Whoa London Times, Whoa.

The British have a certain disdain and condescending attitude reserved for Canadians and Canadian culture. I have seen it first hand. Generally it's friendly - "ah how is it out in the colonies" and "don't we still own you" are choice anecdotes I have come across.

But the British press can be a bit more potent. They love to take shots at the weather in Canada, the notion that we're lumberjacks and seal hunters living in the wild west and especially love to marginalize Canadian contributions to the world at large by mislabeling Canadians as Americans.

The London Times has a good reputation as a newspaper. But it is British. So it only came as a mild surprise that I came across this article on the International Booker prize via the Times Online

The International Booker prize is awarded every 2 years for a "lifetime achievement" in fiction writing in english, rather than for a recent novel.

Headline: Britain leads international Booker prize race

Me: "Lead? What do they mean lead"

First Paragraph: "Salman Rushdie, Doris Lessing and Ian McEwan are among 15 authors on the shortlist for the Booker International Prize for fiction."

Me: "Ah, they must have the most authors nominated at 3"

Second Paragraph: "Heavyweight American authors such as Philip Roth and Margaret Atwood will compete with the Nigerian Chinua Achebe and Israeli author Amos Oz. "

Me: "WTF, who doesn't know that Margaret Atwood is Canadian??? She is more Canadian than a maple syrup covered beavertail". Now I know "American" could be interpreted as "North American" or "from the Americas", but lets be real, they mean American American.

Final Paragraph: "The winner will be announced in Toronto in June. "

Me: "It is being awarded in Toronto and they mislabel a Canadian author who lives probably a five minute drive from where they are going to be awarding the prize as an American, god, idiots".

List of All Booker Prize nominees: "Salman Rushdie, United Kingdom, Doris Lessing, United Kingdom, Ian McEwan, United Kingdom, Alice Munro, Canada, Margaret Atwood, Canada, Michael Ondaatje, Canada"

Me: "Oh they listed her as Canadian there, so they are inconsistent within the article, but wait, one Canadian, two Canadian, three Canadians??? Well I guess the headline "Britain leads international Booker prize race", is kinda maybe correct if they are tied with Canada but come on...

Typical British arrogance. Almost as bad as the time the BBC published a map with the Canadian border with the US starting in the NWT somewhere and the US taking up 95% of North America's land mass.

On a per capita basis, Canada owns the International Booker prize race. Suck on that Britain, suck on that.