Other cosy things Brits do

1. Extol the amateur

Brits dislike anything too slick or professional, on the grounds that:

(a) it demands an appropriate response, and (b) indicates that someone has been breaking faith by Trying Hard. This is rather a betrayal of the Gents’ Agreement that ‘we don’t go for the throat, old chap, there’s room for everyone.’ Brits are disconcerted by evidence that, behind their backs, someone has been playing to win. Because competition of a serious, professional nature is frowned upon, Brits have invented cricket, where the real objective is breaking for tea and sandwiches.

2. Obstruct mPs

Parliament is still seen by many as an adventure playground for adults with time on their hands and independent means. Brits attempt to ensure that only benevolent duffers run for office by refusing to treat requirements seriously. For instance, they:

1. deprive back-benchers of a living wage.

2. deny them reasonable office facilities. (It is felt that they can work adequately two to a desk).

3. refuse funds for decent secretarial services. Parliamentary secs are often well-born young ladies whose derisory wages are subsidized by parental largesse. This arrangement underpins the entire British Parliamentary system.

3. Fill their national newspapers with ‘Around America’ columns

These are reports from a correspondent somewhere in the US, which invariably portray New York, or LA, or Texas as violent, anarchic and bizarre – (‘Houston Man Marries Snake’) – thus pandering to the UK reader’s (and editor’s) desire to see Britain as the last bastion of sanity in a flaky world. All very cosy. Stories pose the tacit proposition that social breakdown is the inevitable consequence of Not Being British.

4. Cultivate their gardens

Brit-Man is born with a unique, atavistic reflex, hitherto unrecorded by medical science. From birth, he has the ability to grasp a garden trowel. An allotment is a Brit’s ultimate expression of cosy amateurishness. His garden is the domaine of his soul, and not for the incursions of others. So he will mow his own lawn, saw branches off trees, dig, trim and sow ... even if he is wealthy enough to afford an army of gardeners. No one knows why. He claims that the exercise is good for him (though he wouldn’t dream of jogging, swimming, or taking any other kind) and so prunes and hoes to the point of coronary arrest.

In all this, he is cheered on by a Brit-wife born with an understanding of his need to dig. She knows that there’s something about gardening which is British, and ‘right’ – which is the same thing as cosy. Doesn’t matter what the interior of the house looks like, as long as the garden is ‘right’. Then, life is ‘right’, and Britain is ‘right’, and the threat of greenfly is the only blot on the horizon.

Comprehension

Exercise 1.Make up 6–8 multiple choice questions about the text to check comprehension.

Exercise 2.Sum up the main points of the chapter in your own words.

Language practice

Exercise 3.Give the meanings of the words, phrases and suffixes below, comment on their register and expressiveness and suggest synonyms of various degrees of formality. Think up appropriate contexts with them:

endearing, adj / to get the hang of sth. / to be up for grabs / to have miles (a long way) to go / hype, n / to have sth. on one’s hands / inert / duffer, n / largesse, n / to pander to smb., sth. / flakey / -ish, suffix

Exercise 4.Identify the cultural information in the text and comment on it. An up-to-date dictionary on language and culture or any reference book will help you do it better.Note: you are expected to be able to sort out factual information from the author’s emotional attitude and evaluation.

Exercise 5.What other language from the text would you like to select for intensive study and why?