Barmy Britain (4 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
A Scotsman convicted of beating up his partner turned out to be an anger management counsellor.
Independent on Sunday
A rape trial was halted after defence counsel accused the judge of falling asleep. Next day Geoffrey W. Davey reminded The Times of an incident in Darlington County Court when the judge closed his eyes. From the back of the court came the comment: ‘The old b*****d has gone to sleep’. The judge opened one eye and replied: ‘The old b*****d hasn’t’.
The Times
A judge ordered a man from Ramsgate, Kent, to pay his former wife
£
1 for the pineapple he damaged when he hit her with it during an argument.
Thanet Times
Judge Jeremy Roberts adjourned a kidnap case at the Old Bailey and went to watch his horse race at Ascot. It came 12th.
Sunday Telegraph
The Police Federation magazine
Police
tells of thieves who raided a soccer clubhouse in Surrey. They wheeled away their haul of drink on the club’s white-line marking machine – and the police tracked down the villains by following the white line.
Daily Mail
Suspicious staff in a Portsmouth store checked on a man when he went into one of their changing rooms. They found he was wearing a bra and knickers he had stolen for his wife.
Sun / Sunday Telegraph
A thief stole a briefcase from a synagogue in Stamford Hill, North London. All it contained was a set of circumcision tools.
Sun
In Scotland, it is illegal to be drunk in charge of a cow.
Observer
A Swindon man who dialled 999 when thieves tried to steal his cannabis plants was arrested when police found 46 plants at his home.
Western Daily Press
When Thames river police cautioned a woman yachtsman for speeding they said: ‘Who do you think you are – Tracy Edwards?’ ‘Yes’, replied the lady skippering
Maiden II
, the proven fastest yacht in the world.
The Times
A thief who has been taking furniture piece by piece from a fast food restaurant in Norwich has been invited by the owner to take a sixth chair to complete a dining set.
Norwich Evening News
A thief snatched a handbag from an 86-year-old woman who was out with her dog at Netley Abbey, Southampton – then found the handbag contained only the contents of a poop-scoop.
Daily Telegraph
A burglar who stole a BMW from outside a house he had broken into in Old Basing, Hampshire, was arrested next morning when police found him asleep inside it.
The Times
A thief hiding in bushes after stealing a
battery-operated
Buzz Lightyear toy from a Hereford shop was caught when police heard the intergalactic law enforcer shouting: ‘Buzz Lightyear… permission to engage’.
Daily Telegraph
A Mafia hitman charged with two murders told a court: ‘It was not me. That night I was killing someone else.’
Independent
When an earthquake damaged homes in Kent, victims went down the pub to watch football…
Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean is a clumsy, gurning, bumbling, birdbrain – and undeniably British…
If you ask a non-Brit to describe Mr Bean, these are the words they deliver back: ‘Hapless, awkward,
self-conscious
, childlike, disaster prone….and British.’
Guardian
Next day
Guardian
reader Brian Denoon, of Inverness wrote: ‘Your appreciation of Mr Bean as the epitome of Britishness will boost the desire of Scots to become independent. This cringeworthy creature could not be anything other than English.’
Guardian
There was a very British response when the fourth largest UK earthquake shook Kent in April 2007 – people emerged from their damaged homes and went down the pub to watch football.
Independent on Sunday
British tradesmen drink the equivalent of 1.3 BATHFULS of tea each year.
Direct Line
When packing for their holidays 51% of Britons take baked beans, 46% HP sauce, 23% teabags and 19% loo rolls.
Independent on Sunday
During a 2007 visit to Washington, then Prime Minister Tony Blair demonstrated once again that he is truly a man-of-the-people.
After talking about his plans to promote understanding among people of different faiths and bring peace to the Middle East he went on to tackle a problem which really does concern the British: the difficulty of finding a really good cup of tea. ‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘This is a British tradition that must not be lost. If I were running for office again, I’d make it a major part of any platform.’
Daily Telegraph
Britons have a bewildering lack of knowledge about their country according to a survey commissioned by UKTV History. It revealed:
- Four in ten think the bulldog is the animal that symbolises the country. It is, of course, the lion, which is has been part of the Royal Arms since the Plantagenets.
- A quarter said the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall are among the Seven Wonders of the World, confusing them with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
- One in five think the Pennines are between France and Spain.
- Fifteen per cent think Hadrian’s Wall is in China.
The Times
The 2007 Rough Guide names 25 things to do in Britain before you die. Among them:
- See the Belfast murals.
- Sup Guinness.
- Breathe in the sea air in Tobermory.
- Hunt ghosts in York.
- Gorge your way through Birmingham’s Balti triangle.
- Go clubbing in London.
- Visit the best beach in Britain: Holkham, Norfolk. (The Queen’s bathing hut is in the woods just behind the nudist beach.)
Daily Telegraph
Journalist Cole Moreton went in search of polite society after it was reported that schools were to have Civility Classes. When a man dropped his plastic pint beer glass in a pub Moreton said: ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped something.’ The beery bloke lurched forward, chest thrust out and fists clenched, slurring: ‘Wassyer problem?’
Maybe, wrote Moreton, if the man had been to a civility class, he would have said: ‘Yes, I see the error of my ways. I will hasten to a bin. Thank you for helping me to be a better citizen.’ Or maybe not.
Modern Britons are rude and getting ruder.
Independent on Sunday
Bestselling American author Bill Bryson has a deep knowledge and an absolute passion for England’s heritage. So it was no surprise when, in May 2007, he became president of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. He lived in England for a long time and then went back to the States, intending his return to be permanent. But, he says, he ‘spent the next eight years pining for Radio 4, the English sense of humour – and Branston pickle.’
He once wrote of Blackpool: ‘On Friday and Saturday nights it has more public toilets than anywhere else. Elsewhere they call them doorways.’
And of Liverpool: ‘They were having a festival of litter when I arrived.’
Guardian
In February 2008 a small addition was made to England’s treasury of listed buildings – a rare surviving example of a late 18th century privy, even rarer because it is a three-seater where parents and child ‘could sit down peacefully together and let nature take its course’. It is in the grounds of an old farmhouse in Kent and the proud owner says: ‘It faces towards the evening sun and is the most delightful place to sit with a glass of wine and the door open, and just be peaceful and sit and think’.
Guardian
The report of the three-seat privy reminded David Critchlow, of Poole, Dorset, of the time he stopped at a cottage in Cornwall so that a friend could relieve herself. The elderly woman owner told her where the privy was and said: ‘Do mind out for the chicken’. When the friend opened the door the chicken was nesting on the second hole.
Guardian
Only a third of Britons would mind missing the Queen’s Christmas speech. 62% would not mind if the Trooping of the Colour disappeared.
But fewer than a third would give up Sunday lunch or beer in pints, and 85% would not surrender days out at the seaside.
YouGov survey in the
Daily Mail
‘This country is a blessed nation. The British are special, the world knows it. This is the greatest nation on Earth.’ (Tony Blair’s exit speech, 10 May 2007.) Next day the Guardian asked: ‘Are we the greatest?’, and listed some areas where we excel:
- 38.1% of British 15-year-olds have had sex – the highest figure in the developed world.
- British house price inflation is higher than any other developed nation.
- Haydn Pitchforth, of Leeds, is world champion bog snorkeller.
Guardian
How could Hitler ever have made the mistake of thinking that he could conquer this blessed nation? On 14 May 1940 the
Manchester Guardian
(as it then was) reported Churchill’s ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’ speech.
It also carried an article that dealt with another pressing matter indicating the gravity of the sacrifices facing a nation in peril. People, it said, can affect an economy by doing without a maid – making her services available for more essential work.
Guardian
And Kaiser Wilhelm was surely foolish to ignore this admonition: ‘We give this solemn warning to the Kaiser: The
Skibereen Eagle
has its eye on you’.
The
Skibereen Eagle
quoted in
The Times
A
Daily Telegraph
reader was invited to a wedding in Salzburg which required guests to turn up in national costume. He asked for advice and got this from Richard Woodward of Nottingham:
- Develop an enormous beer gut and a bright pink suntan.
- Wear a beer stained England football shirt.
- Behave boorishly.
- Chant futile songs and demand to know where the nearest kebab shop is.
Alan Wright, of Bristol, said that the choice of national costume should comprise knotted handkerchief, white shirt with rolled up sleeves, grey flannels supported by braces, and sandals with socks.
Daily Telegraph
A survey reveals that Britons have collectively wasted £169 billion buying things they never wear or hardly ever use. The average person has squandered £3,685 on pointless purchases. Half admit to having expensive clothing they never wear, 35% have a pair of unworn shoes, and 35% are members of a gym they never attend.
Daily Telegraph
The British take their traditions seriously – and dangerously. The annual cheese rolling tradition takes place on Cooper’s Hill, near Stroud, which has, in places, a one-in-three gradient. Participants hurl themselves after huge, wheel-shaped Double Gloucester Cheeses, and spectators gasp at the speed of the races and the violence of the tumbles. The cheeses sometimes veer into the crowd as they hurtle down the steep hill.
The
Times
headline on the 2007 event was:
C
HEESE
R
OLLERS
G
ET
O
FF
L
IGHTLY
. O
NLY
20 H
URT
The organiser commented: ‘Last year it was almost double that. Some would like to see it stopped, but it’s a British tradition.’
The Times
The British builder’s mug of tea is as much a part of his tools of the trade as his shovel or electric drill. Tony Aldous, of London, told the Guardian of the days when he worked on a building site:
‘A galvanised bucket of dubious cleanliness was half filled from a hosepipe and a packet of tea, half a packet of sugar and a tin of condensed milk was added and then brought to the boil. ‘A matter of taste,’ said Mr Aldous, ‘but it certainly laid the dust’.
Guardian
Great Britain, once epitomised by the stiff upper lip, modesty and minding your own business, has been replaced by a land of burger-eating binge drinkers, pornography addicts and followers of so-called celebrities. The 2007
Lonely Planet
guide says:
- More Britons vote in TV talent shows than in elections.
- Sherwood Forest now has more tourists than trees.
- Rudeness and lack of generosity tarnish Britons.
- They have a poor dress sense and are noisy, untidy and are miserly tippers.
- Without doubt you can find great food in Britain… It’s just that not all Brits seem to like eating it.
The Times
Britons have voted Stonehenge the most disappointing tourist spectacle in the UK. Also on the list are:
- Blackpool Tower
- Land’s End
- Diana’s Memorial Fountain
- The London Eye
- Buckingham Palace
- White Cliffs of Dover
- Big Ben
The problem might be that people come to the most well known sights with expectations already raised too high – and an unrealistic desire to see them minus the crowds.
Guardian
In August 2007 Southwold on the Sussex coast was named in a survey as the quintessential British holiday resort. The survey looked at factors that people thought made resorts uniquely British and Southwold topped the poll because of its traditional beach huts, its large choice of fish and chip shops, a working lighthouse, donkey rides, plenty of deckchairs, amusement arcades, scenic countryside – and rude postcards.
The availability of fish and chips was considered the most important factor.
Daily Telegraph
David Joss Buckley, of London, didn’t think much of August 2007, and wrote to the Guardian:
‘South London, August 21. First hot-water bottle of the year. Is this a record?’
Guardian
Ralph Hawkins, of Ware, Hertfordshire, wrote how he met tea made by the method described by Mr Aldous when on his first guard duty on national service. Kept hot on the stove all night it became the colour of dark mahogany ‘with a taste all its own’. The guard commander called it ‘desert tea – without the sand’.
Guardian
August 2007 was a wicked month. Wet, cold, windy. 80 coaches brought 5,000 French people to Margate, Kent, for ‘a taste of the real England’. They were greeted by ‘gunmetal skies, horizontal winds and a blattering drizzle to sample the traditional British seaside pursuits of huddling in bus shelters and picking sand from their sandwiches.’
The
Guardia
n printed a picture of French visitors sitting on towels on the damp sand underneath a sign which said: ‘Welcome to Margate’s Main Sands. Deckchairs and Sunbeds for your Pleasure and Leisure’.
Roger Latchford, deputy leader of the local council, said: ‘I did a sun dance with our events team. Regrettably it doesn’t seem to have worked.’
Guardian
The
Daily Telegrap
h gathered together some definitions of a British gentleman:
- A man who still uses the butter knife even when dining alone.
- A man who has never previously heard your joke.
- A man who believes a woman when he knows she is telling lies.
- A man who can play the bagpipes but doesn’t.
Daily Telegraph
Following stories that more and more Brits are leaving to live abroad, the
Daily Telegraph
published Thirty Reasons to Stay in Britain. Reason number one was that there is never a problem getting a Polish plumber, followed by:
- You can’t get a decent chicken tikka masala anywhere else.
- A day at Lord’s, the most civilised sporting venue in the world.
- Cheese rolling in Gloucestershire. Bog snorkelling in Wales. Barrel burning in Lewes. No one does bonkers traditions like they do here.
- Best place for barbecuing in the rain.
Daily Telegraph
The British do not like folk messing about with their beloved icons. Hence all the hoo-ha when marmalade-loving Paddington Bear was depicted enjoying Marmite sandwiches.
‘What next?’ wrote Keith Whitford, of Cornwall, ‘Desperate Dan tucking into spinach and ricotta pie?’
‘Whatever next?’ wrote Colin Bath, of Somerset. ‘Pooh and peanut butter?’
The Times
To see Paddington eating a Marmite sandwich somehow undermines the marrow of our being.
It is like seeing Winston Churchill lighting up a pipe.
Independent on Sunday
Elaine Davies, of Somerset, wrote: ‘The furore could have been avoided if the advertiser had depicted Paddington enjoying my favourite: Marmite and marmalade sandwiches.’