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Caledonia, Cambria and Hibemia 6 page


60 5 Attitudes


> How far? How big? How much? Distances on road signs in Britain are shown in miles, not kilometres, and people talk about yards, not metres. If you described yourself as being 163 tall and weighing 67 kilos a British person would not be able to imagine what you looked like. You would have to say you were 'five foot four' {s ffiet and 4 inches tall) and weighed 'ten stone seven' or 'ten and a half stone' (i o stone and 7 pounds). British people think in pounds and ounces when buying their cheese, in pints when buying their milk and in gallons when buying their petrol. Americans also use this non-metric system of weights and measures. Imperial Metric 1 inch 2. 54. centimetres 12 inches (1 foot) 30.48 centimetres 3 feet (1 yard) 0.92 metres 1760 yards (i mile) 1.6 kilometres 1 ounce 28.35 grams 16 ounces (1 pound) 0.456 kilograms 14 pounds (1 stone) 6.38 kilograms 1 pint 0.58 litres 2 pints (1 quart) 1. 16 litres 8 pints (1 gallon) 4.64 litres

provokes warnings from British bus builders about 'the end of the double-decker bus as we know it'. The British public is always ready to listen to such predictions of doom. Systems of measurement are another example. The British govern­ment has been trying for years and years to promote the metric system and to get British people to use the same scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world. But it has had only limited success. British manufacturers are obliged to give the weight of their tins and packets in kilos and grams. But everybody in Britain still shops in pounds and ounces (see chapter 15). The weather forecasters on the television use the Celsius scale of temperature. But nearly everybody still thinks in Fahrenheit (see chapter 3). British people continue to measure distances, amounts of liquid and themselves using scales of measurement that are not used anywhere else in Europe (> How far? How big? How much?). Even the use of the 24-hour clock is comparatively restricted. British governments sometimes seem to promote this pride in being different. In 1993 the managers of a pub in Slough (west of London) started selling glasses of beer which they called 'swifts' (25 cl) and 'larges' (50 cl), smaller amounts than the traditional British equivalents of half a pint and a pint. You might think that the authorities would have been pleased at this voluntary effort to adopt European habits. But they were not. British law demands that draught beer be sold in pints and half-pints only. The pub was fined £3, 100 by a court and was ordered to stop selling the 'continental' measures. British governments have so far resisted pressure from business people to adopt Central European Time, remaining stubbornly one hour behind, and they continue to start their financial year not, as other countries do, at the beginning of the calendar year but at the beginning of April! The love of nature Most of the British live in towns and cities. But they have an idealized vision of the countryside. To the British, the countryside has almost none of the negative associations which it has in some countries, such as poor facilities, lack of educational opportunities, unemploy­ment and poverty. To them, the countryside means peace and quiet, beauty, good health and no crime. Most of them would live in a country village if they thought that they could find a way of earning a living there. Ideally, this village would consist of thatched cottages (see chapter 19) built around an area of grass known as a 'village green'. Nearby, there would be a pond with ducks on it. Nowadays such a village is not actually very common, but it is a stereotypical picture that is well-known to the British. Some history connected with the building of the Channel tunnel (see chapter 17) provides an instructive example of the British

 




The love of nature 61


attitude. While the 'chunnel' was being built, there were also plans to build new high-speed rail links on either side of it. But what route would these new railway lines take? On the French side of the channel, communities battled with each other to get the new line built through their towns. It would be good for local business. But on the English side, the opposite occurred. Nobody wanted the rail link near them! Communities battled with each other to get the new line built somewhere else. Never mind about business, they wanted to preserve their peace and quiet. Perhaps this love of the countryside is another aspect of British conservatism. The countryside represents stability. Those who live in towns and cities take an active interest in country matters and the British regard it as both a right and a privilege to be able to go 'into the country' whenever they want to. Large areas of the country are official 'national parks' where almost no building is allowed. There is an organization to which thousands of enthusiastic country walkers belong, the Ramblers' Association. It is in constant battle with land­owners to keep open the public 'rights of way' across their lands. Maps can be bought which mark, in great detail, the routes of all the public footpaths in the country. Walkers often stay at youth hostels. The Youth Hostels Association is a charity whose aim is 'to help all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside'. Their hostels are cheap and rather self-consciously bare and simple. There are more than 300 of them around the country, most of them in the middle of nowhere! Even if they cannot get into the countryside, many British people still spend a lot of their time with 'nature'. They grow plants. Gar­dening is one of the most popular hobbies in the country. Even those unlucky people who do not have a garden can participate. Each local authority owns several areas of land which it rents very cheaply to these people in small parcels. On these 'allotments', people grow mainly vegetables.

> The National Trust A notable indication of the British reverence for both the countryside and the past is the strength of the National Trust. This is an officially recognized charity whose aim is to preserve as much of Britain's coun­tryside and as many of its historic buildings as possible by acquiring them 'for the nation'. With more than one-and-a-half million members, it is the largest conserva­tion organization in the world. It is actually the third largest landowner in Britain (after the Crown and the Forestry Commission). It owns more than 500 miles of the coast­line. The importance of its work has been supported by several laws, among which is one which does not allow even the government to take over any of its land without the approval of Parliament.


 


Polesden Lacey, built in the 182os and now owned by the National Trust

Allotments in London


62 5 Attitudes


> The railway cats It is said that the British often treat their animals as if they were people. Well, this is true. One of the most common things that people do is to be employed. And so, on British railways, are cats. The names of Olive, Katie, Pickles and around 200 others appear on the company payroll, officially recognized as employees. Their job is to catch rats and other vermin. There is usually one cat per station. Their pay (tax free) is food, and they also get free medical treat­ment (without deductions from their salary). They are very popular with the human BR staff, who admit that their 'productivity rate' is not always very high (in other words, they don't catch many rats) but claim that they are good for morale. > The RSPCA The desire for animal welfare has official recognition. Cruelty to animals of any kind is a criminal offence. Such offences are investi­gated and acted upon by a well-known charity, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

The love of animals Rossendale Pet Cemetery in Lancashire is just one example of an animal graveyard in Britain. It was started by a local farmer who ran over his dog with a tractor. He was so upset that he put up a headstone in memory of his dog. Now, Rossendale has thousands of graves and plots for caskets of ashes, with facilities for every kind of animal, from a budgie to a lioness. Many people are prepared to pay quite large sums of money to give their pets a decent burial (a trait they share with many Americans). As this example shows, the British tend to have a sentimental attitude to animals. Nearly half of the households in Britain keep at least one domestic pet. Most of them do not bother with such grand arrangements when their pets die, but there are millions of informal graves in people's back gardens. More­over, the status of pets is taken seriously. It is, for example, illegal to run over a dog in your car and then keep on driving. You have to stop and inform the owner. But the love of animals goes beyond sentimental attachment to domestic pets. Wildlife programmes are by far the most popular kind of television documentary. Millions of families have 'bird-tables' in their gardens. These are raised platforms on which birds can feed, safe from local cats, during the winter months. There is even a special hospital (St Tiggywinkles) which treats injured wild animals. Perhaps this overall concern for animals is part of the British love of nature. Studies indicating that some wild species of bird or mammal is decreasing in numbers become prominent articles in the national press. Thousands of people are enthusiastic bird-watchers. This peculiarly British pastime often involves spending hours lying in wet and cold undergrowth, trying to get a glimpse of some rare species. Formality and informality The tourist view of Britain involves lots of formal ceremonies. Some people have drawn the conclusion from this that the British are rather formal in their general behaviour. This is not true. There is a differ­ence between observing formalities and being formal in everyday life. Attitudes towards clothes are a good indication of this difference. It all depends on whether a person is playing a public role or a private role. When people are 'on duty', they have to obey some quite rigid rules. A male bank employee, for example, is expected to wear a suit with a tie, even if he cannot afford a very smart one. So are politicians. There was once a mild scandal during the 1980s because the Leader of the Opposition (see chapter 8) wore clothes on a public occasion which were considered too informal. On the other hand, when people are not playing a public role -when they are just being themselves - there seem to be no rules at all. The British are probably more tolerant of'strange' clothing than people in most other countries. You may find, for example, the same bank employee, on his lunch break in hot weather, walking through

 


Formality and informality 63


the streets with his tie round his waist and his collar unbuttoned. He is no longer 'at work' and for his employers to criticize him for his appearance would be seen as a gross breach of privacy. Perhaps because of the clothing formalities that many people have to follow during the week, the British, unlike the people of many other coun­tries, like to 'dress down' on Sundays. They can't wait to take off their respectable working clothes and slip into something really scruffy. Lots of men who wear suits during the week can then be seen in old sweaters and jeans, sometimes with holes in them. And male politi­cians are keen to get themselves photographed not wearing a tie when 'officially' on holiday, to show that they are really ordinary people. This difference between formalities and formality is the key to what people from other countries sometimes experience as a coldness among the British. The key is this: being friendly in Britain often involves showing that you are not bothering with the formalit­ies. This means not addressing someone by his or her title (Mr, Mrs, Professor etc), not dressing smartly when entertaining guests, not shaking hands when meeting and not saying 'please' when making a request. When they avoid doing these things with you, the British are not being unfriendly or disrespectful, they are implying that you are in the category 'friend', and so all the rules can be ignored. To address someone by his or her title or to say 'please' is to observe formalities and therefore to put a distance between the people involved. The same is true of shaking hands. Although this sometimes has the reputation of being a very British thing to do, it is actually rather rare. Most people would do it only when being introduced to a stranger or when meeting an acquaintance (but not a friend) after a long time. Similarly, most British people do not feel welcomed if, on being invited to somebody's house, they find the hosts in smart clothes and a grand table set for them. They do not feel flattered by this, they feel intimidated. It makes them feel they can't relax. It is probably true that the British, especially the English, are more reserved than the people of many other countries. They find it compar­atively difficult to indicate friendship by open displays of affection. For example, it is not the convention to kiss when meeting a friend. Instead, friendship is symbolized by behaving as casually as possible. If you are in a British person's house, and you are told to 'help yourself to something, your host is not being rude or suggesting that you are of no importance - he or she is showing that you are completely accepted and just like 'one of the family'. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the general amount of informality increased. Buffet-type meals, at which people do not sit down at a table to eat, are now a common form of hospitality. At the same time, the traditional reserve has also been breaking down. More groups in society now kiss when meeting each other (women and women, and men and women, but still never men and men!).

> The scruffy British The British are comparatively unin­terested in clothes. They spend a lower proportion of their income on clothing than people in most other European countries do. Many people buy second-hand clothes and are not at all embarrassed to admit this. If you are somewhere in a Mediter­ranean holiday area it is usually possible to identify the British tourist — he or she is the one who looks so badly dressed!

 


64 5 Attitudes


> Self-help The National Trust is one example of a charity which became very important without any government involvement. Another is the Family Planning Association. By 1938, this organization ran 93', clinics around Britain which gave advice and help regarding birth control to anybody who wanted it. Not until ten years later, with the establishment of the National Health Service (see chapter 18), did the British government involve itself in such matters. A further example of 'self-help' is the Consumers' Association. In 1957,a small group of people working from an abandoned garage started Which?, a magazine exposing abuses in the marketplace, investi­gating trickery by manufacturers and comparing different compan­ies' brands of the same product. Thirty years later, 900,000 people regularly bought this magazine and the Consumer's Association was making a £ i o million surplus (not a 'profit' because it is a registered charity). By then it had successfully campaigned for many new laws protecting consumers and Which? had become the British consumer s bible. > Supporting the underdog Some customs of road use illustrate the British tendency to be on the side of'the underdog' (i.e. the weaker side in any competition). On the roads the underdog is the pedestrian. The law states that if a person has just one foot on a zebra crossing then vehicles must stop. And they usually do. Conversely, British pedestrians interpret the colour of the human figure at traffic lights as advice, not as an instruction. If the figure is red but no cars are approaching, they feel perfectly entitled to cross the road immediately. In Britain, jay­walking (crossing the road by dodging in between cars) has never been illegal.

Public spiritedness and amateurism In public life Britain has traditionally followed what might be called 'the cult of the talented amateur', in which being too professionally dedicated is looked at with suspicion. 'Only doing your job' has never been accepted as a justification for actions. There is a common assumption that society is best served by everybody 'chipping in' -that is, by lots of people giving a little bit of their free time to help in a variety of ways. This can be seen in the structure of the civil service (see chapter 8), in the circumstances under which Members of Parliament do their work (see chapter 9), in the use of unpaid non-lawyers to run much of the legal system (see chapter i i), in some aspects of the education system (see chapter 14), and in the fact that, until recently, many of the most popular sports in the country were officially amateur even at top level (see chapter 21). This characteristic, however, is on the decline. In all the areas mentioned above, 'professionalism' has changed from having a negative connotation to having a positive one. Nevertheless, some new areas of amateur participation in public life have developed in the last decade, such as neighbourhood watch schemes (see chapter 11). Moreover, tens of thousands of'amateurs' are still actively involved in charity work (see chapter 18). As well as giving direct help to those in need, they raise money by organizing jumble sales, fetes and flag days (on which they stand in the street collecting money). This voluntary activity is a basic part of British life. It has often been so effective that whole countrywide networks have been set up without any government help at all (> Self-help). It is no accident that many of the world's largest and most well-known charities (for example, Oxfam, Amnesty International and the Save the Children Fund) began in Britain. Note also that, each year, the country's blood transfusion service collects over two million donations of blood from unpaid volunteers.


 


Volunteers ready to collect money for the RSPCA

 

 

Privacy and sex 6^


Privacy and sex Respect for privacy underlies many aspects of British life. It is not just privacy in your own home which is important (see chapter 19). Just as important is the individual's right to keep information about himself or herself private. Despite the increase in informality, it is still seen as rude to ask people what are called 'personal' questions (for example, about how much money they earn or about their family or sex life) unless you know them very well. Notice that the conven­tional formula on being introduced to someone in Britain, 'how do you do?', is not interpreted as a real request for information at all; the conventional reply is not to 'answer the question' but to reply by saying 'how do you do?' too. The modern British attitude to sex is an example of how, while moral attitudes have changed, the habit of keeping things private is still deeply ingrained. British (like American) public life has a reputa­tion for demanding puritanical standards of behaviour. Revelations about extra-marital affairs or other deviations from what is consid­ered normal in private life have, in the past, ruined the careers of many public figures. This would seem to indicate a lack of respect for privacy and that the British do not allow their politicians a private life. However, appearances in this matter can be misleading. In most of these cases, the disgrace of the politician concerned has not been because of his sexual activity. It has happened because this activity was mixed up with a matter of national security, or involved breaking the law or indicated hypocrisy (in acting against the stated policy of the politician's party). In other words, the private sexual activity had a direct relevance to the politician's public role. The scandal was that in these cases, the politicians had not kept their private lives and public roles separate enough. When no such connections are involved, there are no negative consequences for the politicians. In fact when, in 1992, a leading politician announced that five years previously he had had an affair with his secretary, his popularity actually increased! In 1992 a million copies of very explicit and realistic videos with titles such as Super Virility, Better Sex, The Gay Man's Guide to Safer Sex and The Lovers' Guide were sold in Britain. There was some debate about whether they should be banned. However, an opinion poll showed that the British public agreed that they were not 'pornographic' but 'educational'. Three out of four of those asked were happy for the videos to be freely on sale. Examples such as this suggest that modern Britons have a positive and open attitude to sex. However, they continue to regard it as an absolutely private matter. Sex may no longer be 'bad', but it is still embarrassing. Take the example of sex education in schools. Partly because of worries about AIDS, this is now seen as a vital part of the school curriculum. It is the legal responsibility of schools to teach it. However, research in the early 1990s suggested that little or no sex education was taking place in

> Lovely weather we're having The British are always talking about the weather. Unlike many others, this stereotype is actually true to life. But constant remarks about the weather at chance meetings are not the result of polite conventions. They are not obligatory. Rather, they are the result of the fact that, on the one hand, to ask personal questions would be rude while, at the same time, silence would also be rude. The weather is a very convenient topic with which to 'fill the gap'. > Blind Date Blind Date is a very popular television programme. In it, a member of one sex asks three members of the opposite sex (whom he or she cannot see) questions and then chooses which one to go out with. The questions and answers are always full of sexual innuendo. The audience loves it. On one show in 1993, one of the possible blind dates was a German girl. In conversation with the show's host, her knowledge of languages came up. The girl said, 'My teacher told me that the quickest way to learn a foreign language is to have sex with a native speaker. And you know, it really works!' Uproar! This remark caused the loudest audience reaction, the most hysterical laughs, which the show had ever known. The shows popularity is precisely because sex is possibly on the agenda, but this was the first time that anyone on the programme had actually admitted to having sex. Very mi-British!


 



66 5 Attitudes > Carry on laughing In the history of British comedy, there is a special place for the Carry On series of films. Starting in the late 1950s and continuing into the mid 1970s, there were twenty-nine Carry On films. All of them used the same formula (and always with more or less the same set of actors): a well-known situation or place (a hospital, the army, the British empire in India) peopled with absurd charac­ters whose dialogue consists of almost nothing but puns relating to sex or toilets. Nevertheless, they became, over the years, an essential part of British culture. Anybody who went to see a Carry On film knew exactly what sort of thing to expect. This predictability, in fact, was part of the enjoyment. The jokes, so obvious and continu­ous, could often be spotted by the audience before they came.

nearly half of the schools in the country. Why? The most common reason was that teachers simply felt too embarrassed to tackle the subject. Similarly, public references to sex in popular entertainment are very common, but they typically take the form of joking innuendo and clumsy double-entendre (> Carry on laughing and see chapter 23). The same mixture of tolerance and embarrassment can be seen in the official attitude to prostitution in Britain. It is not illegal to be a prostitute in Britain, but it is illegal to publicly behave like one. It is against the law to 'solicit' - that is, to do anything in public to find customers.


 


 


QUESTIONS

1 Frequent mention is made in this chapter of British individualism. How many examples of this can you find? Can you think of any others?

2 It has been said that the British are suspicious of things in public life which are logical or system­atic.Can you find examples in this chapter which could be used to support this opinion?

3 Imagine this situation: you are at home, just about to have lunch, when there is a knock at the door. It is a British friend of yours, not a very close friend, but closer than a mere acquaint­ance. He or she has come to pay you an unexpected visit. You suggest that your friend comes in and stays for lunch. But your friend is embarrassed to find that he or she has called at


 

a mealtime and refuses the invitation. You want to persuade your friend to change his or her mind. Here are two possible ways of doing this:

A Please stay. We don't have much, I'm afraid, but we'd

be honoured. Whatever we have is yours. B It's no trouble at all. There's plenty of food. Don't think

twice about it. We're used to people popping in. Which of these two do you think would be a more successful way to persuade a British person? A or B? Why?

4 Which (if any) of the British characteristics described in this chapter would you regard as also characteristic of people in your country? To what extent?


 


SUGGESTIONS

• George Mikes' humorous books about the English, such as How to be on Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent (all published by Penguin) are easy and fun to read. As they span thirty years, together they offer insights into changing attitudes in Britain.

• Read Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, a humorous tour round Britain by an American who lived there for many years.


Political life


Look at the extract from a fictional diary on the next page (> The killer instinct). It is taken from the book of Yes, Prime Minister, a very popular radio and television comedy of the 198os. Like all political satire, this programme could only have been popular because people believed that it was, at least partly, a true reflection of reality. It therefore illustrates the British attitude to politicians and politics.

The public attitude to politics

Politicians in Britain do not have a good reputation. To describe someone who is not a professional politician as 'a politician' is to I criticize him or her, suggesting a lack oftrustworthiness. It is not that people hate their politicians. They just regard them with a high degree of suspicion. They do not expect them to be corrupt or to use their position to amass personal wealth, but they do expect them to be frequently dishonest. People are not really shocked when the government is caught lying. On the other hand, they would be very shocked indeed if it was discovered that the government was doing anything actually illegal. A scandal such as the Watergate affair in the USA in the early 1970s would endanger the stability of the whole of political life.

At an earlier point in the 'diary', Jim Hacker is wondering why the Prime Minister has resigned. He does not believe the rumour that £ i million worth of diamonds have been found in the Prime Minis­ter's house. This is partly, no doubt, because he does not think the Prime Minister could be so corrupt but it is also because 'it's never been officially denied ... The first rule of politics is Never Believe Anything Until It's Been Officially Denied'. This is the basis of the joke in the two conversations in the extract. Duncan and Eric are only sure that Jim wants to be Prime Minister after he implies that he doesn't!


Date: 2015-12-18; view: 1563


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