Hurrah! Today is the Guide’s 250th instalment, an anniversary celebrated the world over, with concerts and ticker tape parades and 10-part documentaries about its historical significance. You’re probably already a bit exhausted by all the wall-to-wall coverage, in fact. Also tomorrow, the United States of America might be celebrating some birthday or other, though it doesn’t sound like anybody is terribly fussed about it.To mark both anniversaries, this week’s Guide is a “special relationship” special, with 25 of the most unlikely US/UK pop-cultural crossovers – those moments where American celebrities find themselves rubbing their stardust, intentionally or otherwise, all over weird corners of British popular culture, or vice versa. Read on for tales of Orson Welles in Norwich and Matt Berry at the Oscars.Olivia Rodrigo and Colin the CaterpillarAmerican celebs have long been seduced by M&S’s wares – Billie Holiday once bought pyjamas from a Nottingham branch with a roll of banknotes produced from her stocking – but Rodrigo has gone further than most, professing her love for the store’s edible eruciform mascot in multiple interviews and even onstage at Glastonbury. Does she really like it though? On her first encounter, she attacked it with the enthusiasm of the McDonald’s CEO when served one of his firm’s burgers.Mel Brooks and The One Show“What a crazy show this is,” the veteran comic exclaimed on the Beeb’s teatime magazine programme, baffled by one of its characteristically jarring segues between jolly celebrity chat and affecting personal stories. Brooks is right – in fact, the One Show might be the true home of the unlikely US/UK crossover, a place where Harry Hill can pelt Jermaine Jenas with bread while Dakota Fanning looks on in horror.Stanley Kubrick and Beckton Gas WorksBring it home … Full Metal Jacket. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/AlamyHaving spent years researching the Vietnam war for Full Metal Jacket, the great American director realised there was only one place that could represent the Imperial City of Hue in the film’s climactic battle scenes: a soon-to-be-demolished gasworks near the Isle of Dogs. Kubrick didn’t want to travel, and the gasworks’ condemned status meant that it could be blown to bits as part of the production. Beckton has played an outsized role in pop culture over the years, used as the backdrop for Derek Jarman’s video for The Smiths’ the Queen is Dead, and in the opening scene of 12th Bond film For Your Eyes Only.Frankie Boyle and Grand Theft Auto IVThe lawless Liberty City, GTA IV’s New York avatar, hides a surprising secret: head into the city’s Split Sides comedy club in one of the game’s add-on episodes and you can watch deeply off-colour sets from Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle. Makes more sense when you remember the heavy British presence at GTA’s producer, Rockstar – but it’s still probably very jolting while playing the game stoned at 2am.The Lemonheads and a Yorkshire secondary school