On the 250th anniversary of American independence
Happy 250th birthday, America.
It takes a certain confidence to declare independence from the world’s most powerful empire in 1776. It takes even more confidence to spend the next two and a half centuries explaining to everyone else why you were right.
As someone with both British and Australian citizenship, I suppose I occupy an unusual middle ground. One country lost America. The other occasionally behaves as though it found a slightly louder version of it.
I have enormous affection for the United States. Some of my closest friends are American. I have worked there, travelled widely, and have always been struck by the generosity, optimism and warmth of the people I have met.
But on this anniversary, I also find myself reflecting on eleven things I suspect I shall never quite understand.
1. Why coffee has to come in buckets.
Somewhere between “small” and “venti”, proportion appears to have surrendered. If a British café serves coffee by the pint, we assume something has gone terribly wrong.
And then there’s the coffee itself.
As an Australian, I feel almost professionally obliged to point out that Australian baristas remain the gold standard. We don’t need gallons of coffee. We just like it to taste of coffee.
2. Why every sporting event seems to require a military flypast, three songs, two standing ovations and enough fireworks to signal the end of civilisation.
Sometimes a match can simply begin.
Particularly football…
And when I say football, I do of course mean the game played with a spherical ball, largely using the feet. Even in the USA, where the game with the spherical ball has had to adopt the rather apologetic title of soccer because football had already been claimed by a sport played with an egg-shaped ball, mostly carried in the hands.
Games played with egg-shaped balls are properly known as rugby, Aussie Rules or, apparently, football—for reasons that remain constitutionally protected but linguistically indefensible.
3. The determination to measure everything except in the same units as everyone else.
Miles, feet, Fahrenheit, pounds, gallons… it is as though their USA looked at the metric system and collectively decided, “No thank you. We prefer maths with personality.”
(Though I do accept that this may feel a little rich coming from someone who buys his petrol in litres, his beer in pints, and can describe his weight in kilos and stones – though, mercifully, not pounds.)
4. Driving on the wrong side of the road.
Yes, yes… I know you’ll say we drive on the wrong side.
But from where I’m standing, (well back from the kerb) it still feels as though the USA (and I accept, the majority of other countries) looked at centuries of tradition, noted that much of the world that drives on the left includes Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and much of southern Africa, and thought, “No. We’ll try the other side.”
The good news is that, after about ten minutes behind the wheel in Florida or California, or even Idaho, my brain usually adjusts.
The bad news is that the windscreen wipers still come on every time I try to indicate. Some special relationships clearly take longer than others.
5. The ability to describe almost anything as “awesome”.
The Grand Canyon? Awesome.
Landing on the Moon? Awesome.
An adequately toasted bagel? Also awesome.
There is an optimism in that which is strangely endearing.
6. The reverence for ice.
No matter the weather outside, every drink appears to arrive with enough frozen water to preserve a mammoth.
7. The enthusiasm for customer service.
Within thirty seconds of entering a shop, somebody will ask how your day is going.
As a Brit, I have barely accepted that we are now acquaintances.
8. The belief that bigger is almost always better.
Roads. Cars. Refrigerators. Shopping trolleys. Breakfast pancakes.
There is something magnificently unapologetic about building everything on a heroic scale.
9. The confidence.
Americans often speak as though almost any problem can be solved with enough determination, innovation and a decent presentation.
Sometimes they are wrong.
Remarkably often, they are right.
10. The flags.
The United States of America has a relationship with its flag that I find both baffling and oddly moving.
You fly it, wear it, salute it, sing to it, bake it into cakes and somehow manage to make national pride feel relatively uncomplicated.
For a Brit and an Australian, that is harder to understand.
Brits deserve not to have their flag stolen by the far right. Australians, meanwhile, need to recognise that not every Australian sees themselves reflected in the colours of the red, white and blue.
Perhaps that is why USA flag culture feels so striking from the outside. It reminds us that symbols matter—and that who feels included in them matters even more.
11. How a nation so divided can remain so hopeful.
This is the one I admire most.
From a distance, USA politics can appear exhausting. Yet, whenever I meet Americans, I encounter people who still believe tomorrow can be better than today. There is a resilience and optimism that refuses to disappear, however difficult the times.
Perhaps that is The United States of America’s greatest national characteristic.
So no, there are many things I shall probably never quite understand.
But that is part of the joy of friendship between nations. We don’t have to become the same in order to admire one another.
Britain gave the USA many of its institutions. Australia borrowed a fair number of both Britain’s and America’s habits. The USA, in turn, has given the world extraordinary science, technology, music, literature, film, entrepreneurship and a seemingly inexhaustible belief that impossible things might just be possible.
Two hundred and fifty years after independence, that feels worth celebrating.
Happy birthday, USA.
May you never lose the confidence that declared your independence—or the optimism that has sustained it ever since.
I’ll still bring my own coffee. And, whilst I’m at it… perhaps one day someone could explain the chocolate.
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