Why do the words 'Oh sod off! we're trying to have a serious conversation', leap unbidden to my lips and the forefront of my thoughts.

Whether you wish RW well is completely an irrelevance. I'm sure we all wish him well and for no mishaps to befall him.

Something sticks in my craw about this song. And the thing that sticks with me most is (as I have said) those poor sods building an image of the Statue of Liberty on Tianaman Square. For so many people around the world - people imprisoned literally and people imprisoned in awful systems of goverment - America is still the 'the last best hope of mankind'.

The message of the song that actually America's a load of shit and its let me down every which way. Just feels 'wrong'. Thats a sensual appraisal rather than a cerebral one, I'm sure there is smart and brutal putdown for my point of view, and I'm sure Countess with your unerring instinct for confrontation and ridicule, you will find it. But I think its a valid point of view.