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or “I’ve never voted Conservative before…” and I’m not about to start now.

In 1987 I made a conscious decision to leave Britain, in large part because Margaret Thatcher had just been elected, for the third time, as Primer Minister. I’d seen what she’d done to the country since 1979. I didn’t want to stick around and witness another four years of it. I was, in one sense, greatly disappointed with my fellow Brits for re-electing her, and yet I understood that they hadn’t actually done so. The Tories got only 42% of the vote in 1987, but thanks to Britain’s “first-past-the-post” system in each constituency, they ended up with 376 of the country’s 650 Parliamentary seats – an overwhelming majority that essentially allowed Thatcher absolute power, regardless of the fact that 58% of the public had actively voted against her and her Tory manifesto.

There’s nothing new to this, of course. No British party since 1945 has ever received over 50% of the popular vote at a General Election. That’s the inevitable result of having a multi-party system. What would make sense, then, would be to have some sort of proportional representation in Parliament to reflect this. As Brits go to the polls today, with the Liberal Democrats having wedged their way into the dialogue so successfully that they may well beat Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour Party to second place in the public vote, the argument for proportional representation is being heard louder than ever. I hope the Conservatives don’t get elected today, especially not with a Parliamentary majority. But if the result is a hung parliament, necessitating a coalition – which hopefully the Lib Dems would agree to only on condition of moving forward with Proportional Representation – then so be it. Great Britain, viewed by many foreign countries as the birthplace of democracy, will never be fully democratic until that day.

The USA can do with a third party as well. (And a fourth, and a fifth.) Now more than ever. The inherent problem with the American two-party system is that it turns politics into sport, a battle between two teams, in which there always has to be a winner, and yet, paradoxically, the full time whistle is never blown. The teams are constantly fighting against each other, resorting to whatever dirty tactics are necessary in order to score a point, to get the upper hand, to be perceived as “winning” and therefore in charge, despite the fact that the public have actually elected them – both parties – to work together and represent the people. The American media is highly culpable in this unfortunate situation: to maintain viewers, readers, eyeball, it enforces the sporting scenario, increasingly taking sides, encouraging members of the public to engage in ever-more hostile – to maintain the sporting analogy, let’s call it “hooligan” – from the touchlines. We’re not only meant to root for “our” team, wave our scarves and our banners, but more and more, we’re expected to launch the equivalent of a pitch invasion (hello Tea Party), or even some good-old fashioned fighting on the terraces. Coalition does not make for a good headline. Dialogue does not work in sound-bites. Calling each other names, however, – Hitler is always a good one – succeeds on both counts. Unfortunately, this constant battle between the two sides does the vast majority of the American public – that which is actually quite centrist, and wants its elected officials to get on with the job for which they were voted into office – an enormous dis-service.

Still, there are at least a couple of ways in which the British could learn from the American system. In the States, a vote for your Congressman/woman is not a vote for the President; you get to vote for each, separately. You also get to vote for your representative in the Senate, the equivalent of the British House of Lords; now, isn’t that a quaint idea? Better yet, you get primaries in many of these elections, allowing you to choose the candidate for your party rather than letting the party choose it for you. Wouldn’t it be an interesting concept in Britain if you could vote for your local MP based on his or her track record and personality, knowing that this was not an endorsement of the Party’s actual leader, but rather, that you had a separate vote for Prime Minister? What would happen? Would Britain be in a situation, tomorrow morning, where Nick Clegg might find himself elected as Prime Minister and yet his party (the Lib Dems) would have but a minority of Parliamentary seats? Quite possibly, and wouldn’t that make for an interesting dilemma, some enforced dialogue and sharing of power?

And there are certainly ways in which the American system can learn from the British. Allowing MPs five years in office works so much better than giving Congressman just two years – which forces them to spend more time campaigning for re-election than getting on with their jobs. Limiting the election campaign to just six weeks – rather than treating it as an ongoing battle – is equally effective. Limits on campaign finance and advertising have their benefits, too: we all know that big business buys influence, but it should not be so blatant.

And then there are ways in which both countries can learn from elsewhere. A multitude of parties reflects a multitude of opinion, the idea that the population is not simply black or white, right or wrong, but that it comes in many colors and shades thereof. Proportional representation has its downside – it gives credence and voice to the distasteful fascists out on the fringes – but that’s the price you pay for living in a true democracy. Great Britain needs it. And if David Cameron’s Conservative Party end up with a majority of parliamentary power after today’s election despite getting a mere plurality, then only the most selfish of Tories (and yes, I know, there are plenty of them around) would insist on maintaining the system as it stands.

Note for American readers: The words “Tories” and “Conservatives” are interchangeable. And shortly after writing this, I heard a discussion about the BRitish electoral system on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show. Listen from here. (Scroll down to UK’s election.)

YOU KNOW WHAT’S FUNNY? COMEDY

On my last night in London this March, the only one of just six that hadn’t been planned way in advance, I wanted to do something different. Be like a tourist, perhaps. Daytime appointments had me in the West End, so I asked my friend Jeni to peruse her computer at work and see what options she could find in W1. She came back with a pronounced case of Coals to Newcastle: Lewis Schaffer, a New York comedian. It was too intriguing to turn down, especially once we discovered his show at the Source Below, on Lower John Street in the heart of Soho, was free – or, as he puts it on his handbill, Lewis Schaffer is Free Until Famous. In fact, Schaffer is currently so unfamous (as opposed to infamous) that he greeted us at the door – Jeni and myself, and iJamming! Pub regular Po1ntman – with a clipboard holding a list of expected guests; he appeared astonished that anyone should show up on just a whim.
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THE BEST OF BRITISH BEER

Though I was guilty of the same when I lived in the UK, it breaks my heart to go home and see everyone drinking Fosters, Carling, Holstein, Budweiser and the like. For a first time tourist, raised on the knowledge that Britain offers some of the best beer in (and the envy of) the entire world, walking into an English pub and witnessing this abandonment of native culture would be like visiting France as an oenophile only to find they all drink German wine – except, that does not happen! I can understand why so many of my friends favor gaseous, thirst-quenching industrially-produced lager – it’s a lifetime’s habit, and habits are hard to break – but I can no longer join them. And though I haven’t gotten to the point of applying for my CRA membership, I’m certainly on the constant lookout for locally, or at least independently-brewed, British beer in every pub I stop at. Hats off, then, to the following:

Harveys’ Sussex Best, served all over Bexhill and the South Coast. Though it’s only 4.0% alcohol, it doesn’t feel like a “session” beer: it’s too rich and filling for that. In fact it’s just so damn good you feel the need to linger over a single pint of it rather than throw it down your neck and, as per a fine wine, it’s harder to imagine a greater compliment. Making up 90% of Harvey’s annual production,  the Sussex Best won Champion Best Bitter of Britain title at CAMRA’s Great British Beers Festival in 2005 and 2006. I took a picture of a pint of this cask ale a couple of years back and it’s become almost iconic. Time  to reprint it:

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#2 CURRYING FLAVORS (a.k.a traveling the UK Spice Route)

In the old days, when I flew British Airways back to the UK (before the airline went downhill), it was no surprise that they served us vegetarians a curry as our main in-flight course; after all, everyone knows that once exotic Indian food is now everyday British food, and this being British Airways etc. … But it’s something of a shock that the otherwise all-American Continental Airlines should act likewise. In fact it comes as a rude awakening, all too literally, when I’m aroused from my slumber on the last flight out of Newark to find a curry in front of me. The unspoken insinuation is clear: it may be 11:30pm at night, you may have eaten already, you may well be fast asleep, but you ordered a special meal, we went to all the trouble of loading it onto the plane and if we can’t actually force it down your throat, we’re damned well going to wake you up so you can face up to how much you’ve inconvenienced us. (And just to prove that we don’t take orders lightly, you’ll notice we’ve started charging you for your drinks. And your second suitcase. Be lucky we aren’t charging you for your curry, too.) Out of enforced obligation and a sense that there isn’t much else to do now that I am, indeed, awake again, I tuck in. Peas, carrots, rice, spice. Doesn’t sound too attractive, but it’s a passable curry, and it stays with me – in fact, it repeats itself – all the way to Manchester and across the Pennines to Yorkshire, where my mother picks me up at the local station in what is now early English afternoon. She asks if I’d like a home-made curry over the next couple of nights as a welcome home dish, and, Continental’s rendition still bouncing round my time-zone confused stomach, I politely decline. I’ll probably have my fill of them while I’m here, I state.

I’m not wrong. It’s only a few days later before I hook up with my nephew in Manchester and he takes me to an Asian franchise place. It’s not Indian, and it’s not exactly curry, but it reminds me that the English these days love their spicy food almost as much as their foreign pints of lager. And then I head down to the south coast, to my best mate’s house in Bexhill for a Saturday night out… Pagey’s a rabid meat eater but, as just noted, he’s also a best mate, so he has cooked up – alright, his wife has cooked up – a vegetable lentil curry for the night. We eat it in between visits to the pub(s), and I have to say, it’s great. The next morning, our friend Lee drives over from Brighton, and Pagey has already decided where we should go to celebrate: a Bexhill restaurant called The Gurkhas, serving Nepalese food, much of which is curried, and all of which is spiced (though moderately so, the menu stresses, purposefully distinguishing itself from its Indian neighbors). It is, not incidentally, fantastic, and if you ever find yourself in Bexhill, make a point of getting over there: it’s only a stone’s throw from the wonderful De La Warr Pavilion (which is hosting both Fema Kuti and Coca Rosie this spring), and though the décor is spartan to the point of bland, the food and service is anything but. In addition, it serves both Nepal Ice and Gurkha lager, the former of which is actually brewed and bottled in the mountains of Nepal (with English hops, I wonder?). If it was to my long-term benefit that I didn’t partake of one of these beers, given that I was driving back to London that same afternoon, it was certainly to my a short-term disappointment: non-alcoholic beer doesn’t wash curry down quite the same way.

You didn’t expect a picture of the actual curry, did you?

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#1 THE HOLMESDALE FINDS ITS VOICE (AND TONY REDISCOVERS HIS PASSION)

Living in the States, I can pretend I don’t really care about Crystal Palace FC any more. After all, the team is not in the Premiership; the games aren’t carried on Fox Soccer Channel. I pick up the scores by RSS Feed (when I remember to), and when the results go against us (which they often do), I shrug my shoulders and get on with my life; it’s not like I have other Palace fans in the Catskills to discuss them with. I can even absorb the recent run of dire news – that the club is in Administration, that we’ve had ten points deducted as a result, that the best young player has been sold in a rush and the manager gone to QPR in a huff – and assure myself that it’s alright, they’re all overpaid anyway, that sooner or later a club is going to go under for good, and that if it’s us, then it’s us and that’s that.

Then I get back to Britain and everything’s different. British people don’t just follow football; they obsess about it. The Sunday papers carry full page reports on every game that’s played in the Premiership, and statistics on most that aren’t. England’s finest, Wayne Rooney, comes off the pitch with an injury two months before the World Cup and in fear that he might be out for the mighty clash against the USA in South Africa, it’s instant front page news – from the tabloids to the broadsheets. Everybody seems to know everything about every team at any given moment – and that means they all know of Palace’s dire straits, in much more detail than I do, and they’re ready to discuss it with me, instantly. And as soon as that conversation starts up, I realize how much I care, after all. You can’t be British, in Britain, and be otherwise.

I didn’t attend any of Palace’s away games while I was in the UK, but I did get to the home match against Cardiff City on Saturday March 27th. To be honest, it was a depressing affair: the lunchtime kick-off, carried live on Sky, knocked the real attendance (as compared to the published one, which includes no-show season ticket holders) down below 10,000. Nor was the mood in the Vice-President’s Lounge (yep, some of us have gone up in the world) exactly ecstatic, with various board members whispering conspiratorially in the corners, presumably about the latest rescue rumors. Out in the stands, initial hopes of the fans getting behind the team were quickly forestalled when Cardiff, chasing a promotion spot, took the lead after just five minutes. The Palace team, knocked together by new manager – sorry, coach – Paul Hart from a badly depleted squad, played valiantly, but without the kind of confidence necessary to keep them in the, ahem, Championship. That Palace had what looked like a clear penalty – clear to everyone but the referee, that is – turned down hardly helped matters.

And then, early in the second half, Palace replicated the corner kick that led to Cardiff’s goal, defender Clint Hill rose to the challenge and with it, headed in an equalizer. The ground erupted – especially the Lower Holmesdale, where the Palace hardcore gather in the corner closest to the away fans. (Almost 4,000 of the day’s 9,500 attendance could be found in that one lower stand.) What we used to call the “Palace roar” took hold around Selhurst Park, and over the next few minutes, even some of the suits in the Director’s Box got to their feet and joined in the singing and shouting. The mood was contagious, and almost 39 years after I first attended the ground, I found myself as much a Palace fan as ever.

The Lower Holmesdale makes a noise after equalizing against Cardiff City… oddly enough, this footage could only have been taken by one of the Cardiff fans; seems a nice gesture to have put it up on YouTube, though I assume the term “ultras” is intended as ironic.

But then, not even ten minutes after the equalizer, a ludicrous handball decision called against the Palace led to a second Cardiff goal, and the crowd, as per cliché, was silenced. The team searched for inspiration but it was not to be their day; we lost the game 2-1, and with it, slipped further into the relegation zone.

Back in the Lounge afterwards, I realized how much it hurt. I felt robbed, not just by a couple of genuinely poor refereeing decisions (see how rapidly the blind loyalty comes charging back?) but by the fact that I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen Palace win a game in the flesh – it’s many years now, that’s for sure. A new friend assured me it wasn’t my fault and that, come on, as Palace fans we’re used to things going against us. And I tried to take refuge in the fact that within a couple of weeks, I’d be back home, removed from day-to-day involvement in the scores and the news, and once again immune to the passion that surrounds it all.

Still, heading out of Selhurst Park, I stopped in at the Palace club shop anyway. Not surprisingly, given the club’s recent string of bad news and the fact that we’re coming to the end of the season, they were almost given the stuff away. Before I knew it, I’d bought myself a very nice fleece top for just £10. Palace may have lost, but they’d won me back. A few hours later, I went to a pub in Bexhill – close enough to Brighton, Palace’s biggest rivals – and I wore my colors with pride. You can take the boy out of the Palace, but you can’t take the Palace out of the grown man.