Second, I think I’m going to do a longer piece on London, so I’ll save some of my ammo, but I can’t shake the feeling that England is at a crossroads between becoming a post-historical theme park (like Belgium) where people care about shopping, pretty-boy soccer players and, um, shopping and staying true to its traditional role as an engine of historical progress. Reading the papers, watching British news, talking to folks all gave me the sense that the Brits are weary of being special and making people angry and want to be a normal country where the rules of the vast continental college campus across the channel apply. That seems to me to be what’s at stake with Britain’s choice to join the EU.