England, famous across the world as the country of Shakespeare, royalty, fair play and manners, is a nation of "overweight, sex-and-celebrity-obsessed TV addicts", according to a new tourist guide.
The "Rough Guide to England", which was written by four British travel writers, says that there is nowhere "so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse, yet as insular, self-important and irritating, as England".
The country has been scarred by the 2005 London bombings and the Iraq war, making it a "querulous, quarrelsome country" that could be in the grip of an identity crisis, it says.
English people may hold forth on politics, law and order and immigration, but also lap up "celebrity chit-chat".
"As a glance at the tabloid newspapers will confirm, England is a nation of overweight, binge-drinking reality TV addicts," it says.
Reserve is still a key national trait -- attempting a conversation with a stranger "can be seen as tantamount to physical assault", the guide says -- and a person's accent is the equivalent of a consumer brand.
Social inequality is rife, too, as "a tiny aristocracy, who in some cases trace their roots to the Norman Conquest of the eleventh century, still own most of the land" and there is an attack on creeping materialism.
The guide also rails against "identikit" provincial towns and "overpriced, under-funded public transport".
Foreign tourists are also warned that the English are "the most contradictory people imaginable".
"However long you spend in the country you'll never figure them out," it adds.
But the guide is not entirely negative, reserving a soft spot for the country's love of animals, generosity to charities, irony, its openness to refugees, thriving arts and culture and the soothing quality of BBC Radio 4.
So what do our English members make of this? It's a bit harsh isn't it? Do you all really mind when a stranger tries to start up a conversation with you? I can't imagine that being an issue. Who are these people who wrote it?
my grandmother is from Ipswich and she has this movie about England I used to watch it all the time at her house. it was very dreary all the time in that movie. I remember once asking her, again when I was younger, if the sun existed in England.
Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt... Zap! My skin's soaked right through to the skin! "The Beatles will exist without us"
LOL! I'll pit your obese TV addicts against our American ones any day. We also BELCH in public, take that, you English reserved people!
Actually, this book (at least in tone) sounds like a bad ripoff of Kate Fox's delightful book Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. Fox is an anthropologist who decided to study her fellow English citizens as other anthropologists study other cultures. She conducted numerous harrowing experiments such as jumping queue and bumping into people accidentally on purpose. (An interesting side-note: it is virtually impossible to bump into a Japanese person; they are too clever at avoiding! But all other nationalities are fairly easy to bump.) She correlated her results in a humorous, self-deprecating tome of what it means to be English.
For myself, I have to say I enjoy English humor. I hadn't noticed the English to be particularly snobby. Of course, I failed to notice that with the French, too, and they're supposed to be world champs at snobby. Mostly I find the world filled with nice people who go out of their way to be nice to me when I'm traveling. Every culture has its quirks, but that's part of what makes it fun.
All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007
For all I know, Ringo might be a yogi disguised as a drummer! - George Harrison
It's lovely still in the North of England , Leeds Manchester and Liverpool are great cities , and the country side is still stunning the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District in particular are beautiful .English people can be a bit reserved on first meeting them , but once they let their hair down there a lot of fun. Yes there are problems but i see that in other countries too , i think there is a kind of a limbo feeling around post millennium ?
I live in Ipswich! What's the film you saw called? of course there's thousands of films depicting england, and they cant all be grey and miserable... in fact we're having like the sunniest ever period in may at the moment, been a week of non stop sun and fun (for some)..
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DM's Beatles forums › Other forums › Different Conversations › England a not so green and pleasant land: tourist