Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  The Apology and Moan Options

  When it is not possible to make saving claims – when you have indisputably paid full price for something undeniably expensive – you should ideally just keep quiet about it. Failing that, you have two options, both very English: either apologise or moan. You can apologise for your embarrassing extravagance (‘Oh dear, I know I shouldn’t have, it was terribly expensive, just couldn’t resist it, very naughty of me . . .’) or you can moan and grumble about the extortionate cost of things (‘Ridiculously expensive, don’t know how they get away with charging that much, stupid prices, total rip-off . . .’).

  Both of these options are sometimes used as indirect boasts, ways of subtly indicating one’s spending power without indulging in anything so vulgar as an overt display of wealth. And both can also be a form of ‘polite egalitarianism’: even very rich people will often pretend to be either apologetically embarrassed or grumpy and indignant about the cost of expensive things they have bought, when in fact they can easily afford them, in order to avoid drawing attention to any disparity in income. Shopping, like every other aspect of English life, is full of courteous little hypocrisies.

  The ‘Bling’ Exception

  There is one significant exception to the ‘shopping as saving’ principle, and its associated apologising and moaning. Young people influenced by the black American hip-hop/gangsta/rap culture – a significant youth subculture in England – have adopted a style that requires deliberate ostentatious displays of wealth. This involves wearing expensive designer clothes and flashy gold jewellery (a look originally known as ‘bling-bling’, now shortened to just ‘bling’), drinking expensive champagne (Cristal) and cognac, driving expensive cars – and certainly not being the slightest bit embarrassed about all this extravagance; in fact, taking great pride in it.

  Even those who cannot afford the champagne and cars (the majority: this style is particularly popular among low-income teenagers) will do their best to acquire at least a few items of the correct designer clothing, and will boast to anyone who will listen about how much they cost. The ‘bling’ culture is not so much an exception as a deliberate challenge to mainstream rules of Englishness; it is sticking up two heavily be-ringed fingers at all our unwritten codes of modesty, restraint, diffidence, polite egalitarianism and general hypocrisy. In its own way, it provides confirmation of the enduring importance of these codes – assertion by negation, if you like.

  As a form of rebellion, however, ‘bling’ has not been particularly effective. The style, like the word, has gradually become more ‘mainstream’. ‘Bling’ now simply means pretty much anything shiny, sparkly or glittery. As with many youth subculture fashions, a very diluted version is now to be found in the wardrobes of all age groups and classes. Most important, mainstream bling is no longer about displaying wealth. In typical English fashion, mainstream blingwearers of all ages now often boast about how little they paid for their new ‘blingy’ sandals or necklace.

  Class and Shopping Rules

  The shopping-as-saving rule applies across class barriers, and even the bling exception is not class-bound: this style appeals to young people from all social backgrounds, including some upper-class schoolboys, who seem quite unaware of how silly they look, trying to dress like pimps and walk and talk like tough black gangstas from American inner-city ghettos. (Other young upper-class males have adopted the slang but not the clothing, and somehow look even sillier, addressing each other as ‘bro’ and ‘homie’ while dressed in country tweeds, Barbour jackets and green wellies.)

  Most other aspects of shopping, however, are deeply entangled in the complexities of the English class system. As might be expected, where you shop is a key class indicator. But it is not a simple matter of the higher social ranks shopping in the more expensive shops, while the lower echelons use the cheaper ones. The upper-middle classes, for example, will hunt for bargains in second-hand and charity shops, which the lower-middle and working classes ‘would not be seen dead in’. Until recently, many upper-middles and middle-middles were reluctant to buy their groceries in the cheap supermarkets, some with names that emphasise their price-consciousness such as Poundland and Costcutter, favoured by the working classes. Instead, they shopped in middle-class supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Tesco (buying the cheaper ‘value’ ranges offered by these stores if necessary), or the more upper-middle Waitrose.

  Not that anyone would admit to choosing a supermarket for its class status, of course. No, we shop in middle-class supermarkets because of the superior quality of the food and the wider range of organic and exotic vegetables, even when we are just buying exactly the same ubiquitous brand-name basics as the working-class shoppers in cheaper supermarkets such as Asda and Morrisons, or the now ubiquitous German discount supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi. We may have no idea what to do with pak choi or how to eat organic celeriac, but we like to know they are there, as we walk past with our Kellogg’s cornflakes and Andrex loo paper.

  The economic recession has resulted in a slight shift in these attitudes, in that at least some upper-middles are now much less reluctant to shop in the cheaper, working-class supermarkets. The more secure, less class-anxious upper-middles will even boast about this, in much the same way as they display their charity-shop purchases with an air of virtuous pride. In fact, the flaunting of an Aldi or Lidl shopping bag, and enthusing over all the ‘bargains’ they have ‘discovered’ in these supermarkets can be, in itself, a means of drawing attention to their secure higher-class status. They are effectively saying, ‘I am so obviously, unquestionably higher class that I have nothing to fear from these lower-class symbols.’ Except that they still tend to favour Lidl and Aldi, the slightly more ‘exotic’ Continental discount-stores, rather than the more humdrum Asda and Morrisons, which have been around too long to count as ‘discoveries’.

  The M&S Test

  If you want to get an idea of the convoluted intricacy of shopping class-indicators, spend some time observing and interviewing the shoppers in Marks & Spencer. In this very English high-street chain, you trip over invisible class barriers in every aisle. M&S is a sort of department store, selling clothes, shoes, furniture, linen, soap, make-up, etc. – as well as food and drink – all under its own brand name.

  •The upper-middle classes buy food in the very expensive but high-quality M&S food halls, and will also happily buy M&S underwear and perhaps the occasional plain, basic item, such as a T-shirt, but will not often buy any other clothes there, except perhaps for children – and certainly not anything with a pattern, as this would identify it as being from M&S. They would never buy a party dress from M&S, and are squeamish about wearing M&S shoes, however comfortable or well made they may be. They will buy M&S towels and bed-linen, but not M&S sofas, curtains or cushions.

  •The middle-middles also buy M&S food, although those on a lower budget would not do their entire weekly shop there. They complain a bit (to each other, not to M&S) about the high prices of M&S food, but tell themselves it is worth it for the quality, and buy their cornflakes and loo paper at Sainsbury’s or Tesco. Most will buy a much wider range of clothes from M&S than the upper-middles, including some things with prints and patterns, although the class semiotics of M&S have shifted a bit in recent years, and more educated, upwardly mobile middle-middles have now joined the upper-middles in rejecting M&S’s patterned clothing – and reserve particular scorn for the heavily patterned and embellished Per Una range (a supposedly ‘youthful’ collection that in fact caters almost entirely to middle-aged and older women). They will still condescend to buy the occasional plain item from the Limited Edition or Autograph ranges, and they are generally happy to buy M&S sofas, cushions and curtains. Their teenage children, however, may turn up their noses at M&S clothes, not for class reasons but because they prefer the more fashionable high-street chains.

  •Lower-middles and some upwardly mobile upper-workings buy M&S food, but usually only as a special treat: for some, particularly
those with young children, an M&S ‘ready-meal’ is an alternative to eating out at a restaurant, something they might have as an indulgence, maybe once a week. They cannot afford to food-shop here regularly, and regard anyone who does as extravagant and quite possibly ‘stuck up’. ‘My sister-in-law buys all her veg and washing-up liquid and everything from Marks, stupid cow,’ a middle-aged woman told me, with a disdainful, disapproving sniff. ‘It’s just showing off – thinks she’s better than us.’ M&S clothes, on the other hand, are generally regarded as ‘good value’ by the thrifty, respectable, genteel sort of lower-middles: ‘Not cheap, mind you, but good quality.’ Some lower-middles feel the same about the cushions and duvets and towels, while others regard them as ‘very nice, but a bit too pricey’.

  If you need to make a quick assessment of an English shopper’s social class, don’t ask about her family background, income, occupation or the value of her house (all of which would in any case be rude): ask her what she does and does not buy at Marks & Spencer. I say ‘she’ because this test only works reliably on women: men are often blissfully unaware of the yawning social gulf between M&S knickers and an M&S patterned dress.

  Pet Rules and ‘Petiquette’

  Keeping pets, for the English, is not so much a leisure activity as an entire way of life. In fact, ‘keeping pets’ is an inaccurate and inadequate expression – it does not begin to convey the exalted status of our animals. An Englishman’s home may be his castle, but his dog is the real king. People in other countries may buy luxurious five-star kennels and silk-lined baskets for their pets, but the English let them take over the whole house. The unwritten rules allow our dogs and cats to sprawl all over our sofas and chairs, always hogging the best places in front of the fire or television. They get far more attention, affection, appreciation, encouragement and ‘quality time’ than our children, and often better food. Imagine the most over-indulged, fêted, adored bambino in Italy, and you will get a rough idea of the status of the average English pet. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was established more than half a century before the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which appears to have been founded as a somewhat derivative afterthought.

  Why is this? What is it about the English and animals? Yes, many other cultures have pets, and some are in their own ways as soppy about them as we are, but the English inordinate love of animals is still one of the characteristics for which we are renowned, and which many foreigners find baffling. The Americans may outdo us in gushy sentimentality and extravagant expenditure on pets – all those cheesy tear-jerker films, elaborate pet cemeteries, luxury toys and dogs got up in ludicrous designer costumes. But then they always outdo us in gushiness and conspicuous consumption.

  The English relationship with animals is different: our pets are more than status indicators (although they do serve this purpose) and our affinity with them goes well beyond sentimentality. It is often said that we treat them like people, but this is not true. Have you seen how we treat people? It would be unthinkable to be so cold and unfriendly to an animal. OK, I’m exaggerating – a bit. But the fact is that we tend to be far more open, easy, communicative and demonstrative in our relationships with our animals than with each other.

  The average Englishman will assiduously avoid social interaction with his fellow humans, and will generally become either awkward or aggressive when obliged to communicate with them, unless certain props and facilitators are available to help the process along. He will have no difficulty at all, however, in engaging in lively, amicable conversation with a dog. Even a strange dog, to whom he has not been introduced. Bypassing all the usual stilted embarrassments, his greeting will be effusive: ‘Hello there!’ he will exclaim. ‘What’s your name? And where have you come from, then? D’you want some of my sandwich, mate? Mm, yes, it’s not bad, is it? Here, come up and share my seat! Plenty of room!’

  You see, the English really are quite capable of Latin-Mediterranean warmth, enthusiasm and hospitality; we can be just as direct and approachable and emotive and tactile as any of the so-called ‘contact cultures’. It is just that these qualities are only consistently expressed in our interactions with animals. And, unlike our fellow Englishmen, animals are not embarrassed or put off by our un-English displays of emotion. No wonder animals are so important to the English: for many of us, they represent our only significant experience of open, unguarded, emotional involvement with another sentient being.

  An American visitor I met had suffered for a week as a guest in a fairly typical English household ruled by two large, boisterous and chronically disobedient dogs, whose ineffectual owners engaged them in non-stop, stream-of-consciousness chatter, indulged their every whim and laughed affectionately at their misdemeanours. She complained to me that the owners’ relationship with their dogs was ‘abnormal’ and ‘unhealthy’ and ‘dysfunctional’. ‘No, you don’t understand,’ I explained. ‘This is probably the only normal, healthy, functional relationship these people have.’ She was, however, sensitive enough to have picked up on an important rule of English ‘petiquette’ – the one that absolutely forbids criticism of a person’s pets. However badly your hosts’ ghastly, leg-humping, shoe-eating dog behaves, you must not speak ill of the beast. That would be a worse social solecism than criticising their children.

  We are allowed to criticise our own pets, but this must be done in affectionate, indulgent tones: ‘He’s so naughty – that’s the third pair of shoes he’s wrecked this month, ah, bless!’ There is almost a hint of pride in such ‘isn’t he awful?’ complaints, as though we are secretly, perversely, rather charmed by our pets’ flaws and failings. In fact, we often engage in one-upmanship over our pets’ misdemeanours. At a party, I listened to two Labrador-owners capping each other’s stories of the items their dogs had eaten or destroyed.

  ‘It wasn’t just shoes and ordinary things, mine used to eat mobile phones.’

  ‘Well, mine chewed a whole hi-fi system to bits!’

  ‘Mine ate a Volvo!’ (How do you top that? I wondered. Mine ate a helicopter? Mine ate the QE2?)

  I am convinced that the English get great vicarious pleasure from our pets’ uninhibited behaviour. We grant them all the freedoms that we deny ourselves: the most repressed and inhibited people on Earth have the most blatantly unreserved, spontaneous and badly behaved pets. Our pets are our alter egos, or perhaps even the symbolic embodiment of what a psychotherapist would call our ‘inner child’ (but not the sort of inner child they mean, the one with big soulful eyes who needs a hug – I mean our snub-nosed, mucky, obnoxious ‘inner brat’). Our animals represent our wild side; through them, we can express our most un-English tendencies: we can break all the rules, if only by proxy.

  The unspoken law states that our animal alter egos/inner brats can do no wrong. If an English person’s dog bites you, you must have provoked it; and even if the attack was clearly unprovoked – if the animal just took a sudden irrational dislike to you – the owners will assume that there must be something suspect or objectionable about you. The English firmly believe that our dogs (and cats, guinea pigs, ponies, parrots, etc.) are shrewd judges of character. If our pet takes against someone, even if we have no reason at all to dislike the person, we trust the animal’s superior insight and become wary and suspicious. People who object to being jumped on, climbed over, kicked, scratched and generally mauled by English animals who are ‘just being friendly’ also clearly have something wrong with them.

  Although our pets usually provide a vital therapeutic substitute for emotional relationships with human beings, the superior quality of our communication and bonding with animals can sometimes also have beneficial side effects on our relations with other humans. We can even manage to strike up a conversation with a stranger if one of us is accompanied by a dog, although it must be said that both parties are sometimes inclined to talk to the canine chaperone rather than address each other directly. Non-verbal as well as verbal signals are exc
hanged through the blissfully oblivious dog, who happily absorbs all the eye contact and friendly touching that would be regarded as excessively forward and pushy between newly acquainted humans. And pets can act as mediators or facilitators even in more established relationships: English couples who have trouble expressing their feelings to each other often tend to communicate through their pets. ‘Mummy’s looking really pissed off, isn’t she, Patch? Yes, she is. Yes, she is. Do you think she’s annoyed with us?’

  ‘Well, Patchy-poo, Mummy’s vewy, vewy tired and she would appreciate it if lazy old Daddy gave her a bit of help round here instead of sitting on his arse reading the paper all day.’

  Most of the above rules apply across class barriers, but there are a few variations. The middle-middles and lower-middles, although just as dotty about their pets as the other classes, tend to be somewhat less tolerant of mess, and rather more squeamish about the lewder kinds of misbehaviour than those at the top and bottom of the social scale. Middle-middle and lower-middle pets are not necessarily any better behaved, but their owners are more zealous about cleaning up after them, and more embarrassed when they sniff people’s crotches or try to have sex with their legs.

  The type and breed of pet you keep, however, is a more reliable class indicator than your attitude towards animals. Dogs, for example, are universally popular, but the upper echelons prefer Labradors, golden retrievers, King Charles spaniels and springer spaniels, while the lower classes are more likely to have Rottweilers, Alsatians, poodles, Afghans, chihuahuas, bull terriers and cocker spaniels.

  Cats are less popular than dogs with the upper class, although those who live in grand country houses find them useful for keeping mice and rats at bay. The lower social ranks, by contrast, may keep mice and rats as pets – as well as guinea pigs, hamsters and goldfish. Some middle-middles, and lower-middles with aspirations, take great pride in keeping expensive exotic fish such as Koi carp in their garden pond. The upper-middles and upper classes think this is ‘naff’. Horses are widely regarded as ‘posh’ animals, and social-climbers often take up riding or buy ponies for their children in order to ingratiate themselves with the ‘horsey’ set to which they aspire. Unless they also manage to perfect the appropriate accent, arcane vocabulary, mannerisms and dress, they don’t fool the genuinely ‘posh’ horse-owners – who may well in any case be a minority, as horses are owned by people of all social ranks.