Hello I’m Harry Riley

Welcome to Harry’s Five-Minute Ponder; ‘what if and when.’

This is called:

‘Pilgrim County’

You know one of the great things about getting older is that you have something to look back on. Thirty or even twenty years ago we had an occasional news item from the States. Not so now.

Now we get to know what President Obama has for breakfast even before he knows it himself! Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining; communication just got so much better now we are all part of the Global Village.

As regards politics in the UK a Federal Europe has been given a big thumbs down. It seems we the general public, just do not want to be a part of it. Trading is fine and the European Community has given us some big benefits… like…er…like…well you know…let me think?

Anyway pondering on some of the big issues, as I am wont to do, I began to wonder what if and when?

What if Great Britain ever did become a part of the USA, you know-the Fifty First State of the Union.

Our kids play American games on their computers. They are dressed in American style gear with baseball caps stuck on sideways; dissing all and sundry as they skateboard along to the Academy Campus.  

Our lives get handed down second hand from America. This is not the country I grew up in! Things have changed so much since we, as children proudly waved our Union Flags and knew the sun would never set on a glorious British Empire.

So I got out the old crystal ball and asked it to show me the future in say a hundred years time…

The picture came out bright and clear. Old television programmes showed how Britain had become just another state of the union. When? Well it had happened so gradually that we’d hardly noticed it. Our computers had American software that spat out American words and spellings. Our troops had joined forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and stood together over terrorist threats…and following a succession of British lacklustre political leaders with their un-lacklustre liking for self aggrandizement and get-rich-quickedness (rhyme it with wickedness) we had not rejected our powerful suitor, but like the hapless turkey, had voted for Christmas!