This week The Villager  published a page on  the campaign, with interviews. Check it here

The revolution is over!

To The Editor:
New York City is now a global apple in the 21st century. Why can’t we act that way?
Americans pride ourselves on our country being a place of inclusiveness, drawing people from all over the world to visit and live here. A melting pot of generations of immigrant cultures and regional food is responsible for giving so many New York City neighborhoods their character and flavor.

I am shocked and disappointed that the few people on Community Board 2 have decided for all of us that some of those who come from faraway places to make New York City their home are not allowed to celebrate their heritage. These people have voted against co-naming a portion of Greenwich Ave. in the West Village “Little Britain.”

As a former West Village resident on Leroy St. and, more recently, Jane St., I have been a customer of Tea & Sympathy (one of the businesses advocating for the designation) for more than seven years. It is the sole reason I have to visit this small block, which often seemed like the Bermuda Triangle with its crisscrossed streets and lack of signs. A home away from home, I have always enjoyed visiting this establishment and have marveled at how dedicated the owners have been in serving their community, especially given the high costs of operating such businesses in such a high-rent market.

Why not acknowledge these businesses by allowing them their own designation as a round of thanks for their commitment to invest in our city and to recognize their contribution in making both tourists and neighbors feel at home? The appointed — not elected, mind you — members of C.B. 2 have nothing to lose by allowing this street designation. Not allowing it, however, is reverting to a sort of monarchy that doesn’t serve the 21st-century mentality of globalization.

Now, this decision rests in the hands of the full community board. There is still a chance to make things right.

Let’s go have some tea in “Little Britain”!
Colleen M. Delaney
Delaney is a real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy

Squeeze! They’re back, in New York, August 2nd. Details here

We are reliably informed The British Memorial Garden has some “special” tickets.

We like to mix things up a bit, high brow to low brow to no brow, and, scout for happenings that fall between the cracks or are less well promoted. For the more cultured amongst us the Vermeer String Quartet is performing Vaughan Williams this weekend and next in Norfolk, CT.

t. 860-542-3000.

We’ve turned New York Magazine!

A few weeks ago we saw Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro, yes, admittedly in New York, but now you can see them all over America, on the Warped tour, starting on July 28th in Chicago. How good is that?! Some of the music press have been calling them the best British band around. Dates and stuff here.

Not 100% about the sleeve artwork, if we’re honest, but they are the business live.

We’ve decided to bring a new element to this blog - we’re going to find all the great British culture that currently “live” in the States - from music, to film, to theatre, whatever it might be - and post about it here.

So, here’s something we found that’s a little on the down low but we think will be great, at the IFC cinema in NYC.

THIS IS ENGLAND

Showtimes for Wed Jul 25 - Tue Jul 31:
Starts Fri!
11:10am, 1:10pm, 3:25, 5:45, 8:00, 10:15pm, plus Fri-Sat: 12:25am

England, 1983: the era of Thatcher, the Falklands War, Charles and Diana, ska and Doc Martens. In a tough town in the depressed North, 12-year-old Shaun is a lonely boy growing up without a dad. A group of local skinheads takes him under their wing, and Shaun jumps at the chance to belong, shaving his head and convincing his mom to let him buy his first boots. But when an older member returns from prison, he turns the gang from their harmless pranks towards violent, disturbing ends.

For a fuller review see the NYT who called it a “modest, near-flawless gem”

Some people have been asking what we have been up to as it’s been a bit quiet here. Apart from a bit of vacation we’ve been fighting the good fight on a variety of blogs and web sites. We’ve been enjoying a little ding dong with New York Magazine this week, see Battle for Little Britain, they’re quite witty, unlike Englishman in New York, who we think is a sanctimonious tit.

7/27. Finally. Englishman in New York sees what’s been obvious to us for months. Lifted from his Adrian Mole-esque online diary.

5pm Postscript: Rereading this post, I can’t help but feel like a bit of a twit. As I’ve said in the comments, I don’t have anything against Tea & Sympathy. I wish them well. In fact, as Nick points out, America could do with a good cup of tea.

A couple of months ago Eleni, a correspondent for current.tv made a short film on Tea & Sympathy.

It’s now the second most watched video at current.tv

Check it out here

http://www.current.tv/

On Sunday, July 1, 2007 Mind The Gap Theatre will hold their second annual Ascot-themed fundraiser- A NIGHT AT THE RACES at the exclusive Soho House, 29-35 9th Avenue, New York NY 10014, between W. 13th & 14th Streets (www.sohohouseny.com).

The evening will feature on-screen horse-racing (bet with “Mind The Gap Money” to win prizes), hat-trick artist/tap dancer Rod Ferrone, Performance by Emily Harvey (fresh from the West End’s PHANTOM) cash bar, music and a special appearance by Tony Nominee Gavin Lee (Bert in MARY POPPINS). All proceeds benefit Mind The Gap Theatre. Members and non-members of Soho House are welcome to this very special event!

Tickets are $25 and are available via Smarttix at www.smarttix.com or by calling 212.868.4444. As Soho House is a members-only club, ticket sales will need to close on Saturday, June 30th so that a guest list can be prepared. Please book tickets early. Only a limited number are available.

SPECIAL OFFER….
**Book now through JUNE 28th and mention code “CLB” when calling or enter “CLB” if ordering online and get tickets for only $20.00!**

Please go along and show your support for Mind the Gap and Little Britain.

June, 2007

Dear Fellow Resident,

While every business on the block on Greenwich Avenue between West 12th and West 13th has signed a letter supporting our campaign to have the block co-named “Little Britain”, and, five thousand people have signed the petition in support, we understand that there is some resistance in the community to the idea, which we would like to address in this letter to you.

We make no bones about it, we conceived this idea to generate as much publicity as we could! Like many small, local, businesses in the neighborhood - that contribute to the West Village’s personality and diversity - we are under threat from landlords demanding huge hikes in rent, and consequently, the homogeneous, global, brands that can afford to pay them.

To survive, we have to compete with big business and stand up for ourselves. Creating a novel reason for people to come to the West Village, as it is today, will only benefit all the existing small businesses in the neighborhood, while preserving Greenwich Avenue from turning into a carbon copy of Bleecker Street.

Moving on from the business reasons, some people in the community feel the Brits have no real cultural history in the neighborhood, while perversely, other local people think there is enough already, so, arguably, the latter group answers the former! But, seriously, the history of neighborhoods and street naming in New York is a rich and varied blend of culture and commerce. There is no right or wrong way to go about it, we created a tongue-in-cheek political campaign because we believed it would get noticed and talked about by more people than the now all too familiar small business versus big business story.

What’s really important here is the end result.

To paraphrase the expert on American cities, Jane Jacobs, the ingredients for a successful neighborhood are, lively and interesting street life, a diversity of uses, and the importance areas with a functional and recognizable identity.

The Campaign For Little Britain is all about this, and, in purely practical terms, simply means adding two words to one sign-post.

We were fortunate that the underdogs champion, Richard Branson, joined us to make the campaign happen, we hope we can count on your support in the coming weeks.

Best wishes

Nicky Perry and Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett , co-founders C.F.L.B.

How did you all get on with making your own pork pies? In this episode of all thing Brit food, resident CFLB food writer John Hunter hopefully makes it a bit easeir for us to cook-along with a good old British fry up.

Eggs over easy. Bran muffin, toasted. Bagel with cream cheese and lox. A skinny latte. They still sound so unfamiliar despite having been here for three years. They are, of course, classic breakfast orders here in the Big Apple. In the Old Country, things are a little slower and the orders, although we ask for similar things, come out a little different: ‘Alright Darlin. I’ll ‘ave 2 egg, 2 bacon, 2 sausage, beans, fried slice, cup o’ cha. Oh b*#@!cks, forgot me paper. I’ll be back in a min.’

I have a very patriotic French friend who swears there is no finer meal than a full English breakfast. He grew up in Normandy surrounded by astonishing seafood, produce and cheeses and yet he succumbed to the overwhelming power of the full truckerbs.’Eez juss soo good.’ He is also the most sensible and sane person I know. This is praise indeed coming from him.

There are some subtle differences in the way the breakfast is served depending on where you’re from or where you happen to be in the UK. The English version generally is a full-on affair, aka The Full Monty (bacon, sausage, egg, tomatoes, black pudding - a heady concoction of pig’s blood, meat, cereal and spices - baked beans, fried bread, even devilled kidneys and cheese sauce if you’re posh) and there are also some regional variants. The Irish is sometimes served with white pudding and boxty (an Irish potato pancake). Or it comes in the form of the traditional ‘Dublin fry’ which includes scalloped potatoes. A Scottish breakfast might include Lorne sausage, a square-shaped sausage patty (akin to the one you might find on an American breakfast bagel) and oatcakes. The Welsh brekkie might involve larverbread. There are countless variations. When visiting one’s local purveyor, if you attend religiously every weekend, they will know just how you have it. Crispy bacon? Sure. Extra runny eggs? No worries.

Popularity of the full British breakfast has waned recently, in a direct correlation with the messages from an increasingly paranoid Department of Health, who will not want to burden the cost of heart disease treatment in the future. Although it is still popular, it’s become more of a weekend ceremony these days. Generally the first meal of the weekend taken at around noon (or later it you’ve been enjoying yourself too much the night before). It’s most definitely the first thing I think of when I wake up on Saturday morning. That, and aspirin. It’s compulsory in the UK to go out and drink a lot of beer after finishing work on Friday, and naysayers to that rule are punished. The tradition is to rock up all messy at your local greasy spoon and let the lady with the tea lull you into a grease coma. All you have to do after that is lie down for 2 hours and you’re ready for anything the weekend chucks at you.

Support is still coming in! Bryan Adams recently took this picture of Joss Stone especially for the campaign.

As a born Londoner, Kiefer is helping to make Little Britain in the Big Apple happen, proving that you can take a guy out of London, but you can’t take London out of the guy.

We’re keeping voting open, so you’ve got more than 24 hours to show your support.

We have been inundated with CFLB supporters offering to help, like John Hunter, a self-confesed food obsessive who loves cooking and writing about good old British grub. So here’s Johns first installment of his Great British Food blog. Enjoy.

For our American cousins who’ve never been fortunate enough to have one, I give you: The Great British Pork Pie.

I have such fond memories of cracking that golden-baked pastry crust and chomping down for those silky nuggets of perfumed pork. For me, it’s one thing that represents the best of English cooking. My mother used to buy them in family sizes, perfect for slicing thickly at home to pair up with beans and mustard, or wrapping in brown paper and taking along to a picnic or school for the best packed lunch ever. I was the envy of all the other kids who only had Mother’s Pride fish paste sarnies. Pork Pies, or ‘Growlers’ formed a popular part of my childhood diet, because I was hand-reared in the North of England, home to the World’s finest pork pies.

I live in Brooklyn, New York, a land blessed with some fine pies, albeit of the fruit variety. My hunger for pork pies and Cornish pasties went unabated until another Limey told me about the incredible Myers of Keswick, a Greenwich Village-based purveyor of all things British, and Peter & Irene Myers make their own pies and pasties on the premises. I am a regular visit at Myers, and I always make a short detour to the White Horse Tavern for a Newcastle Brown after a few of Myers’ handmade delicacies.

Hudson Street is a bit out of the way for this Brooklyn resident, and I decided it was time to get the apron on, and try building my own at home. I didn’t expect the bloody ingredients to cost $40, but I wanted to test myself and see what I could manage. I followed this recipe and look at the results…It was delicious. Meaty, crusty, very satisfying.

Famous for some the best of British comedy/drama such as Cold Feet, The Fast Show, Alan Partridge and movies like 24 Hour Party People, Brits in New York will agree, John Thompson is one of the things we all miss about Brit TV. Lucky for us, he’s here in New York at the moment and doesn’t have cold feet about supporting the campaign. John dropped by for a cuppa and told us he’s voting because, “A little apple in a big Britain won’t go very far…..will it?”

Thanks John!

http://www.bbcamericashop.com/default.asp?cpa=product&id=3489&ctl=81&cc=21241&tt=

Girl next door Lily Allen poses with her campaign t-shirt.  Thanks Lily!

http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/ 

While you’re downloading the latest from the Brit music invasion on iTunes, check out Sean on the Silke Selection podcast, [scroll forward to 19.30 mins].

itunes.com 

New York Brit Paul Rogers organized a party for St Georges Day, surrounded by all things Little Britain, including our campaign posters and if you look closely you’ll see the crowd wearing campaign stickers too, and if you look really closely, we’ve been told that that’s Little Britain the show on the big screen. For one brief moment we thought Paul had arranged a surprise appearance by Matt Lucas himself.

Thanks for your support Paul.

Go see it! A couple of the campaign team went last night, Hot Fuzz is a hilarious, sharply observed parody of the Hollywood hi-octane-action-drama set in a small, sleepy, English town. The casting is fantastic, Billie Whitelaw, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent and a former Bond as the boss of the local supermarket, there is even a role for Edward Woodward, one for all the Equalizer fans out there or more probably a homage to The Wicker Man, and, apparantly a cameo from Cate Blanchett, which we didn’t spot.

Hats off to Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost - they nailed it.

Reviews and stuff here

http://movies.nytimes.com/pages/movies/index.html

They don’t officially have ‘The Knowledge’, but they know a good thing when they see it. David Pollack, Executive Director of the Committee for Taxi Satefy says…

“New York City has always been known as the melting pot of modern civilization. However, one ingredient has been left out of the mix. It is obvious that there is no unique identity for England nor people of British decent. Little Britain would give the overlooked identity to a country and people that is well deserved. Not only would a neighborhood known as Little Britain add to the multi-ethnic flavor the city offers, but Little Britain will be a destination for tourists and New Yorkers who are presently unaware of the long established British connection in our city.”

Taxi garages around town are putting up campaign posters and sharing the campaing news with their passengers. So next time you’re on your way to Greenwich Ave, tell them ‘Little Britain please’, the’ll know exactly where you mean.

http://www.taxisafety.com

If you haven’t voted for Little Britain yet, what better day to show your support? Even while they’re busy organizing St Georges Day events, the St Georges Society of New York have taken the time to lend their support to the campaign, reminding us that…

“No two cities in the world today are more closely interconnected than New York and London. As one of New York’s oldest organizations, founded by English colonists before the American Revolution, St. George’s Society today is a manifestation of the unique Anglo-American heritage connecting the world’s two capitals. There should be a Little Britain in New York; and one day there may even be a Little America in London.”

Show your support for the St Georges Society at www.stgeorgessociety.org.

Campaign posters are now available at Tea and Sympathy or by emailing your details to us here at info@campaignforlittlebritain.com. Posters are free. Your support, priceless.

According to SavilRowbespoke.com, New Yorkers buy almost as many bespoke suits from Savile Row tailors as the Brits do. Lucky then that Savile Row tailor Timothy Everest is now here in ‘Little Britain’. He’s voting yes because, “Britain has so much creativity to offer be it art, design, culture or food, that we can’t handle all of it at home. We need an overflow space. But seriously, with the world getting smaller and the melding of one culture into the next we are all in danger of loosing the interesting factors that make us unique. Little Britain would be an island of sense and sensibility in an otherwise hectic polyglot world.”

http://www.timothyeverest.co.uk

A few people have suggested that the Brits haven’t had to work hard to make it in New York. As beautician to the stars, you need only look at how great Madonna looks for her age to know how hard Tracie Martyn has worked. Tracie says she’s voting for Little Britain in the Big Apple because, “Let’s face it, us Brits brighten up your day!”.

www.traciemartyn.com.

A couple of people have blogged here questioning the “authenticity” of Little Britain. This article from The New York Times, published November 23rd, 1902, describes the area we are all talking about as the ‘British Quarter’.

Also the same people have questioned the legitimacy of a couple of businesses leading the campaign, when in fact we are not doing anything different from other, already recognised, neighborhoods.

“Initiated by a bookstore and a handful of restaurants, Koreatown sprang into being. With their success, more and more Korean-owned businesses took root in the neighborhood…” [source: Wikipedia]

Thanks to everyone who came to the chippy this weekend to sample the spoils of Mats now infamous Flay beating, and to sign the petition. We hit record numbers!

… and overhears people talking about the Campaign for Little Britain and how some have voted but others haven’t because they don’t live in the West Village. So this is an important reminder that the ‘Campaign for Little Britain in the Big Apple’ is for everyone - we’ve had votes from France, Japan and even the Upper East Side, so please, in the run up to the end of the campaign on May 1st, tell your Brit and Anglophile friends that regardless of where they live, they still have time to register their vote.

Londoner Dr Sacks is a long time resident of ‘Little Britain’ and a regular at Tea and Sympathy. Today he celebrated finishing his 10th book with a packet of Digestives. He say’s he’ll be voting for Little Britain in the Big Apple because “it’s a no brainer”.

Ray Stevenson a.k.a Titus Pullo in HBO’s Rome says “Vote yes to a Little Britain in New York City. Make it happen!”. Not one to mess with a handsome Roman, best do as he says.

Dear Paul,

I’m sitting in our office in Chinatown* on Grand and Lafayette, next door is the excellent Thai Angel, across the street is a new French restaurant, opposite is the Landmark Pancake House and a stones throw away is that bastion of Little Italy, Ferrara’s Bakery. And, as one of the people responsible for creating the campaign in question, with a British father and a Dutch mother, it feels like I’m in a reasonably good position to address some of the other points you raised!

When we first started planning this campaign about a year ago, we sounded out the local business community and various levels of local and city government officials, not one person voiced anything other than support. Since the campaign went public ten days ago we have generated significant international media coverage, which benefits the whole city, just under three thousand people have taken the trouble to sign the petition, there are seventy posts on the blog, of which about half a dozen are negative and three of which are so vitriolic it’s hard to take them seriously. In fact many of the issues you raised are answered by the map at www.campaignforlittlebritain.com, which illustrates the fifteen British businesses in the area, or are being discussed in the campaign blog and we’d encourage you and your readers to contribute.

There is one point we would like to address here, your suspicion that this is a cheap advertising ploy. If we were proposing “Cheerio’s Little Britain” you’d have a point, but we are not.

Yes, two British businesses, Tea & Sympathy and Virgin Atlantic, are leading this campaign because it is relevant and authentic that they should. Virgin Atlantic’s inaugural flight was to New York, they even hatched their business plan in the White Horse pub, and now they fly about half a million people a year between the two cities. Tea & Sympathy has been a stalwart of the local business community for seventeen years, in which time it became known as the “unofficial British Embassy” which in many ways was the creative inspiration for the campaign.

Cheap advertising ploy’s are here today gone tomorrow, this campaign is about transparently creating an Anglophile destination in a country full of Anglophiles, in a city that will get 38 million domestic tourists this year, which is clearly going to benefit the whole business community in the neighborhood.

Of course we hoped this idea would generate some debate, and we did half expect some Brits to come out against it, as David Remnick said “…the British are the only culture to feel schadenfreude about themselves”. For all of us who created and support the campaign, we are proud to be entrepreneurs who live in the entrepreneurial capital of the world, and, proud to be British. We hope it inspires more Brits to follow suit, to start with they can sign the petition supporting Little Britain in the Big Apple!

Best

CFLB

*the Chinese are the second largest immigrant group in the city, 39% live in Queens, 33% Brooklyn, 24% Manhattan [source: nyc.gov]

The article in the Metro can be seen here

http://ny.metro.us/metro/blog/my_view/entry/My_View_Show_us_your_Brits/7750.html

Peter Moore, Town Crier London, just posted the following message of support, thanks Peter, much appreciated!
Oyez Oyez OYEZ. Mr Mayor one and all I urge you to vote for Little Britain in the Big Apple. it will be a extention of the Hand of Friendship Across the Big Pond. Great for New Yorkers and Visitors Alike Long live the President.God Save The Queen.

Our campaign “canteen canvassing” starts April 3rd at Proskauer Rose, one of the nations largest law firms, and on April 4th at The New York Times.

In partnership with Restaurant Associates, at lunchtime’s in company restuarants across the city, CFLB will be serving up the very best freshly cooked British food from co-founder Tea & Sympathy’s cookbook, while our other co-founder,Virgin Atlantic, will be giving people the chance to win a free round trip flight to London, UPPER CLASS.

More restuarants are signed up to partcipate over the next few weeks, we will announce them a few days before each one. Best of British luck to all who take part!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_bt/episode/0,2857,FOOD_26696_49736,00.html

New York City is a crazy quilt of different ethnicities and different cultures, that’s what makes it such a special place. Every culture has qualities that are specific and unique to them and the different neighborhoods that have sprung up where concentrations of business and residents exist are wonderful and should be encouraged. Little Britain would be a great idea to help showcase the many aspects and qualities that our cousins across the pond possess. After all, us Anglophiles need to know where to get Lilt soda and Cornish pasty!

David Eng
Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/26032007/325/snoop-seeks-overturn-visa-denial.html

Rate our video on YouTube.

“The designation of “Little Britain” would be a wonderful nod to New York’s historical cousins and America’s most steadfast ally. It would spur more visits to the West Village by native New Yorkers as well as out-of-towners and foreign tourists in search of that quintessential British flavor. So much of our common culture is influenced by the UK in music, television, theatre, lierature, what’s a couple of blocks to acknowledge it?”

Many thanks to Brian and all in city govenment who are coming out in support, more to follow…

“I’ll be voting for Little Britain in the Big Apple because, as a New
Yorker of British Heritage, I think it’s important for the City of New York to
continue the tradition of designating certain areas of the city to celebrate various
cultural traditions. God Save the Queen. “

” I’ll be voting for Little Britain in the Big Apple because I need
my Afternoon Teabagging”

… cough…

Little Britain just might be the most important thing to happen
in Manhattan since … I can’t think of anything right now, but trust me, it’s
important.”…and it will bring to Manhattan all the style and savoir-faire of a
Saturday night in Croydon. Brace yourselves!

I’ll be voting for Little Britain because a little Brit goes a long
way.

http://www.hellomagazine.com/music/2007/03/23/joss-stone-new-york/

We’ve had a flood of emails in support and a stack of press, radio and TV coverage. Thank you everyone it is greatly appreciated. To the one blogger who actually had the audacity to suggest Ray Gardner was ‘a fake Brit’ and the idea is ‘bollocks’, we’ll paraphrase Ray, and say, “you’re just one dissenting voice in a billion English speaking people”. If you don’t get that, search for “Ray Gardner” on youtube. Anyway, enough of that, here’s yesterdays NYC Metro.

http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/The_British_are_coming_Again/7586.html

We had some made up and are now for sale at Tea & Sympathy, for cost price in case anyone is wondering, $3 a pop. Bargain, get ‘em while stocks last etc..

Great to get a full house at Jackson Square Park this morning from US/UK news crews, and, Japanese breakfast news. Nice of Joss Stone to show her support, as she was having her usual cheese and onion pasty afterwards news came in her album had gone top 5 Billboard. Awesome, as we say over here. Many thanks also to the lovely ladies from Virgin Atlantic who gave everyone a warm welcome and worked the Q&A.

Chris Rossi from Virgin Atlantic…quality bunting.

George and Joss

Joss and Mildred

A big thanks to Ben Sherman for designing the CFLB T-shirt, here is the design. Nice one.

Nice piece in the Sunday Times business section, ta very much.

A little corner of the Big Apple…

Drop by for a cup of tea and scones at 11am prompt , March 21st, Jackson Square Park, where Greenwich Avenue meets 8th Avenue. Couple of stump speeches, special guests and a chance to watch the “party political broadcast”. Cheers!

Campaign posters start to appear around Manhattan.

We look forward to his support

BRITS BEHAVING BADLY
Instead of their tired, their poor, and their huddled masses, it seems the British have given New York their dilettantes, their cheapskates, and their snobbish cliques. At Soho House and other expat haunts, A. A. Gill wonders how anyone can stand his compatriots. Illustration by André Carrilho
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/04/brits200704

The Daily Express back in the old country pick up on the campaign..
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/

The first news item on the campaign, courtesy of Ben Widdicombe at The Daily News.
‘Little Britain’ grows in W. Village

The “party political broadcast” shoot. Richard Dean, the campaign scriptwriter/overall creative ge-ni-us, with Matt Ryan, the director, and Ray Gardner, our campaign spokesman and star of the show. Some of you might remember Ray as a man of patriotic fervor, so when we read the script he instantly sprang to mind.