America

[SmartWombat]

Stephen Fry was signing his book of the TV series in Oxford.
Christmas presents list solved !

[brmill26]

Haha, I had no idea who Stephen Fry was until about a month ago when someone sent me this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcWfSN9eC7A Apparently he came through Auburn, Alabama on his trip to visit Auburn University, where I went to college. They did a segment about the Auburn University v. University of Alabama football game, which, for those of you unfamiliar, has been named the greatest rivalry in the country by Sports Illustrated. It was interesting to see it from his perspective, even though it's quite clear he doesn't really understand American college football (though I get that football itself isn't the point). But to shed some light, college football has little in kind with a "local amateur derby" in British footballing terms. Auburn's stadium will seat 90,000 people, which is bigger than any English club's stadium by almost a third. He mentions Auburn is a "medium sized" school with 25,000 students, but the football team is followed and supported just as much by alumni, who number well in the millions. And of course, while college is technically amateur in that they aren't paid, they train like professionals and college really serves as an audition for the NFL, who draft their young players out of the college system.

Anyway, I watched several other clips of his on YouTube. They were very good, and he seemed to generally have a very good grasp on things. It was pretty cool. I'm sure the book would be a fantastic read; sort of a modern Alexis de Tocqueville I imagine.