Fat, funny and British

If you ask an English person what the best thing about being English is, chances are they'll say the sense of humour.

Ask a fat chick the same question and you'll get the same answer.

Don't whistle on the elevator Brit.

Speaking with English people, I often find myself thinking of Willy Loman.
A man who used to have it, and is now desperately aware that he doesnt.

I read in the London Paper today, that the key difference between Americans and Britons is that while Americans are refreshingly upbeat, The English are reassuringly self deprecating.

Is this really true? Deprecating yes, but of themselves?
I think not.

Great British pride is a very fragile thing. Shake the spindly twigs that constitue the pillars of their national ego and they descend like a nest of wasps. They may tell you they're a humble lot, they may share some surface level character flaw, they may even talk about some minor, well established failling of British institutions.

But it is a facade.
Underneath this humblesness, British people yearn for Halcyon days, the glory of yesteryear, and have become increasingly bitter at the realisation that these times are over.

It manifests itself in the brittle brave face they put on when discussing their country with outsiders.

If you're English, you can hate the Tube, but woe betide any tourist bold enough to agree. The fact that it's expensive yet maintains a level of efficiency not seen since pre-soviet Russia, that it’s dirty with soot, that many of the tunnels feature exposed electrical cables so numerous they resemble the exploding scene from an episode of 1970’s Dr Who can only be uttered by a local. Agree with them, and you're only asking for a lecture on the manifold unseen appreciations of British Rail Staff, the triumphs of British innovation and a few, probably made up travel stories, just to show what you're missing out on. (I would like to go on record as saying The British Rail staff are without peer).

If you're British, you can talk about how terrible the weather is. But if you're a tourist and you agree, prepare yourself for the scorpian's tail of wounded national pride.

"It does get a bit dark in the winter yeah. ’Course you've got hurricanes like what they had in New Orleans, so it's not all bad".
"I'm from New York"
"Yeah, well, even worse. Black gangs"
"Like Hackney?"
"Hackney's not that bad"

And there are countless other no-go subjects for tourists. The Class System, getting bailed out of World Wars 1 and 2, their international reputation as average lovers. I think the English like to think of themselves as self deprecating. But the truth is, it's just something they like to say.

They won the War.
They won the World Cup.
This is the greatest nation on earth.

But deep down, I think they know the truth. That the glory days are over. That the empire is in decline. And that for all their public posturing, for all of the cosy reassurance that Britain is still great, the truth is, this isn't a very nice place at all.

I don't believe the key to our transatlantic differences lies in our abundance or lack of optimism, nor do I think it's in our default national attitude.

I think what seperates England from America is the sobre realisation that America's glass is half full. That our people are happy, our future bright and our place in the world secured. Conversly, England's cup is running dry, their nation has become a pale shade of what it used to be and the people have grown bitter swallowing the dregs of a former Empire now crumbling to dust.

God Bless America.

The Cockney Fuck You.

Earlier in this blog, I mentioned the Cockney Fuck You. It's a phrase that describes the English habit of stringing the words "Sorry" and "but" in quick succession, in order to get away with saying what amounts to "Fuck you".

e.g "Sorry luv, but that's not my problem, is it"

It's a curiously British trat to be rude and yet servile at the same time. Many cultures noted for their rudeness (The French, Native New Yorkers), at least have the saving grace of direct rudeness. If you upset them off, they tell you in a straight language.

The English don't do this.
They apologise first.
They want to tell you off, but they want to do it with impunity.
They want to do it without getting into trouble. A more cynical writer might suggest cowardice.

Perhaps.

Part of what makes up the British disposition is a peculiar bent towards unarticulated emotion. They try to swallow a lot of what they think, The British, what they feel and when they get upset. They try to push it down and pretend it isn't there, that nothing you can do or say can bother them. There are a multitude of reasons here; class, social norms, cultural identidy et al.

But the effect, in day to day Britain, is rather curdling. English people take offense fairly easily, but without a socially acceptable means for dealing with this, they tend to stew over things that don't warrant the intensity. A louder than normal iPod for instance or a . As a result, and in the plainest, most direct terms I can muster, English people walk around with a lot of shit in their heads.

The British stiff upper lip, (which helps compensate for the limp skeletal structure) is an outdated social mask, a disguise designed to camouflage offense. From outward appearance, an English Gentleman is unflappable, but in truth, you can upset an Englishman to the point of madness just by standing on the wrong side of the escalator.

And it's a dangerous practise. Without a socialy acceptable means for dealing with conflict, inevitable in this modern world, minor offences and irritations can quickly grow out of control.
The current state of violent youth related crime might well be a symptom of this. Though I'd hate to get stabbed for suggesting it.

The English won't ask you to turn your iPod down, nor will they hold the door open for you. It's two sides of the same coin. Rather than deal with conflict as it arrives, the English stew, plot, seethe and eventually enact their awful revenge by making it difficult for you to push past them on the escalator. Or serving your butter ice cold and then watching you struggle. You can say it's a petty system, but you cannot have systems without people to hold them up.

So they'll huff and puff and go red in the face, they'll rustle their newspapers into a frenzy, they'll tsk and roll their eyes and push past you when they get off trains.

And if their really, really pissed.
They'll apologise.

Strange creatures indeed.

Sorry, but...

"Sorry I’m late, but it’s done me no favours either. I’ve been 30 minutes in traffic when I should have been making money, I can only put £4 on the clock for a call out, see."

This is what cab drivers in London say when they turn up a half hour late. It's verbal gymnastics of the highest calibre. A quick Cockney-fuck-you with the "I'm sorry, but" then straight into the complaint, a backfilp, now the blame's on you, a perfect dismount and suddenly you're the one that feels bad.

This fucking place man. I'm sorry, but...

A diamond is just like a real cubic zirconia, Honey

International Stick Insect and Thunderbird Puppet, Victoria Beckham is having a fake diamond ring made after fears that her real one, (weighing in at £1 million) might be stolen.

Bravo Britain, you've got crazy rich celebrities, just like the rest of the world. Now if you could just get some that didn't have the finger-down-the-throat look, you could be on your way to being a proper nation.

Not just fat but lazy too.

Britons are the worst energy wasters in Europe with bad habits which could cost £11bn by 2010, a survey of Europe's five most populous nations suggests.

Figures in the Habits of a Lifetime report, commissioned to mark the start of Energy Saving Week, said if the levels of wastage continue, an extra 43m tonnes of carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere by then, the Energy Saving Trust said.

I don't really care that much about energy wastage, but hey, you score points where you get 'em. At least they save money at night. Judging by the statistics on obesity and the levels of ugliness on the tube, I'm guessing they turn the lights off when they have sex.

Great, Big, Fat Britain

HEADLINE: UK women are now officially the fattest in Europe.


New figures from the EU Office of Statistics show that Britain is the fattest country in Europe with 25.1% of women and 23.1% of men at least two stone above their ideal weight.

It turns out that despite having the worst food on Earth, Britons have somehow managed to stuff themselves into the record books. A full quarter of the population of British women are at least two stone over their ideal weight.

That's one in four! No wonder the trains are so crowded. And the men were just barely pipped at the post for The Fattest F--ks in Europe. One in five British men are obese. That's not just fat. That's fat plus a crate of twinkies.

So we come to the pertinent question. How on earth can you get fat eating British food. And here's the part I love best.

You don't. You get fat eating American food. Even though Fat Britain will tell you to their last weezing breath that they hate Americans, clearly, you love us.

You love our burgers.
You love our pizzas.
You love our fried chicken.
You love Cokes and Pepsis.
You love our candy and our cookies.
You love our sugarry shit and our fatty crap and all the other shit we pump into fast food and you love it all so much, you're making yourselves fatter than Texas.

I tell you people, it's one thing to be ugly, but to be fat too.

Keep your shirt on Britain. Please.

Oh isn't it amusing. When London has a heatwave. Aren't they funny they way they over react to the temperature and start sweltering. Isn't it cute.

For a nation of stinkers, any increase in perspiration is as unwelcome as a ginger haired step child. Worse than that, the mercury only has to hint at going up and these freaks start taking their shirts off. If I never see another mole on someone's skin again, I will consider it a life salvaged.

God. Hyde park on a slightly sunny day. It's like walking in on an uncle undressing. Acre after acre of untanned, untoned and really unterrific skin, glistening like a wet foreskin.

The women are bad enough fully clothed, but when it starts coming off... I saw one woman who had a halter top so tight she must've been vaselined into it, and the bottom of the shirt made a feature of her ample gut, which scrunched her lard together like the wrinkly underside of an old man's balls.

And the men. Holy shit. London is the only place in the world where a man with breasts will take off his shirt and talk to women. They actually dangle. The man-tits. I'm told it's the level of female hormones they pump into the chicken over here that give all the men that "Giblets in a bag" look. And if you think these things look bad drooping standing still, you should see what they do during a game of soccer. Whatever the score, we all lose when British men run with their shirts off.

And the papers go mad. London swelters under heat wave. At 78 degrees! (26 degrees celsius) You've got to be kidding. The only heat wave going on in London was the sun waving goodbye for another eleven months.

There should be no reason on earth that a man with globules of chest fat large enough to feed infants should be allowed to expose himself to tourists like myself. It's a form of rape and you know it.