Barmy Britain (5 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
The Times
What a splendid lot of old-fashioned traditionalists the British are. A report which looked at the changing face of UK society showed people yearning for the return of:
- Rag and bone men
- Bus conductors
- Bobbies on the beat
- District nurses
Many would like to see the back of:
- Congestion zones
- Speed cameras
- Outdoor smoking areas
- Bus lanes
- Outdoor urinals
- Smelly hot dog vendors
In a report called
Local Life
by the Somerfield supermarket chain there were also some who favoured the return of the stocks, witches stakes and heads on spikes.
Daily Telegraph
When a newspaper invited readers to submit new designs for the backs of British coins, one reader suggested: ‘A couple of yobs dancing on a car bonnet or a trio of legless ladettes in the gutter.’
Daily Telegraph
The
Daily Telegraph
reported that Havant Borough Council in Hampshire was ‘facing rebellion’ after switching the brand of tea it serves. One member said: ‘I do not think it should be forced upon us. We are British after all.’
Daily Telegraph
In 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown had ‘a simple wheeze’ – a motto to capture what makes Britain great. Early efforts collected by
The Times
included:
- Britain – a terribly nice place
- Stubborn to the point of greatness
- Less stuffy than we sound
- Turned out nice again
- Sorry, is this the queue?
- Dipso fatso bingo asbo Tesco
- At least we’re not French
The Times
Peter Long, of Southampton, thought the motto capturing the spirit of our modern nation is: ‘What’s in it for me?’
The Times
The winning entry in a survey to find a ‘national motto’:
No Motto Please, We Are British.
The Week
magazine
Cerne Abbas (population 800), a Dorset community watched over by a 180ft chalk figure of a naked giant, has been identified as Britain’s most desirable village. Despite its small size it has two tea rooms, a Post Office, a primary school, a new village hall, sports fields, a doctor’s surgery, a 14th century church – and three pubs.
The Times
When Roger Cooper was released from an Iranian prison after serving more than five years he said: ‘Anyone who has attended an English public school and served in the British Army is quite well prepared for a spell in a Third World prison’. David Staples, London N8.
The Times
Madonna says she is delighted to be living in Britain – partly because Britons ‘…are not as rude and obnoxious as Americans’. She also thinks English swear words are ‘more charming and more colourful.’
Daily Mail
The English section of the guests’ information notice in a third floor hotel room in Copenhagen read: ‘In the event of fire, open a window and announce your presence in a seemly manner.’
R. A. Morley, Southport.
The Times
The British, who like to believe that the Germans have no sense of humour, found it difficult to swallow the crack made by Tilman Hanckel, the new cultural attaché at the German Embassy in London. Hanckel told a BBC interviewer: ‘I came to London in July. In a way, it’s my first Third World posting’.
Daily Mail
The
Daily Mail
accompanied its report on this story with three anti-German jokes and three anti-English jokes – including these two.
- Why did the sun never set on the British empire? Because God would never trust an Englishman in the dark.
- What’s the difference between a German and a shopping trolley? A shopping trolley has a mind of its own.
Daily Mail
Rude, narrow minded, not very sexy and the food is rubbish. Meet the British as seen through a Reader’s Digest poll in 19 European countries. But at least they thought that we had the best sense of humour.
The Times
Arrogant, rain sodden, narrow-minded,
old-fashioned
, white-skinned pacifist toffs. Meet the British as seen through the eyes of American teenagers surveyed by the British council.
But most of the students polled could not name the four components of the United Kingdom and one said: ‘I don’t think they kill each other as much as we do.’
The Times
The Europeans polled by the
Digest
also thought that Britain had contributed more to the world than anyone else – ‘although this seems based on our invention of football, not our great feats of discovery, adventure and exploration’.
The Times
The shipping forecast, broadcast four times a day by the BBC, has become cult listening, much loved by thousands of listeners who have never boarded a ship. The forecast is an eccentric list of winds in sea areas around Britain and has become like a familiar poem that defines British cultural heritage. It has inspired poetry, literature, works of art and tea towels. So there is much anguish that the name of one of the sea areas is to be changed from Finisterre to Fitzroy. It brings no comfort that the name Fitzroy has been chosen in memory of the founding father of the Met Office, Admiral Robert Fitzroy, who allegedly committed suicide in 1865 after forecasting the weather wrong.
Guardian
Foreigners often mock the British for the way in which we go on about the weather. What they fail to realise is that our weather is just a damn sight more interesting than anybody else’s. Foreign weather is so utterly predictable that it is simply not worth talking about. Where else but in Britain can one wake up on July morning not knowing whether to put on a sweater and sou’wester or a T-shirt and shorts.
Daily Telegraph
The English are completely mad with their pets. It’s not unusual for police forces to be mobilised to save a cat or dog from drowning.
French writer Agnes Catherine Poirer in her book
Les Nouveaux Anglais
Daily Mail
Next day the
Daily Telegraph
reported that fireman Doug Little saved a hamster with the kiss of life in a
smoke-filled
flat in Portsmouth.
Daily Telegraph
Agnes Poirer’s book also suggests that British society – including the upper class – is almost entirely reliant on alcohol and complains that in too many pubs the food comes straight from the microwave after days in the freezer. ‘Unremarkable wines are the norm.’
But, without doubt, the British are still the funniest, particularly about sex, which is complicated, clumsy and tortuous.
Daily Mail
The
Guardian
’s coverage of the Poirer book quotes her on the British being the kings of eccentricity: devotees of the queue, ardent monarchists, fanatical darts players, weather obsessives, and eaters of toast with baked beans in tomato sauce.’
The British Library’s acoustics are perfect. When one eminent reader broke wind there the cacophony ricocheted around the building with appalling ferocity, like a sniper’s bullet. Being terribly British, no-one said a thing.
Observer
‘It’s amazing – while 94 per cent of the British public insist they don’t use cannabis a third of us know someone who does’.
News of the World
Many Britons remain reluctant to give up their yards and inches to comply with EU instructions to go metric. Graham A. Feakins of London SE24 was delighted to report that ‘on a road sign near me there is a low bridge said to be 3.5 metres high, 70 yards ahead.’
Independent
‘We are still the second most important country on Earth. The trick of maintaining such influence, of course, is to go around pretending to be very bumbling and hopeless and self-deprecating, a skill at which we excel.’
Boris Johnson, who was elected as Mayor of London in May 2008.
Daily Telegraph
Duncan Campbell’s Diary in the
Guardian
picked up on a Sun story about a man who wanted to be a woman – and cut off his testicles.
B
UILDER
C
HOPS
N
UTS
AND
B
OLTS
was the headline, and this reminded Campbell of a policeman who did the same and carried on being a copper. His headline was N
O
N
OBBY
B
OBBY
K
EEPS
HIS
J
OBBY
.
Guardian
MAN WITH FALSE LEG HIT WITH TOILET LID
Watford Observer
headline which was a strong contender for Headline of the Week in the
Guardia
n
Diary on August 30 2007.
The case of a man who mistakenly used a tube of super glue instead of haemorrhoid cream was raised in a Commons committee as an example of unacceptable press intrusion after a tabloid newspaper ran the story under the headline:
J
OHN’S
G
ONE
P
OTTY
AND
G
LUED
U
P
HIS
B
OTTY
Daily Telegraph
The Press Association reports that a woman who was found headless in a laundry bag had died from neck injuries caused by a sharp instrument.
Guardian
Headline on a story about the 1957 Trans-Antarctic expedition:
V
IVIAN
F
UCHS
O
FF
YO THE
A
NTARTIC
Ken Battersby, Millom, Cumbria.
Daily Telegraph
The World Association of Newspapers ran full-page ads in May 2007 under the headline: P
EOPLE
S
AY
THE
S
ILLIEST
T
HINGS
. It included:
- Smoking kills. ‘If you are killed you’ve lost a very important part of your life.’ (Brooke Shields)
- ‘When your back’s against the wall it’s time to turn around and fight’ (John Major)
All papers
The
Guardian
Diary’s Headline of the Week competition produced this strong contender from the Stranraer and Wigtownshire Gazette:
M
AN
W
HO
K
ILLED
B
EST
F
RIEND
W
ARNED TO
B
EHAVE
Guardian
It was followed by ‘a first class effort’ from the
Star of Malaysia
:
S
TUDENT
M
AY BE
S
USPENDED FOR
S
TRANGLING HIS
T
EACHER
Guardian
Rupert Murdoch became concerned about the size of the drinks served up by the
Sun
’s first editor, Larry Lamb. He complained: ‘I don’t mind them drinking my Scotch, but do they have to drink it out of goldfish bowls?’
Sun
Former
Daily Express
editor Derek Marks once tried to phone the editor of the paper’s William Hickey gossip column at four in the afternoon. When he was told that the editor was still at lunch he demanded to know when he went to lunch. He was told, perfectly truthfully: ‘Yesterday, sir’.
Sun
A policeman told an Old Bailey jury that when he saw a man holding up a
Guardian
very close to his face he thought it was ‘rather strange behaviour’. Judge Martin Stephens, QC, interjected: ‘Reading the
Guardian
, you mean?’
Guardian
‘The old pouffe blamed for the fire at Douglas Cottages, as reported last week, referred to an item of furniture and not the owner’.
Dunoon Observer
Some recent headlines:
- P
OLICE
B
EGIN
C
AMPAIGN TO
R
UN
D
OWN
J
AYWALKERS - M
INERS
R
EFUSE TO
W
ORK
A
FTER
D
EATH - S
CHOOLS
D
ROP-
O
UTS CUT IN
H
ALF - R
ED
T
APE
H
OLDS
U
P
N
EW
B
RIDGE
Timothy Haas,
Reader’s Digest
Peter Ackroyd was 23 when he walked into the office of the
Spectator
magazine in 1973 to ask if he might do a review. The then editor, George Gale, asked if there was anything which might affect Ackroyd’s suitability. ‘A bit of a drinking problem,’ said Ackroyd. He was hired on the spot as literary editor.
Daily Telegraph
There are many jokes about how mean the BBC can be. A Times reader recalled how a learned professor, on being told that his talk had been accepted for a fee of £25, was said to have replied thanking the BBC with words to the effect: ‘I enclose a cheque for £25.’
David Townley, Banstead, Surrey.
The Times
The true inspiration for the BBC’s Flowerpot Men has been a source of dispute for years. The main cause of controversy is the word ‘flobbadob’. One of the men involved in the dispute claims that the word was invented by him and his brother to describe the sound they made when breaking wind in the bath.
Independent on Sunday
The
Astrological Magazine
announces that it is to cease publication ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’.
The Times
A
Brighton Argus
reader sent the paper a photograph of an exquisite rainbow over the seafront. They printed it in black and white.
Guardian
K. B. Thomas, of Shepperton, Middlesex, writes of a Northern Nigerian tribal chief being apprehended for eating the local tax inspector. ‘How much duller life will be when one can no longer alight upon such a sentence in the
Daily Telegraph
’s inimitable Obituaries page.’
Daily Telegraph
Andrew Pierce tells of meeting the Queen at a St James’s Palace reception. To my astonishment, she paused in front of me, said hello, and asked what I did. I stammered and muttered something like ‘You can’t speak to me’.
Unruffled, she said: ‘But I can… so who are you?’
‘I’m a journalist and was told that the Queen never speaks to the press.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘
The Times
.’
‘Ah. Rupert Murdoch. You’re quite right. I can’t talk to you.’
Daily Telegraph