In The Salisbury Review Dalrymple visits what we in the U.S. would call a sports bar, and it is no surprise that a man who has never owned a television did not find it to his liking:
It was in suburban Tudor style, and the first thing one noticed on entering were the flashing lights of fruit machines, closely followed by the numerous large flat screens disposed in such a way that it was almost impossible to escape them. It was if one had an absolute duty to watch, and as if a malign state had installed them with cameras in order to check that one was being amused.
London is becoming like America, there is a small group who are eating raw-organic and they are super fit and slim versus the vast majority eating overpriced garbage and getting more and more unhealthy. However, both categories seem to favour the same types of entertainment: celebrity culture, spectator sports, spending money on stuff they don’t need, booze and casual sex. The education (both state and private), the media and the welfare state achieved this in just a few decades.
I thought I was not the sort of person to believe in conspiracy theories…..