I'm British, living in the US, and I've always felt this way about America. I recently heard from an American friend that he felt exactly the same when visiting Britain.
Not sure what to make of it, but it's interesting!
[1] "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"
Before i got to your comment, reading the grandparent about this being a 1980s future immediately put me in mind of something else William Gibson said in ~1993:
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed"
Meh, I don't think this is really a worry. We still read Shakespeare - we just have to make an extra effort to understand the nuances. In fact, that's part of what makes it so interesting.
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/11/mixtape-of-the-lost-decade....
The "same", meaning he felt like Britain was stuck in 1980's version of the future? Or the past? Strange, my experience and I think the usual experience of Americans visiting GB/Europe is of feeling like you've timewarped into the past. How far depends on where you visit. Paris/London may feel twenty years back, other places fifty or a hundred.
My impression was that something "modern" in Britain would tend to fit a stereotypical 1980s-era optimistic prediction of what the early 21st century would be like. Compared to the U.S., a "modern" space in the U.K. seems to me a little more ordered, neat, well-packaged, brightly lit, and perhaps a little more sterile than its counterpart in the U.S.
Of course, most spaces in the U.K. are not like this. But that may be why such "modern" spaces exist: if your town has an 800 year-old castle, and your pub is 150 years old and filled with well-worn, comfy furniture, having other more brightly-lit, ordered spaces is probably an interesting contrast.
My impression of the U.S. is that "modern" spaces are a little more warm, and less concerned with presenting an ordered and tidy facade. For example, it's easier to find "modern" spaces with exposed ceiling pipes, building supports, etc, in the U.S., whereas those seemed almost always hidden away in British spaces.
But at the same time, you don't have nearly the same amount of contrast between spaces. So it's hard for me to find a "pub" in the U.S. that has the same warmth and comfy feel as a U.K. pub.