How to be a Brit

by George Mikes

  3. Civil Servants never make decisions, they only promise to ‘consider’ – ‘consider favourably’ – or – and this is the utmost – ‘reconsider’ certain questions.

  4. In principle the British Civil Servant stands always at the disposal of the public. In practice he is either in ‘conference’ or out for lunch, or in but having his tea, or just out. Some develop an admirable technique of going out for tea before coming back from lunch.

  The British Civil Servant, unlike the rough bully we often find on the Continent, is the Obedient Servant of the public. Before the war, an alien in this country was ordered to leave. He asked for extension of his staying permit, but was refused. He stayed on all the same, and after a while he received the following letter (I quote from memory):

  Dear Sir,

  The Under-Secretary of State presents his compliments and regrets that he is unable to reconsider your case, and begs to inform you that unless you kindly leave this country within twenty-four hours you will be forcibly expelled.

  Your Obedient Servant,

  X X X

  On the Continent rich and influential people, or those who have friends, cousins, brothers-in-law, tenants, business associates, etc., in an office may have their requests fulfilled. In England there is no such corruption and your Obedient Servant just will not do a thing whoever you may be. And this is the real beauty of democracy.

  Journalism or the Freedom of the Press

  The Fact

  There was some trouble with the Buburuk tribe in the Pacific Island, Charamak. A party of ten English and two American soldiers, under the command of Capt. R. L. A. T. W. Tilbury, raided the island and took 217 revolutionary, native troublemakers prisoner and wrecked two large oil-dumps. The party remained ashore an hour-and-a-half and returned to their base without loss to themselves.

  How to report this event? It depends which newspaper you work for.

  THE TIMES

  … It would be exceedingly perilous to overestimate the significance of the raid, but it can be fairly proclaimed that it would be even more dangerous to underestimate it. The success of the raid clearly proves that the native defences are not invulnerable; it would be fallacious and deceptive, however, to conclude that these defences are vulnerable. The number of revolutionaries captured cannot be safely stated, but it seems likely that the number is well over 216 but well under 218.

  IN THE HOUSE

  You may become an M.P. (Nothing is impossible – this would not be even unprecedented.) You may hear then the following statement by a member of Her Majesty’s Government:

  ‘Concerning the two wrecked oil-dumps I can give this information to the House. In the first half of this year the amount of native oil destroyed by the Army, Navy and the R.A.F. – excluding however, the Fleet Air Arm – is one-half as much as three times the amount destroyed during the corresponding months of the previous year, seven and a half times as much as the two-fifths destroyed two years ago and three-quarters as much again as twelve times one-sixth destroyed three years ago.’ (Loud cheers from the Government benches.)

  You jump to your feet and ask this question:

  YOU: Is the Right Hon. Gentleman aware that people in this country are puzzled and worried by the fact that Charamak was raided and not Ragamak?

  THE RIGHT HON. MEMBER: I have nothing to add to my statement given on the 2nd August, 1892.

  EVENING STANDARD

  (Londoner’s Diary)

  The most interesting feature of the Charamak raid is the fact that Reggie Tilbury is the fifth son of the Earl of Bayswater. He was an Oxford Blue, a first-class cricketer and quite good at polo. When I talked to his wife (Lady Clarisse, the daughter of Lord Elasson) at Claridges today, she wore a black suit and a tiny black hat with a yellow feather in it. She said: ‘Reggie was always very much interested in warfare.’ Later she remarked: ‘It was clever of him, wasn’t it?’

  You may write a letter to the Editor of The Times:

  Sir, – In connection with the Charamak raid I should like to mention as a matter of considerable interest that it was in that little Pacific Island that the distinguished English poet, John Flat, wrote his famous poem ‘The Cod’ in 1693. Yours, etc. …

  An early interest in warfare

  You may read this answer on the following day.

  Sir, – I am very grateful to Mr … for calling attention to John Flat’s poem ‘The Cod’. May I be allowed to use this opportunity, however, to correct a widespread and in my view very unfortunate error which the great masses of the British people seem to share with your correspondent. ‘The Cod’, although John Flat started writing it in 1693, was only finished in the early days of January 1694.

  Yours, etc. …

  If you are the London correspondent of the American paper

  THE OKLAHOMA SUN

  simply cable this:

  ‘Yanks Conquer Pacific Ocean.’

  If Naturalized

  The verb to naturalize clearly proves what the British think of you. Before you are admitted to British citizenship you are not even considered a natural human being. I looked up the word natural (na′tural) in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (p. 251); it says: Of or according to or provided by nature, physically existing, innate, instinctive, normal, not miraculous or spiritual or artificial or conventional … Note that before you obtain British citizenship, they simply doubt that you are provided by nature.

  According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary the word ‘natural’ has a second meaning, too: Half-witted person. This second meaning, however, is irrelevant from the point of view of our present argument.

  If you are tired of not being provided by nature, not being physically existing and being miraculous and conventional at the same time, apply for British citizenship. Roughly speaking, there are two possibilities: it will be granted to you, or not.

  In the first case you must recognize and revise your attitude to life. You must pretend that you are everything you are not and you must look down upon everything you are.

  Copy the attitude of an English acquaintance of mine – let us call him Gregory Baker. He, an English solicitor, feels particularly deep contempt for the following classes of people: foreigners, Americans, Frenchmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen, Jews, workers, clerks, poor people, non-professional men, business-men, actors, journalists and literary men, women, solicitors who do not practise in his immediate neighbourhood, solicitors who are hard up and solicitors who are too rich, Socialists, Liberals, Tory-reformers (Communists are not worthy even of his contempt); he looks down upon his mother, because she has a business mind, his wife, because she comes from a non-professional county family, his brother, because although he is a professional officer he does not serve with the Guards, Hussars, or at least with a county regiment. He adores and admires his seven years old son, because the shape of his nose resembles his own.

  If naturalized, remember these rules:

  1. You must start eating porridge for breakfast and allege that you like it.

  2. Speak English with your former compatriots. Deny that you know any foreign language (including your mother tongue). The knowledge of foreign languages is very un-English. A little French is permissible, but only with an atrocious accent.

  3. Revise your library. Get rid of all foreign writers whether in the original or translated into English. The works of Dostoyevsky should be replaced by a volume on English birds; the collected works of Proust by a book called ‘Interior Decoration in the Regency Period’; and Pascal’s Pensées by the ‘Life and Thoughts of a Scottish Salmon’.

  4. Speaking of your new compatriots, always use the first person plural.

  In this aspect, though, a certain caution is advisable. I know a na′turalized Britisher who, talking to a young man, repeatedly used the phrase ‘We Englishmen’. The young man looked at him, took his pipe out of his mouth and remarked softly: ‘Sorry, Sir, I’m a Welshman,’ turned his back on him and walked away.

  The same gentleman was listeni
ng to a conversation. It was mentioned that the Japanese had claimed to have shot down twenty-two planes.

  ‘What – ours?’ he asked indignantly.

  His English hostess answered icily:

  ‘No – ours.’

  HOW TO BE

  COMING OF AGE IN ENGLAND

  The sincerest form of flattery

  Coming of Age

  It was twenty-one years ago that England and I first set foot on each other. I came for a fortnight; I have stayed ever since. As a man I am in my forties; as an inhabitant of Britain I am just twenty-one. I was only seven when my first child was born. I have come of age; which is more than England can boast of.

  In these past twenty-one years England has gained me and lost an Empire. The net gain was small. I used to pronounce my name Me-cash but nowadays most people say Mikes to rhyme with likes. The Empire now pronounces its name Commonwealth – to rhyme with nothing at all.

  Many things have changed in the last two decades. The Britain of 1960 is vastly different from the Britain of 1938, and even from the Britain of 1946, when I first published my impressions of this country under the title How to be an Alien. The time has come, I feel, to revisit England.

  When I first came here, Englishmen were slim and taciturn, while today they are slim and taciturn. Then, they were grunting and inscrutable; today they are grunting and inscrutable. Then, they were honest, likeable but not too quick on the uptake; today they are honest, likeable but no quicker on the uptake. Then, they kept discussing the weather rather dully; today they keep discussing the weather much more dully. Then, their main interests were cricket, horses and dogs, while today their main interests are dogs, horses and cricket. Then, the main newspaper topics were sex, crime and money, while today it is money, money, money and crime with a little sex somewhat perfunctorily thrown in. Then, Britain was being inundated by blooming* foreigners and she did not like it. Today foreigners are called visitors, tourists and other fancy names – and in extreme emergency, when shortage of foreign currency is too pressing – even Distinguished Europeans. We must all exercise the greatest care, because the resemblance between a Distinguished European and a bloody foreigner is most misleading.

  Then, Britons travelled to the Continent, drank tea with milk in Paris, ate roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in Monte Carlo, kept to one another’s company everywhere and were proud of their insularity; today they drink tea with milk in Paris, eat roast beef with Yorkshire pudding in Monte Carlo, keep to one another’s company everywhere and are proud of how cosmopolitan they have become.

  In those happy days – Munich crisis or no Munich crisis – no one really knew where Czechoslovakia was: the problem was too small. Today we have the Bomb of Damocles hanging over our heads, but nobody cares: the problem is too big. In those days ‘reaching for the moon’ was still a metaphor and not a short-term programme. The ‘idle rich’ was still the rentier and not the boilermaker on strike. We had no espresso bars, and no rock ’n’ roll. Then, the fashion was to look forward with dismay and not to look back in anger. After the war it seemed that we would hardly survive the blow of victory; nonetheless, today we are nearly as well off as the Germans themselves. We tell each other confidently that we’ve never had it so good but what we really mean is that we are all right, Jack.

  Oh yes, if you want to be a modern Briton – a Briton of the sixties – you have to follow an entirely new set of rules. Here they follow.

  G.M.

  Prosperity versus riches

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  I. NEW ENGLISH

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  How to be Prosperous

  If you want to be a modern Briton, you must be prosperous, or, preferably, rich. Richness has this in common with justice that it is not enough to be rich, you must also manifestly appear to be rich. The English, however, are a basically modest race, so you cannot just show off. In fact, you must hide your richness in an ostentatious, pseudo-modest manner, as if you were really poor. The greatest advantage of this being that you may, in fact, be really as poor as you like.

  A short while back it was much more difficult to be rich, but as riches were then quite out of fashion – indeed, rather vulgar – this did not matter. A few years ago a Rolls Royce or a Bentley was a must and to have a palatial residence was advisable. Today, only the get-rich-quick businessmen, the vulgar, commercial barons and the lower layer of television comedians buy new Rollses and Bentleys. The patricians use Austin Sevens, Mini Minors, scooters and bicycles, perhaps very ancient Rollses, or else Jensens and Bristols (the last two costing about £4,000 each but unrecognized by the masses).

  It would take too long to codify the entire art of how to look prosperous and how to behave in this Age of Prosperity, but the main elementary rules are these:

  1. You must get a place in the country. You remark casually: ‘Oh – we have a tumble-down old barn in Suffolk …’ If you can throw such a sentence away nonchalantly and especially if you learn to blush modestly while uttering it, you will unfailingly give the impression of possessing a ducal mansion on 227 acres, with thirty-four tithe cottages, eighteen liveried servants and five racing stables. Whenever I have visited the ducal mansions owned by my friends. I have invariably found dilapidated little huts where you cooked on primus stoves and where, if you needed water, you were at liberty to walk half a mile for it. You were allowed, however, to call half a mile four furlongs which sounds incomparably superior.

  2. You must become amphibious and get hold of a watercraft of some sort. Here again, you must refer to ‘my little launch’ or even ‘dinghy’ with an air as though she were a yacht to put Onassis to shame. But a launch or a second-hand rubber dinghy or any superannuated rowing boat will do fine.

  And it is a good idea to appear at the office – especially on Monday morning – in a dark blue blazer with shiny metal buttons; in a nautical cap instead of a bowler; and to carry in a leisurely manner and with an air of absentmindedness a sextant, an anchor and a propeller.

  3. You must choose your friends with the greatest possible care. Titles are out of fashion. If you have one, keep it under your hat and in cold storage: it may come in useful again in the future. Dukes, nowadays, are not called ‘Your Grace’ but Bobby and Reggie; archbishops are called ‘archbish’; and second daughters of earls are spoken to as if they were ordinary human beings. Ex- and would-be debutantes are only of use if they work in publishing houses. The most sought-after people are Greeks as there is a notion afloat that every Greek is a millionaire; Italian models (female) are also very popular; Swedes (male) are in order, if tall and very sad. Persians and foreign princes might be used in an emergency.

  4. If you happen to be a butcher or a lorry driver you will be helped along the way of prosperity by periodical wins of £225,000 on the football pools. It is de rigeur on such occasions to declare that your win will not make the slightest difference to your way of life (after all, what does a quarter of a million matter if you already have a washing machine and a television set?), and you would not dream of giving up your £7.10.0 a week job.

  5. Finally, in this Age of Prosperity you simply must play the Stock Exchange. You have to learn a few new expressions for the occasion, such as ‘stock’, and ‘day of settlement’, and ‘consideration’ and ‘unit trust’. You must remember that your stockbroker will call the market ‘easy’ when it is very difficult. When reading the financial columns you must bear in mind that when the journalist says that ‘steels shine today’ he is using the one and only joke permitted to a poor City editor and you’d better smile. Otherwise the very simple basic idea is that you buy shares rather cheaply, wait until they go up and up and up then sell them. It is no good to buy shares (I beg your pardon, I mean stock) at a high price and wait until they go down and down and down.

  I personally do not play the Stock Exchange, because it is immoral. I lend my money, most morally, to my bank, let them play with it and make 120 per cent profit for themselv
es and pay me 2 per cent fixed interest out of which I can pay income tax and feel a virtuous and useful member of the community.

  On Trying to Remain Poor

  It is much more difficult to try and remain poor. Indeed, one has to ask oneself: is it worth while? Let’s face it: the joy has gone out of poverty.

  It was soon after the war that the suddenly impoverished classes gained much in prestige. These New Poor were loud and boastful – real nouveaux pauvres. There was no end to their swaggering about, claiming how poor they were. As soon as you suggested a coach-trip to Hitchin or just the idea of buying a chocolate ice-cream, their eyes gleamed with pleasure and they told you with glittering pride: ‘We can’t afford it.’ Their poverty was as ostentatious and vulgar as a gold-plated Daimler with leopard skin upholstery would be at the other pole of the financial globe, but while the display of commercial riches was vieu jeu, the New Poor were, at least, a new social phenomenon. Not being able to afford anything made them happy; jeering at other people’s pleasures cheered them up no end. Their eyes and their trousers shone with pride.

  Then the Prosperity of the early fifties descended on us and ruined it all. It took the Poor unawares and disorganized their legions. For a year or two they accepted Prosperity with a sigh. Gone were the book-keepers who dressed like bohemians; every bohemian now dressed like a book-keeper. Then, a few years after the initial blow, the revolt against respectability broke out.