Guardian piece

[Rudolph C Troike]

A colleague of mine who is more adept at the net than I (I can't access
all those fancy URLs) checked out the Guardian piece, and reported that it
contained two significant items that surely merited notice on this list:
1) the article was applauding the use of "as if" instead of
"like" (presumably a Yankee abomination), and 2) the Guardian used the
American term "can" in place of the proper British term "tin":

        "The roof of one carriage had been peeled off as if it was a
sardine can."

My colleague was shocked by the inappropriate use of the past "was"
instead of the proper irrealis sequence-of-tense past perfect "had been".
What's British English coming to?

        Rudy