by Mark Easton
What is happening is that market globalisation and industrial standardisation are driving the development of a corporate international lavatory culture. Designers and technicians are working to banish the anxiety of using a ‘foreign loo’, whether it be a Londoner in Lille or a Saudi in Salford. In Britain, though, I doubt that the expertise of the finest engineers in the world will be able to neutralise the whiffs of class and snobbery that have always pervaded the (shudder) toilet.
U is for Umbrella
When the bid team for the 2012 Olympics put together their video to sell London to the world, they felt bound to include dark-suited, bowler-hatted City gents using their trademark black umbrellas like épées. It was a knowing nod to the way many people around the world think of Britain: sombre, reserved, slightly eccentric and wet.
Precisely rolled, with Malacca cane and gold-plated collar, the traditional umbrella has become global shorthand for a national cliché. It is both the ceremonial sword of the archetypal British gentleman and a symbol of a country where, as the Roman historian Tacitus declared in AD 94, ‘the sky is overcast with continual rain and cloud.’ Two thousand years later, and the American travel writer Bill Bryson made the same point: ‘Sometimes it rained, but mostly it was just dull, a land without shadows. It was like living inside Tupperware.’ Britain, with its moderate and unspectacular climate, is summed up by the benign brolly.
There could be worse associations: the umbrella is eminently practical and prudent, but it also has an ingenious trick up its sleeve. When required, a dull stick may transform itself into an exuberant canopy: first impressions belying a hidden and unexpectedly flamboyant face — rather like the British people themselves, some might suggest. The umbrella, I think, does tell us something important about Britain, but it is not what people imagine. So, let us consider this ingenious contraption.
In 1871, the Victorian writer William Sangster thought it unbelievable that a busy people like the English had ‘ever been ignorant of the blessings bestowed on them by that dearest and truest friend in need and in deed, the umbrella’. The umbrella (or parasol) may have Chinese origins, it may have been familiar to the ancient Greeks, the technology may owe much to the ingenuity of German and French designers, but as a handy protection against a shower rather than the sun, it is widely regarded as a British accessory.
Women were the first to spot the potential of the umbrella, using it to keep off the English rain as early as 1705. Englishmen took a while to catch up, perhaps nervous of being seen as the wally with the brolly (as an England football manager would later be terminally lampooned). The eccentric philanthropist Jonas Hanway ostentatiously carried one in London from around 1750, enduring much derision for doing so. Hackney coachmen apparently saw its use as a threat to their business and would ‘toot and hustle’ Hanway into the kerb, attempting to splash him with ‘guttersludge’. The cabbies needn’t have worried; you can never find a taxi in the rain to this day, even though the umbrella has become a ubiquitous feature of national life.
It is an ancient and familiar notion, that people can be defined by their habitat. In about AD 7, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo hinted at an association between Britain’s rainy and foggy weather and the locals’ temperament, ‘simple and barbaric — so much so that, on account of their inexperience, some of them although well supplied with milk, make no cheese’. (See ‘C is for Cheese’.)
The suggestion was that the damp, gloomy climate had incubated an uncivilised, backward race.
Strabo was drawing upon accepted wisdom. Four centuries earlier, Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, had drawn powerful links between climate and regional disposition, ideas that he used to explain the dominance of Greek culture. Asian peoples lacked courage, endurance, industry and high spirit, he argued, because the weather was too uniform and balanced. The Europeans on the other hand, stimulated by severe heatwaves, severe winters, droughts and copious rains, responded to such climatic ‘jolts’ with energy and bravery.
In 1733, the Scottish doctor and writer John Arbuthnot attempted to apply the theory to the British Isles. His Essay Concerning the Effects of the Air on Human Bodies built its central argument upon measurements obtained from his barometer, an invention that had found an energetic market among Britain’s army of weather obsessives. He concluded that variations in atmospheric pressure found in cold northern climes meant citizens had ‘greater activity and courage’. People in hot countries, by contrast, were free from such agitations and sensations, rendering them ‘lazy and indolent’. In short, barometric readings explained why northern Europeans, notably the British, were more civilised than others.
The barometer helped inspire an extraordinary period of meteorological record-keeping in Britain, with enthusiasts and academics keeping detailed weather diaries in the belief that, through observation and measurement, science might render the country’s capricious climate explainable and predictable. In the 1660s, members of the newly formed Royal Society encouraged data collection and research: Robert Hooke published a ‘Method for Making a History of the Weather’ and John Locke kept a weather diary for almost forty years.
The contemporary historian Jan Golinski, who studied many meticulous accounts, concluded ‘the compilation of weather diaries can be understood as part of the large-scale enterprise of “civilising nature”.’ It was as though the country wanted to demonstrate that its gentle, moderate climate was indicative of the self-control that made Britain great. By understanding our weather, we might understand ourselves.
Samuel Johnson, however, took a rather more dismissive view of the ‘inspectors of barometers’, whose confidence in their ability to predict the weather was, he thought, akin to believing in bugbears and goblins. ‘The oraculous glasses have deceived their votaries; shower has succeeded shower, though they predicted sunshine and dry skies; and by fatal confidence in these fallacious promises, many coats have lost their gloss and many curls have been moistened to flaccidity.’ Dr Johnson famously mocked this peculiar fixation with daily forecasting, observing that ‘when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather. They are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.’
However, eighteenth-century science continued to challenge ancient superstition that rain-ruined harvests and drought-shrivelled crops signified divine vengeance or that the activities of the heavens were random, unfathomable phenomena. The daily tapping of barometers marked out a rhythmic determination to explain how mild British weather had sculpted the great British people.
The Scots philosopher David Hume was unconvinced. ‘The only observation, with regard to the difference of men in different climates, on which we can rest any weight, is the vulgar one, that people in the northern regions have a greater inclination to strong liquors, and those in the southern to love and women,’ he wrote. Even this association was doubtful, Hume felt, given the Greeks who ‘seem much addicted to the bottle’.
The unpredictability and variety of the British weather, however, has always played powerfully upon this nation’s sense of itself. Each morning, pulling back the curtains, the population prepares itself for what may be outside. A clear blue sky might lift the spirits; flat grey cloud may prompt correspondingly neutral shrugs; dreary drizzle is likely to be met by sinking hearts. How can one deny that sunshine or showers, convivial warmth or bitter cold, don’t help set the mood and perhaps, over time, the personality of a people? It is a persuasive argument — but does it stack up?
During the last few decades, a significant amount of research has been conducted into the relationship between mood and weather, with scientists looking for a link between atmospheric condition and personal disposition. Do high temperatures make people passionate? Does precipitation dampen enthusiasm? Are people happier in summer than in winter?
Analysis in the 1970s and 80s variously suggested that high pressure, high temperature and low humidity were associated with positive
emotions — basically, nice weather seemed to put people in a good mood. More recent research, however, has challenged this assertion with a number of studies suggesting the link is either very small or non-existent. One paper published in 2008 concluded that ‘the idea that pleasant weather increases people’s positive mood in general is not supported by the findings of this study’.
The author of that research, Jaap Denissen, accepted that his conclusions apparently contradicted common sense, but insisted that there could be a number of factors to explain the discrepancy between empirical results and widely held beliefs. For example, it may be that historical associations between good weather and having enough food and shelter have been culturally transmitted down the ages. He also suggested that the discrepancy might be down to the impact of a small number of extreme cases in which people’s mental health is genuinely affected by the weather.
Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, was first described and named by the South African psychiatrist Norman Rosenthal in 1984, who noticed that after his move from sub-tropical Johannesburg to seasonal New York he was less energetic and productive in the winter months. Often described as ‘winter blues’, Rosenthal found the condition was more prevalent in northern latitudes: virtually no one in sunny Florida was diagnosed with the condition, while almost one in ten of the population further north in New Hampshire was said to suffer from SAD.
In Britain, the disorder is thought to affect around 7 per cent of people. Most of them suffer during the winter months, but it applies to people who become depressed at the change of any season. The Observer newspaper columnist Barbara Ellen has written about her experience of what is sometimes called reverse-SAD: ‘With me, SAD hits when the days get longer and brighter,’ she revealed. ‘I know when summer is coming because suddenly I feel wrong. I don’t make sense in the summer, everything is too hot, too hopeless, too bewildering. I always feel I’m half a beat behind the world, playing an eternal game of catch-up.’
Science is still trying to make sense of what is going on. The link between cold, dark climates and depression seems so plausible and yet Icelanders exhibit remarkably low levels of SAD. Some suggest this might be down to a genetic factor (Canadians of Icelandic origin also appear to have lower levels of SAD), while others think they may be protected by eating lots of fish, a diet high in Vitamin D.
The British public, it seems, remains largely committed to the view that if it lived in a warm, sunny environment instead of enduring waves of Atlantic cloud and rain, everyone would be a lot happier. For proof, people confidently assert that suicide rates are higher in countries straddling the Arctic Circle. But are they?
Proportionately, far more people kill themselves in the warmth of South Korea than in the chill of Scandinavia. Finland, which has the highest suicide rate of the Nordic nations, has a similar level to France and Belgium. The Swedes have long tried to explode the myth that their climate makes them a depressive bunch, blaming a speech by President Eisenhower in 1960 for an association between European socialism and suicide. World Health Organization data suggest Sweden’s rate is roughly in line with South Africa, Hong Kong and New Zealand.
The idea that a warm, sunny climate makes us happier doesn’t hold up. The countries with the highest levels of reported well-being, the places where people themselves say their lives are great, tend to be those experiencing long, cold winters: Canada, Sweden, Finland and Norway regularly feature in the top positions. If climate is having an effect, it is more than offset by other factors.
And yet. And yet. And yet. I know that I feel chirpier when the gloomy days of a British winter give way to spring, when the clouds break and sunshine strokes my face, when the interminable flatness of creamy skies is replaced by sharp contrasts of light and shade. Immediately following a rain shower, when the sun bursts out and sparkles on puddles through clean, fresh air, colours are brighter and senses somehow keener, as if a divine technician had cranked up the chroma and the brightness — those moments are profoundly exhilarating. Don’t tell me that is not real.
Perhaps the explanation is hidden in a newspaper article from New Delhi in India a couple of years ago. ‘A sudden spell of drizzle in some parts of the national capital lifted the mood of its residents, as many people took time off from work to enjoy the pleasant weather,’ it read. One city dweller apparently decided to stay indoors and watch the rain through his window. ‘It’s beautiful weather and I was dying to get back home fast and curl up with a book and a cup of coffee while hearing the light pitter-patter of the rain on the roof,’ Rashmi Jain was quoted as saying.
The story suggests that it is not the type of weather that is as important for our mood as the change from one meteorological condition to another. While an English tourist in New Delhi might have cursed the damp, cloudy conditions so similar to what he’d left at home, locals who had endured weeks of dry heat were reportedly delighted by the break in the weather. In Britain in 1976, after weeks of boiling weather and drought conditions, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson instructed one of his ministers to do a rain dance. When the heavens did indeed open a few days later, the nation rejoiced.
There is evidence that people become habituated to the weather, that the thrill felt on the first beautiful summer’s day is less on the second and virtually non-existent after a month of such conditions. In 1998, David Schkade and Daniel Kahneman published a paper entitled, ‘Does Living in California Make People Happy?’ The two professors had noticed what they described as ‘a stereotyped perception that people are happier in California… anchored in the perceived superiority of the California climate’. Two interesting conclusions emerged from their research: firstly, tanned Californians were no happier than people from the Midwest, with its wind and rain; second, of all the factors that affected people’s life satisfaction, weather was listed at the bottom. Midwesterners moaned about the weather more than Californians, but that didn’t appear to make much difference to their overall contentment.
If change in the weather is more important than the weather itself, then perhaps (as Hippocrates suggested) it is the very unpredictability and variable nature of the British experience that shapes the national character. Tupperware skies are always promising or threatening something else. Our caution and conservatism may be the product of countless daily reactions to the cheery weather girl with her symbols, the newspaper weather map with its swirling isobars, or the view from the window at breakfast.
To put it another way, it is less the umbrella that defines us, as the fact that we feel the need to carry one.
V is for Vegetables
The Battle of Rawmarsh School was a skirmish in a feudal food fight that has been rumbling along for centuries. On one side, the professional classes — teachers and nutritionists led by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, determined to improve the quality of school meals eaten by pupils at a Rotherham comp. On the other, working-class mothers equally determined that their children should not be forced to eat rabbit food, the salads and vegetables which had replaced burgers and, famously, deep-fried turkey twizzlers on the menu.
The press chronicled how, one afternoon in 2006, three mums posted buns and chips to their children through the school railings ‘like day trippers feeding animals at the zoo’. The story encapsulated the ancient link between class and diet in Britain — more particularly on this occasion, the changing standing of vegetables. From peasant fodder to superfood, from working-class staple to middle-class statement, from the humble turnip to the flowering baby courgette, our relationship with veg has been turned on its head.
For King Henry VIII to have been seen eating a carrot stick would have been to betray England’s social order; as shocking today as a YouTube clip of the Queen secretly guzzling a monster chicken bargain bucket. Vegetables were the food of the poor and their place at the Tudor top table was restricted to a few small ‘sallets’ and garnishes surrounded by colossal quantities of expensive meat. If a vegetable did make an appearance at the feast, it was presented i
n an almost ironic way, like mini fish ’n’ chip canapés at a corporate networking function. One recipe for ‘an Excellent Sallet… usual at great Feasts, and upon Princes’ Tables’ consisted of a spoonful of herbs, fruit and nuts smothered in sugar.
The French penchant for fresh green vegetables was regarded with suspicion in Britain where, from the Middle Ages, the veggie option had consisted largely of onions, leeks, turnips and garlic, the occasional cucumber and a handful of dried peas or beans.
For peasants, food was fuel. The daily challenge was to consume enough calories to survive a life of toil and poverty. The question ‘what’s for dinner?’ would almost invariably be answered the same way: pottage. A glamorous definition of the dish might be a rustic stew of meat or fish with grains, herbs and vegetables. In reality it was oats and water with the odd turnip, a bone or two, apple cores and some dandelion leaves chucked in for flavour. The cooking process — boil for hours over a fire until all ingredients have been absorbed into a homogenous gloop — was designed to minimise the significant health risk from the fertiliser often spread on the fields: human excrement. Vegetables were consumed because they were available, not as a good source of sustenance. For a landless rural worker and his family, they might be a last resort as hunger closed in; gathered from the wild, rustled from private gardens or pilfered from stores of animal feed.
The nobility, meanwhile, used the dining table to display their social status, measured by the range and sheer quantity of dead birds and animals on offer. So unhealthy was this carnivorous bingeing that the wealthiest Tudors were the first group to suffer the obesity and other health problems associated these days with poverty and deprivation. A refusal to eat their greens meant noblemen were prone to mild forms of scurvy, bladder and kidney problems. Gout, a painful arthritic condition often caused by too much meat and drink, was regarded as the disease of kings.