Life on Mars, Culture from England

Irit (my wife) and I had recently completed watching the masterpiece BBC show 'Life on Mars'. On the same note, I'm embrassed to say that I'm awaiting the 7th Harry Potter book. Lastly, a while back I'd been to a 'Abbey Road' tribute concert, done by Israeli musicinas. The underline conncetion is that all are very much English culture items.

'Life on Mars' portraits Manchester of 1973, where police is corrupt, workers are abused, women are harrased and everyone smokes (especially at the office). The language is such that anyone outside of Manchester is likely to need subtitles (although 'guv' is now heard frequently at my home).

Harry Potter is written by an english woman, built upon the famous boarding school tradition of english education, portraits social classes and relations in british society and so forth.

The cover of 'Abbey Road', the Beatles best album (ever. don't argue), is showing the group going over the zebra crossing outside Abbey Road studios. The album songs (especially the Sun King medley) portratis some of the most interesting, very british, characters the Beatles were so good at capturing.

So the question is - why would a 30 years old Israeli (such as myself) find interest in all of these? Are the stories told by these pop items are so much beyond the cultural context that anyone can relate? Or is it something to do with the British mandate, once governing Israel and still affecting its culture, laws and politics?
I would suggest yet another view: the American culture is the dominant one these days, but it has little of its own and much burrowed or developed from the British culture. It is perhaps similar to the Romans, mastering the greatest empire of their days while spreading the Greek culture. So, when USA influence Israel, it is in fact promotes English traditions and culture.

Inbar