ("ok, but you're going to call us this weekend, right? wait, was that a yes? well, i'll call you if i haven't heard from you by sunday, ok? is that ok? wait... where are you going?!?!").
here's gordon brown looking longingly at obama for a hint that they're still BFFs... poor Gordon.

go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8272061.stm to see gordon brown insist that BFF means FOREVER (or click on the title of this entry to go directly to the video)

The Easiest Hard Game Show In The UK

ok, so there's this game show here called, 'eggheads'. in it, a group of five contestants (a team of people who all know each other somehow) are pitted against these 5 people (same ones every week) who are somehow the best quiz show contestants in british history. one of them won 'who wants to be a millionaire', one of them (the most impressive one) won some show called '15 to 1' (which is now off the air but was apparently really, really hard) no less than 3 times, one of them won brain of britain... and that's not all they've won. let's just say that these five people have a score of quiz/game show wins between them (some of them amazingly impressive). so, the thing is that there's a preliminary part in which there's a specific area of knowledge (like arts and books or science). one of the contestants picks an 'egghead' to go up against in a head to head. they answer three multiple choice questions each. if, at the end of that, they are tied, it goes to sudden death in which the questions are no longer multiple choice. this is usually where the contestants lose to their chosen 'egghead'. whomever loses the head to head is knocked off. this happens four times until they come down to the last person (who does not do a head to head). this is when the show moves into the 'general knowledge' section. the remaining team members (those who didn't get knocked off in their head to heads) sit at the table and are allowed to confer on the questions asked. i've seen episodes where it's all 5 eggheads against one poor soul. i've also seen ones where people manage to knock off some of the eggheads (although it's rare for more than one or two eggheads to get knocked off). anyway, it's played the same way as the head to heads-- three multiple choice questions and then sudden death. the prize for the show is 1,000 pounds but every time a team loses that money rolls over to the next show. the one gavin and i just watched had a prize of 73,000 pounds.
thing is, i want to go on this with my hand-picked team (i'm looking at you here-- gavin, meeg, richard and allyson). i think we can do it. they are after all, not unbeatable...