Watching the English

SEX RULES AND ENGLISHNESS

What does all this tell us about Englishness? The characteristics revealed here are mostly the 'usual suspects' - humour, social dis-ease, hypocrisy, fair play, class-consciousness, courtesy, modesty, and so on. But what is becoming increasingly clear to me is that these defining characteristics of Englishness cannot be seen (pace Orwell, Priestley, Betjeman, Bryson, Paxman and all the other list-makers) just as a list of discrete, unconnected qualities or principles: they must be understood as a system of some sort.

Looking closely at the rules and behaviour patterns in this chapter, I see that most of them are products of a combination or interaction of at least two 'defining characteristics'. The knee-jerk humour rule is an example of the use of humour (a defining characteristic in its own right) to alleviate the symptoms of our social dis-ease (another defining characteristic).

Many of the flirting zones identified by the SAS Test also reveal interactions between defining characteristics. Our problems with singles' events and dating agencies - our need to pretend that we are gathering for some non-social purpose, and our squeamishness about the concept of 'dating' - seem to involve a combination of social dis-ease (again), hypocrisy and anti-earnestness (a subset of humour).

The clubbers' 'no sex please, we're too cool' rule is mainly just about hypocrisy, but worth mentioning here as it seems to confirm something I have been suspecting for a while, which is that English hypocrisy really is a special kind of hypocrisy, involving collusion in a sort of unspoken agreement to delude ourselves, rather than any deliberate deception of others.

The courtesy-flirting rule combines hypocrisy with another defining characteristic, courtesy. These two seem to go together a lot - 'polite egalitarianism' is another product of hypocrisy and courtesy, combined with class-consciousness.

The uncertainty principle is not a sign of repressed homosexuality, but an interaction of three defining characteristics of Englishness: social dis-ease + courtesy + fair play. The rules of banter are a product of social dis-ease + humour; the girlwatching rules involve both of these, with the addition of our special collective-delusion brand of hypocrisy. The marrying-up rule combines class-consciousness and hypocrisy; the sex-talk rules are social dis-ease symptoms treated with humour again, as is the funny-bottoms rule.

This is all rather crude at the moment - I'm sure the equations involved are more complex than these simple additions - but at least we're moving towards something that looks more like a diagram than a list. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I'm still hoping that by the end of the book I will have found some graphic way of illustrating the connections and interactions between the elements that make up our national character.

Finally, the 'punography' of page three, where the silly wordplay (which seems to be contagious, sorry) somehow cancels out the sexiness of the pictures, is another example of the English use of humour to neutralize potential embarrassment or offence - a 'social dis-ease + humour + courtesy' combo. Some cultures celebrate sex and the erotic; others (religious ones, mainly) neutralize sex by censorship; others (the US, parts of Scandinavia) neutralize it with po-faced, earnest political correctness. The English do it with humour.

60. B.L. de Muralt in Lettres sur les Anglais.

61. Some observers have puzzled over the fact that English males have nonetheless managed to produce some of the finest love poetry in the world. I see no contradiction: fine love poetry tends to be written when the object of one's affections is at a safe distance; also, it often reflects a love of words more than a love of women, and the Englishman's love of words has never been in question.

62. I hope it is clear that I mean no disrespect to Jeremy Paxman with these quibbles. Quite the opposite: it is because his book is so good that it is worth quibbling with.