Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  Exceptions to the Denial Rule

  There are three situations in which one is allowed to break the denial rule, acknowledge the existence of other passengers, and actually speak directly to them.

  The Politeness Exception

  The first situation is one I call the ‘politeness exception’: when not speaking would constitute a greater rudeness than the invasion of privacy by speaking – such as when one accidentally bumps into people and must apologise, or when one must say, ‘Excuse me,’ to get past them, or ask if the seat next to them is free, or if they mind having the window open. It is important to note, however, that these politenesses are not regarded as ice-breakers or legitimate preludes to any further conversation: having made your necessary apology or request, you must immediately revert to the denial state, both parties pretending that the other does not exist. The politeness exception is therefore not of much use for research purposes, except as a means of gauging the degree of distress or irritation likely to be caused by any attempt at further interaction: if the response to my polite apology or request was grudgingly monosyllabic, or a mere non-verbal signal such as a curt nod, I would be less inclined to regard the person as a potential informant.

  The Information Exception

  Somewhat more helpful was the ‘information exception’, whereby one may break the denial rule to ask another passenger for vital information, such as ‘Sorry, is this the right train for Paddington?’ or ‘Sorry, do you know if this one stops at Reading?’ or ‘’Scuse me, sorry, but do you know if this is the right platform for Clapham Junction?’65 The responses to such questions are often mildly humorous: I’ve lost count of the number of times my panicky ‘Is this the right train for Paddington?’ has prompted replies such as ‘Well, I certainly hope so!’ or ‘If it’s not, I’m in trouble!’ When I ask: ‘Is this the fast train to London?’ (meaning the direct train, as opposed to the ‘stopping’ train that calls at lots of small stations), some Eeyorish wit is sure to respond with ‘Well, depends what you mean by “fast” . . .’ (I have even had this jokey reply from conductors and railway-station staff.) Although technically the same principle applies as with the politeness exception, in that one is supposed to revert to the denial state once the necessary information has been imparted, the more humorous responses can sometimes indicate a greater willingness to exchange at least a few more words – particularly if one can subtly engineer the conversation towards the ‘moan exception’ category.

  The Moan Exception

  The ‘moan exception’ to the denial rule normally only occurs when something goes wrong – such as an announcement over the loudspeakers that the train or plane will be delayed or cancelled, or the train or tube stopping in the middle of nowhere or in a tunnel for no apparent reason, or an inordinately long wait for the bus to change drivers, or some other unforeseen problem or disruption.

  On these occasions, English passengers appear suddenly to become aware of each other’s existence. Our reactions are always the same and minutely predictable, almost as though they had been choreographed. A loudspeaker platform announcement of a delayed train, or an abrupt jerking stop in the middle of the countryside, prompts an immediate outbreak of sociable body language: people make eye contact; sigh noisily; exchange long-suffering smiles, shrugs, raised eyebrows and eye-rolling grimaces – invariably followed or accompanied by snide or weary comments on the dire state of the railway system. Someone will always say, ‘Huh, typical!’ Another will say, ‘Oh, now what?’ or ‘For Christ’s sake, what is it this time?’ or the more succinct ‘’Kinell!’

  Nowadays, you will also often hear at least one comment containing the phrase ‘the wrong sort of . . .’, a reference to the now legendary excuses offered by the railway operators when ‘leaves on the line’ (and, on a later occasion, snow) caused extensive disruptions to large parts of the railway system. When it was pointed out to them that fallen leaves were a perfectly normal feature of autumn (and snow not exactly unprecedented in winter) and had never previously brought the railways to a halt, they responded plaintively that these were ‘the wrong sort of leaves’ (and ‘the wrong sort of snow’). These admittedly daft remarks made headlines in all the newspapers and news broadcasts at the time, and have been a standing joke ever since. The joke is often adapted to suit the circumstances of the delay or disruption in question: if the loudspeaker announcement blames rain for the delay, someone will invariably say, ‘The wrong sort of rain, I suppose!’ I was once waiting for a train at my local station in Oxford when the loudspeaker announced a delay due to ‘a cow on the line outside Banbury’.66 Three people on the platform simultaneously piped up: ‘The wrong sort of cow!’

  Such problems seem to have an instant bonding effect on English passengers, clearly based on the ‘them and us’ principle. The opportunity to moan or, even better, the opportunity to indulge in witty moaning, is irresistible. The moan-fests prompted by delayed trains or other public-transport disruptions are very much like weather-moaning: utterly pointless, in that we all know and stoically accept that nothing can or will be done to remedy the situation, but enjoyable and highly effective as facilitators of social interaction.

  The moan exception turns out, however, to be yet another of those ‘exceptions that prove the rule’. Although we appear to break the denial rule to indulge in this favourite pastime, and may even engage in quite prolonged discussion of the flaws and failings of the relevant public-transport system (and by extension the incompetence of the authorities, companies or government departments deemed responsible for its inadequacies), it is universally understood that such conversations are a ‘one-off’. What is involved is not a true breach of the denial rule, but a temporary suspension. Commuters know that they can share an enjoyable moan about a delayed train without incurring any obligation to talk to their fellow moaners again the next morning, or even to acknowledge their existence. The denial rule is suspended only for the duration of the collective whinge. Once we have completed our moan, silence is resumed, and we can go back to ignoring each other for another year or so – or until the next plague of delinquent leaves or suicidal cows. The moan exception proves the rule precisely because it is specifically recognised as an exception.

  The temporary suspension of the denial rule during moaning opportunities does, however, offer the intrepid researcher a little chink in the privacy armour of the English commuter – a brief chance to ask a few pertinent questions without seeming to pry or intrude. I had to be quick, though, to avoid giving the impression that I had misunderstood the strictly temporary nature of the moan exception and was settling in for a long chat.

  Waiting for moan-worthy mishaps and disruptions may sound like a rather unsatisfactory and unreliable way to conduct field-research interviews – if you are unfamiliar with the vagaries of English public transport, that is. Anyone who lives in England will know that few journeys are completed without at least one delay or interruption, and if you are English (and generous-spirited), you will no doubt be pleased to hear that there is one person in the country who actively benefits from all those leaves, cows, floods, engine troubles, bottlenecks, AWOL drivers, signal faults, points failures and other obscure malfunctions and obstructions.

  Apart from moan-exception interview opportunities, public transport was one of the field locations in which I was often obliged to conduct ‘formal’ interviews, by which I mean interviews where the subjects knew that they were being interviewed. My preferred method of disguising interviews as casual, ordinary conversations – a highly effective technique at pub bar counters, at the races, at parties and other locations where conversation between strangers is permitted (although regulated by strict protocols) – was not suitable in environments subject to the denial rule. Under these conditions, it was less threatening to come clean and tell people that I was doing research for a book, asking politely if they would mind answering ‘just a couple of questions’, rather than attempting to break the denial rule and engage them in spontaneous
chat. A researcher with a notebook is a nuisance, of course, but much less scary than a random stranger trying to start a conversation for no apparent reason. If you simply start chatting to English people on trains or buses, they tend to assume that you are either drunk, drugged or deranged.67 Social scientists are not universally liked or appreciated, but we are still marginally more acceptable than alcoholics and escaped lunatics.

  This formal approach was not necessary with foreigners, however, as they do not suffer from English fears, inhibitions and privacy obsessions, and seemed generally quite happy to engage in casual chat. In fact, many tourists were positively delighted to encounter, at last, a ‘sociable’, ‘friendly’ native, especially one who expressed genuine interest in their impressions of England and the English. Quite apart from my preference for informal, incognito interviews, I could not bring myself to dispel their illusions and spoil their holiday by revealing my ulterior motives – although I must admit to an occasional twinge of conscience when effusive visitors confided that I had caused them to revise their view of the English as a cold and standoffish race. Whenever possible, I did my best to explain that most English people observe the denial rule on public transport, and tried to direct them towards more sociable environments such as pub bar counters – but if you are one of the hapless tourists who were misled by my ‘interviews’, I can only apologise, thank you for your contribution to my research, and hope that this book will clear up any confusions I may have caused.

  The Mobile-phone Ostrich Exception

  I mentioned earlier that there are two aspects to the denial rule: pretending that other people do not exist, and also, much of the time, pretending that we do not exist either. On public transport, it is considered unseemly to draw attention to oneself. There are people who violate this rule, talking and laughing loudly with each other instead of hiding quietly behind their newspapers in the approved manner, but they have always been a much-frowned-upon minority.

  Until the advent of the mobile phone, which brings out the ostrich in us: just as the dimwit ostrich with its head in the sand believes that it is invisible, the dimwit English passenger on a mobile phone imagines that he or she is inaudible. People on mobiles often seem to go about in a little personal bubble, oblivious to the crowds around them, connected only to the person at the other end of the phone. They will happily discuss the details of their domestic or business affairs, matters that would normally be considered private or confidential, in tones loud enough for half a train carriage to hear. Tremendously useful for eavesdropping nosy researchers – I get a lot of data from mobile-phone ostriches – but irritating for all the other passengers. Not that they would actually do anything about it, of course, except tut and sigh and roll their eyes and shake their heads.

  We are not all ostriches. Many English passengers – the majority, even – are smart enough to realise that other people can hear what you are saying on your mobile, and we do our best to keep our voices down. The oblivious loudmouths are still a minority, but they are a highly noticeable and annoying minority. Part of the problem is that the English will not complain, not directly, to the person making the noise, only quietly to each other, or to colleagues when they get to work, or to their spouse when they get home, or in letters to the newspapers, or on internet social media. Our television and radio comedy programmes are full of amusing sketches about the infuriating stupidity of noisy mobile-phone ostriches, and the banality or utter pointlessness of their ‘I’m on a train!’ conversations. Newspaper columnists are equally witty on the subject.

  In typically English fashion, we channel our anger into endless clever jokes and ritual moans, reams of print and hours of airtime, but fail to address the real source of the problem. Not one of us is brave or blunt enough to go up to a mobile-phone ostrich and simply ask him or her to keep it down. At least, this is extremely rare: I travel by train a lot, and have only witnessed a direct verbal rebuke once (the man confronting the ostrich was clearly drunk, swore loudly at the ostrich to ‘shut the f*** up’, and ended up getting more disapproving looks from other passengers than the startled ostrich). The train companies are aware of the issue, and some have designated certain sections of their trains as ‘quiet’ carriages, where the use of mobile phones is prohibited. Most people observe this rule, but when an occasional rogue ostrich ignores the signs, nobody dares to confront the offender. Even in a designated ‘quiet’ carriage, the worst an ostrich can expect is a lot of glares and pointed sighs. It’s not that the English are naturally shy, timid introverts: this is about unconscious obedience to cultural norms, in this case the taboos on ‘causing a scene’, ‘making a fuss’ or ‘drawing attention to oneself’ in public. Yes, the ostriches are breaking the rules (and in designated ‘quiet’ carriages, they are breaking official rules as well as the unwritten ones) but addressing them directly would be a breach of the denial rules.

  Passive Disapproval Rules

  I gave up smoking a few years ago – replacing real cigarettes with ‘electronic cigarettes’. These clever devices are a sort of glorified version of nicotine inhalators, which look and feel rather more like a real cigarette, and emit a totally harmless, odourless steam or vapour that looks a bit like smoke. Many people are now accustomed to seeing these electronic cigarettes, and know that they are harmless. Even for those to whom they are unfamiliar, it is usually immediately obvious that they are not actual cigarettes.

  Some people, however, do not instantly grasp this (especially if the e-cig is one of the more realistic-looking brands, with a tancoloured band at one end and a red light at the other) and I have been conducting informal cross-cultural research on their reactions. In England, there are the usual raised eyebrows, frowns, pursed lips, tuts and mutters – and slightly more than the usual number of disapproving coughs, which I suppose is appropriate. But in all the years that I have been using these e-cigarettes on public transport and in restaurants, pubs and other public places where smoking is banned, only one English person has ever actually ‘confronted’ me about it. (This was an elderly lady on a train, who approached me very hesitantly, and said, ‘I’m sorry, dear, but, um, you know smoking really isn’t allowed here?’ I explained, very politely, about electronic cigarettes; she apologised for the intrusion; I apologised for confusing her with my strange gadget; we laughed and she went back to her seat.)

  In other countries, by contrast, people regularly come up to me and tell me that smoking is forbidden, that I must put out my cigarette, etc. Some do so politely, others more forcefully, but they have no qualms or inhibitions about confronting me and verbalising their disapproval. They do not rely entirely, like the English, on barely perceptible non-verbal signals. Yes, they use raised eyebrows and frowns, but these signals are delivered with full eye-contact (often a sustained glaring scowl) and frequently accompanied by more overt gestures such as pointing, finger-wagging and vigorous head-shaking.

  In almost all countries, this disapproval quickly turns to friendly laughter, or curiosity, once I have explained that my ‘cigarette’ is an innocuous electronic device. The only exception I have found so far is the US, where some people seem to object almost as much to completely risk-free e-cigs as they do to the real thing – an irrational reaction that brings to mind my favourite definition of Puritanism: ‘The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun.’ At least, I get the impression that some Americans feel that e-cigs make giving up smoking a bit too easy, that not enough suffering and self-denial is involved . . . that I might even, God forbid, be deriving some modicum of pleasure from my smoke-free electronic substitute.

  The most charming reactions, by contrast, were in Albania. Smoking is officially banned in restaurants there, and when I visited e-cigs were still a very rare sight, often mistaken for the real thing. And yet every time I took out my electronic cigarette in a restaurant, a waiter would immediately bring me an ashtray.

  Emerging Contact-avoidance Rules

  Some years ago, an excited young Am
erican visitor remarked to me, ‘English people are all so brainy!’ I knew from our own (SIRC’s) studies that this is a fairly common perception among young Americans: in our most recent US survey, 40 per cent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans chose ‘academic’ as a typically English characteristic (it was an even more popular stereotype with this age-group than ‘polite’ and ‘stiff upper lip’) Still I suspected a severe case of deluded Anglophilia, so I asked her what she meant. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘it’s like even on the trains everyone is always reading – seriously, they’ve all got their noses in books and newspapers the whole time! I was on the subway and even people standing up were reading; they looked really uncomfortable, like this [she mimed someone struggling to hang on to a pole with one upstretched hand and hold a book up to his face with the other], but nothing was gonna stop them reading!’ I had to explain that although her observation was perfectly accurate – I saw the same thing myself on every train journey, and many other visitors had commented on it – she had drawn the wrong conclusion: all this dedicated reading is about contact avoidance, not studious braininess. In our desperate need to avoid any interaction with strangers on public transport, the English have elevated the use of ‘barrier signals’ to a fine art.

  This in itself is nothing new: we have always been experts in the use of newspapers, books and magazines to signal to others that we are occupied, unavailable and have no desire for any human interaction. On trains and on the Underground, the majority of English passengers have always hidden behind these ‘do not disturb’ props, carefully avoiding even the possibility of accidentally making eye contact with fellow passengers. And my American informant was right: even standing passengers on very crowded trains and tubes will often somehow manage to extract a paperback or newspaper from their pocket and focus intently on it, resolutely denying the existence of the other passengers squashed up against them. A journey without reading matter has always been torture for many English passengers, particularly on the Underground, where there is nothing to see out of the windows and passengers sit in long rows facing each other, which makes accidental eye contact with those opposite you very hard to avoid. In desperation, we resort to reading every word of the advertisements and Underground maps above their heads,68 studying the safety instructions, scrutinising the small print on our tickets, digging out crumpled old chocolate-bar wrappers from our bags and reading the lists of ingredients . . . anything to avoid the embarrassment of even a fleeting millisecond of eye contact.