So England comes to me, and what do I say? I say, "Listen, babe, face the facts. We're in the third millennium, and your boobs are on the decline. The solution isn't a push-up bra." To some, Jerry Batson was a cynic; to others, simply a scoundrel. But he wasn't a hypocrite. He considered himself a patriot.... However, he didn't believe in the merits of a blind cult of the past. He believed that patriotism should be oriented toward the future. There were still old nostalgics for the British Empire, just as there were those who were pissed at the idea that the United Kingdom could dismantle itself... Jerry Batson, who describes himself as a "midwife of ideas", is going to sell a rather sensational one to Sir Jack Pitman, an eccentric billionaire: to create on the Isle of Wright a sort of gigantic amusement park bringing together everything that is most typical and best known in England. This goes from the white cliffs of Dover to Manchester United, from Buckingham Palace to Stonehenge, from Princess Diana's mausoleum to Shakespeare's theater. The project is monstrous, highly risky, and now it turns out to be a huge success. Will the copy threaten to surpass the original? And what will happen if it is the one that tourists prefer to visit? Fiercely funny, ruthlessly funny, mercilessly vitriolic, this is a portrait of England like nothing we've ever seen before.
