THE BRITISH THREAD II

A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall Reviewed by Christopher Hart.
An American married to an Englishman and resident here now for 13 years, Sarah Lyall realised she was turning English herself when she fell down the stairs at the hairdressers, dislocated her shoulder, and then said, “Sorry.” After a moment, in acute pain, she added, “I might possibly at some point need an ambulance.”

She has written this elegant, witty, perceptive but by no means gushing guide in tribute to her adopted country, keeping a sharp eye out for gossip, a good anecdote and the contradictions at the heart of the British character. If we are so reticent and reserved, what accounts for the “punchy near-anarchy” of the House of Commons? It would be unthinkable for American politicians in Congress to say of each other what Tony Banks said of Mrs Thatcher (“a sex-starved boa constrictor”), or of Terry Dicks (“living proof that a pig's bladder on a stick can be elected to parliament”). MPs in parliament behave like the British abroad.

Lyall is clearly more interested in the upper than lower echelons of society, and loves the lingering medievalism of British life (English life, really, though she does rather conflate the two), with its official posts of Garter King of Arms, and Gold Stick-in-Waiting. She cites the story of one of “Blair's Babes” being impressed to see an Aids ribbon attached to her coat hanger in the Members' cloakroom. Then someone explained to her that, actually, that was where she was supposed to hang her sword.

The great question is, have we changed? Have we really swapped our traditional reticence and frugality for “a culture of tearfulness and self-pity”? Lyall isn't convinced. The death of Diana saw widespread weeping, but then so did the death of Churchill. The British weather is still the same as ever, the safest forecast being, “If it's not raining, it soon will be.” And our attitude to 7/7 certainly didn't suggest “a collective puddle of whingeing, weeping lightweights”. Indeed, the very fact that the phrase “7/7” barely entered the language, as if the event was regarded with no more than passing scorn, contrasts markedly with “9/11”, now the holiest of American shibboleths.

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She connects our essential toughness to Bronco loo paper, the Earl of Uxbridge losing his leg at Waterloo, not turning the central heating on until mid-November, and the fact that “some of my husband's favourite puddings have stale white bread as the main ingredient!” Definite negatives in British life are our terrible trains, dreadful hotels and “the customer is always a nuisance” service ethic. The upside is our sense of humour. An American “bragging about his accomplishments or being earnest about her problems” is no match for an Englishman joking about a lifetime of gaffes and failures. She marvels at the personal ads in the London Review of Books, with readers' descriptions of themselves as “shallow, flatulent, obsessive, incontinent and hostile”, although that's generally how I'd picture an LRB reader myself.

It's a pleasure to be reminded of that great British explorer, Sir John Franklin, who perished of starvation in the Cana- dian Arctic, having forgotten to bring his hunting rifle. He did, however, remember to take “a backgammon board, some button polish, and a copy of Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield”. Or of the merry scorn that greeted Gordon Brown's 2007 call for a pithy statement of British values. Helpful suggestions from the public included “Dipso, Fatso, Bingo, Asbo, Tesco”, and “At least we're not French”.

And it's a particular delight to be reminded of the nation's reaction to David Blaine, the self-regarding American illusionist and, in his own estimation, “great artist”. For 44 days he dangled without nourishment in a Plexiglas box near London Bridge. Did we admire this extraordinary feat of endurance? Did we nelly. We laughed at him, threw bananas at him, fried onions underneath him. Girls flashed their breasts at him, men mooned at him, someone tried to pass him some nappies. “We never had anything like this in New York,” wept his girlfriend. Quite so. Blaine wasn't a hero. Douglas Bader was a hero. Blaine was a show-off. It's important to know the difference. The rude, jolly, drunken, carnivalesque anti-celebrations beneath Blaine's box could have come straight out of Chaucer. Maybe we haven't changed so much after all.

[...]Lyall's decanting of the British begins with three common preconceptions -- all of which turn out, in her telling, to be more or less true.

First, their cleanliness is not up to Lyall's American standards. "Even in the twenty-first century, for instance," she points out, "many British people still ride the subway during the evening rush hour without benefit of deodorant."


"When they do the dishes," she observes, "they appear to believe that the part where you are supposed to rinse off the soap is optional."

Second, there's the issue of sex, including the stereotype that many British men are gay. Lyall hops around this a bit, with some empathetic anecdotes about friends and family members "harassed and groped, if not forced to have sex, by teachers and other boys. Even now, in the way the culture works, they are supposed to make light of it."

After discussing sex education and le vice anglais (the Frenchman's gleeful term for the British love of spanking), she concludes: "Is it any wonder that Englishmen -- particularly British men of a certain class -- are so mixed up about sex?"

Finally, there is the food, which, according to Lyall, is dependably bad (in spite of a liberal use of "salad cream, a squirtable mayonnaise product that can be slathered on their food to obscure its unpalatibility").

Lyall goes beyond these clichés to write about class (which isn't supposed to matter anymore but still does), government (including the disorienting infusion of women during Tony Blair's tenure -- "Blair's Babes") and loyalty to newspapers (journalists might be considered a "shady bunch," but at least they aren't dinosaurs).

She also addresses drinking and the British love of animals, as well as their self-deprecation, fondness for eccentricity and bad teeth.

These last four qualities are just plain endearing.

"Brits," she explains, "are supposed to pretend that achievement comes without effort; boasting is the height of poor manners. It makes you seem aggressive, ambitious, self-regarding, puffed up -- verging on American."

Granted, self-deprecation can be annoying, especially when it is extended to children. "Okay," a friend tells Lyall when she asks about his daughter. "He sounded as if he were talking about gravy. 'Okay. She's a bit thick, you know.' "

But Lyall believes that this is less a question of affectation than of hard wiring.

"Britons trying to boast," she tells us, "are typically like acrophobes walking along a cliff: It frightens them and makes them feel sick."

In fact, "The Anglo Files" makes clear that many of the qualities we perceive as affectations come from deep, historical, ancestral behavior patterns.

Even alcohol, Lyall writes, functions for the British as "a relaxant, an emollient, a crutch, a relief, an excuse. If they go overboard it is the get-out-of-jail-free card that allows them to throw up their hands, palms out, and disavow responsibility."

The world wars, she continues, created generations of men with a horror of cowardice and the strong connection between emotional repression and manliness.

It's easy to forget (particularly in California) that the British mind-set, "low expectations, a sense of making do, a sense of enduring rather than enjoying," is still the norm in places like New England. I recently spent a few days in a small community in Maine where self-deprecation, shabbiness and eccentricity were all alive and well.

Boasting, self-conscious cleanliness (in dress or person) and obvious vanities are still considered sure signs of lesser birth.

Perhaps these qualities, as many economists would argue, have less to do with nationality than with a certain familiarity (generations' worth) with the intricacies of class.

It is one of the few gleams of light Steve that you are not in any position of real influence. What exactly would you charge the arrested people with?

Yo, Izzie, kissy-wissy to you.

I have been affected quite a lot by jetlag, surprisingly, and didn't wake up today till 10:30. Very woozy still.

I'll get round to the account and the photos soon. I want to do it justice if I can, not rush into it I mean.

Here's one, meanwhile

Charge them? Who said anything about charging them? I'd shoot the ****ers.

After discussing sex education and le vice anglais (the Frenchman's gleeful term for the British love of spanking), she concludes: "Is it any wonder that Englishmen -- particularly British men of a certain class -- are so mixed up about sex?"

Quote:

Charge them? Who said anything about charging them? I'd shoot the ****ers.

Steve, my boy, you are allowed to use "fuckers" under this new regime.

It must be your Christian unconscious which causes you to remain on the Surrey side of bourgeois.

I heard of one of your putative victimes who, if you shot him, would cause a team of luxury yacht constructors to be thrown out of work and their children to have to eat bread for Christmas dinner.

Do you envisage public executions?

There is no such thing as "inter-bank" lending anymore. They are a department of The Treasury.