Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  With fish on the bone, the ‘small/slow is beautiful’ principle requires that we fillet the fish one small bit at a time, lifting each mouthful away from the bone, eating it, then filleting off the next mouthful. Grapes must be broken off in a small bunch, and eaten one at a time, not in handfuls. At the table, apples and other fruit are peeled, quartered and eaten one segment at a time, not bitten into whole. Bananas must not be eaten ‘monkey style’ but should be peeled and cut into discs, which are then eaten one at a time. And so on.

  Do you see the recurring small-and-slow pattern here? Class-indicator rules are not about eating with any degree of ease, speed, efficiency or practicality. Quite the opposite: they are designed to slow us down, to make things deliberately difficult, to ensure that we eat the smallest possible mouthfuls in the most time-consuming, laborious manner. Now that we’ve identified the pattern and the principle behind it, the purpose becomes clear. What it all boils down to is not appearing to be greedy and, more specifically, not appearing to give food too high a priority. Greed of any sort is a breach of the all-important fair-play rule. Letting one’s desire for food take priority over making conversation with one’s companions involves giving physical pleasure or gratification a higher value than words. In polite society, this is frowned upon as un-English and highly embarrassing. Over-eagerness about anything is undignified; over-eagerness about food is disgusting and even somehow faintly obscene. Eating small mouthfuls, with plenty of pauses in between them, shows a more restrained, unemotional, English approach to food.

  Napkin Rings and Other Horrors

  Napkins are useful and versatile objects – as class indicators, that is. We have already seen that to call them ‘serviettes’ is a grave social solecism – one of the ‘seven deadly sins’ unmistakably signalling lower-class origins. But there are many other ways in which napkins can set off English class-radar bleepers, including, in chronological order from the beginning to the end of a meal:

  •setting the table with napkins folded into over-elaborate, origami-like shapes (higher-class people just fold them simply)

  •standing folded napkins upright in glasses (they should be placed either on or next to the plates)

  •tucking one’s napkin into waistband or collar (it should be left loose on the lap)

  •using one’s napkin to scrub or wipe vigorously at one’s mouth (gentle dabbing is correct)

  •folding one’s napkin carefully at the end of the meal (it should be left carelessly crumpled on the table)

  •or, even worse, putting rolled-up napkins into napkin rings (only people who say ‘serviette’ use napkin rings).

  The first two of these napkin-sins are based on the principle that over-fussy, ‘genteel’ daintiness is a lower-middle-class trait. Inelegant use of the napkin – tucking and scrubbing – is working class. The last two napkin-sins are abhorrent because they indicate that the napkins will be used again without being washed. Higher-class people would rather be given a paper napkin than a used cotton or linen one. The upper-middle classes joke about ‘the sort of people who use napkin rings’ – meaning lower/middle-middles who think they are being elegant and dainty, but are in fact being rather grubby.

  While there is some point to these napkin rules (at least, the objection to reusing napkins strikes me as perfectly reasonable), the prejudice against fish knives is harder to justify. At one time, quite a number of middle-class and even upper-class English people used special knives (and forks) for eating fish. Some may have regarded this practice as a bit over-dainty and pretentious, but the outright taboo seems to date from the publication of John Betjeman’s ‘How to Get On in Society’, in which he lampoons the affectations and pretensions of a lower-middle-class housewife preparing for a dinner party. The poem begins:

  Phone for the fish knives, Norman

  As cook is a little unnerved;

  You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes

  And I must have things daintily served.

  Fish knives, possibly always a bit suspect, were from that moment irrevocably associated with people who say ‘pardon’ and ‘serviette’ and ‘toilet’ – and use napkin rings. Now, fish knives are also seen as hopelessly old-fashioned, and are probably only used by lower/middle-middle people of older generations. Steak knives are regarded as equally suburban, as are doilies, pastry-forks, salt-and-pepper ‘cruets’, drink mats/coasters and anything gold.

  You would have thought that finger bowls – little bowls of tepid water for washing your fingers when eating food by hand – would come into the same category of precious, twee, affected, suburban daintiness, but for some reason they are acceptable, and are still seen at upper-middle and upper-class dinners. There is very little logic to any of this. Tales are often told of ignorant lower-class guests drinking from finger bowls – and of ultra-polite hosts then drinking from the bowls themselves, so as not to embarrass the guests by drawing attention to their error. You are supposed to dip your fingers briefly in the finger bowl, then pat them gently dry with your napkin – not wash and scrub and rub as though it were a bathroom sink, unless you want to activate your hosts’ class-radar systems.

  Port-passing Rules

  Another way you can set off English class-radar bleepers is to pass the port the wrong way. Port is served at the end of a dinner – sometimes, among the upper classes, to men only, as the women follow the old-fashioned practice of ‘withdrawing’ to another room to drink coffee and talk girl-talk, leaving the men to their male bonding. Port must always travel round the table clockwise (if it were to go anti-clockwise, the world would end), so you must always pass the bottle or decanter to your left.

  Even if you somehow miss your turn, you must never ask for the port to be passed back to you, as this would mean port travelling in the wrong direction, which would be a disaster. Either wait for it to come all the way round again, or pass your glass along to the left to catch up with the port and be filled for you. Your glass can then be passed back to you without danger, as port can travel anti-clockwise if it is in a glass: the taboo on passing to the right only applies to port in bottles and decanters.

  No one has the slightest idea why clockwise port-passing is so important. The rule serves no discernible purpose, other than to cause embarrassment to those who are not aware of it, and, presumably, a peculiarly English sense of smug self-satisfaction among those who are.

  A number of kind readers of the 2004 edition of this book wrote to me helpfully explaining that clockwise port-passing is in fact an application of the ‘fairness’ principle: passing the port round the table in only one direction ensures that everyone gets to pour themselves a glass of port – whereas if it were just passed around randomly, some people might end up missing out. Good point. I can see the logic of passing the port in one direction, in an orderly fashion, to ensure fairness. This makes sense and sounds typically English. It also makes sense to continue passing the port in the same direction on its second or third ‘circuits’ of the table, so that those whose glasses are most likely to be empty get their refills first.

  The fairness principle does not explain, however, why that direction must absolutely, always, as a sacred rule, be clockwise. At any given dinner, consistently passing the port anti-clockwise would have exactly the same scrupulously fair result.

  So, the ‘one direction’ rule may well be all about fairness, but the ‘clockwise’ rule, the strict taboo on ever passing port to the right, is still useful only as a class-indicator. Our port-passing customs thus somehow manage to combine courteous fairness with snobby class-obsession. How very English.

  THE MEANING OF CHIPS

  The SIRC research report on The Meaning of Chips dealt with a food issue of great national importance. Ninety per cent of us are chip eaters, the majority indulging at least once a week, and the chip is a vital part of English heritage, but little was known, until our ground-breaking study, about our relationship with the chip, its role in our social interactions, and its place in the cultur
al Zeitgeist.

  Chips, Patriotism and English Empiricism

  Although chips were invented in Belgium, and are popular – as French fries (or just fries) in America, and as frites, patate fritte, patatas fritas, etc., in many other parts of the world – we found that English people tend to think of them as British or, rather more specifically, English. ‘Fish and chips’ is still regarded as the English national dish. The English are not normally inclined to be either patriotic or passionate about food but we found that they could be surprisingly patriotic and enthusiastic about the humble chip.

  ‘The chip is down to earth,’ explained one of our discussion-group participants. ‘It’s basic, it’s simple in a good way, which is why we like the chip. We have that quality and it’s a good quality . . . This is what we are – no faffing about.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that a chunk of fried potato could so eloquently express the earthy empiricism and no-nonsense realism that I had tentatively identified as defining characteristics of Englishness, so I was grateful to him for this insight.

  Chip-sharing Rules and Sociability

  Chips are also an important social facilitator. This is the only English food that actually lends itself to sharing (or at least the only hot, cooked, mealtime food – I’m not counting snack-foods such as crisps and nuts) and that the unwritten rules allow us to share. When we are eating chips, you will often see the English behaving in a very sociable, intimate, un-English manner: all pitching in messily to eat with our fingers off the same plate or out of the same bag, pinching chips off each other’s plates – and even feeding chips to each other. Even with foods that are clearly supposed to be shared, such as Indian food, you may still see English groups sticking to the practice of each person ordering and eating his or her own dish. But chips seem to promote sociability, which for many English people is part of their attraction – perhaps because we have a greater need than other nations for props and facilitators that encourage ‘commensality’.

  FOOD RULES AND ENGLISHNESS

  The food rules have revealed yet more symptoms of the English social dis-ease. It seems that an awful lot of irrational and apparently inexplicable aspects of English behaviour – such as our silent, apologetic and obnoxious approaches to complaining – are traceable to this unfortunate affliction.

  Looking closely at food-related behaviour has also helped us to refine our analysis of the ‘Typical!’ rule and what it tells us about Englishness. More than just ‘grumpy stoicism’, this rule is a reflection of our cynically low expectations of the world, our chronic pessimism, our assumption that it is in the nature of things to go wrong and thwart us and generally be disappointing. Perhaps even more important is the discovery of our perverse sense of satisfaction, even pleasure, at seeing our gloomy predictions fulfilled. Understanding this peculiar, Eeyorish mindset will, I think, prove critical to our understanding of Englishness. It is worth noting that the theme of English empiricism also came up again, in the somewhat unlikely context of our relationship with the chip.

  The class rules in this chapter expose, perhaps even more than previous ones, the truly mind-boggling silliness of the English class system. I mean, really. How many peas can dance on the back of a fork? I’m ashamed to write this stuff. I’m ashamed to know this stuff, even though it is my job to observe and describe and try to understand it. Yes, I know that every human society has ‘a system of social status and methods of indicating it’, but the English do seem to take this to the most utterly ludicrous extremes.

  The ‘small/slow is beautiful’ principle is rather less silly than the other class-related rules. Although it does serve as a class indicator, it also reflects important English ideals such as courtesy and fair play, and highlights our appreciation of restraint and distaste for greedy selfishness. There is something to be said for giving pleasant conversation priority over stuffing one’s face.

  The Meaning of Chips rules indicate that our apparent lack of passion about food, and perhaps our apathy in other areas as well, such as patriotism, may be more a matter of observing anti-earnestness rules than the natural indifference to which they are often attributed. We can be emotional and even sometimes quite passionate about things. Well, about chips, anyway. It is just that we normally suppress these impulses, in our efforts to comply with the earnestness taboo. Is our much-ridiculed lack of passion about sex part of the same syndrome? Are English humour rules stronger than our sex-drive? I’ll try to find out in the next chapter.

  108. I wasn’t joking with those last two scenarios – at the sites of the 7/7 bombings in 2005 (when terrorist suicide-bombers attacked the London transport system, blowing up a bus and Underground trains) concerned local shopkeepers rushed out to provide aid and comfort to the injured, shocked and walking wounded. What did they bring? Cups of tea, of course.

  109. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was not alone in preferring this ‘simplistic’ term: one of the classic texts in material culture is Arjun Appadurai’s edited volume The Social Life of Things, and more recently the gloriously un-pompous Danny Miller, professor of material culture at University College London, has written a splendid book about this subject, even more unpretentiously entitled Stuff.

  RULES OF SEX

  ‘How’s the Englishness book going? What chapter are you working on?’

  ‘The one about sex.’

  ‘So, that’ll be twenty blank pages, then?’

  THE KNEE-JERK HUMOUR RULE

  I’ve lost count of the number of times I heard this response – or others like it, such as: ‘That’ll be a short chapter!’; ‘Oh, that won’t take long, then!’; ‘Oh, that’s easy: “No Sex Please, We’re British!”’; ‘But we don’t have sex, we have hot water-bottles!’; ‘Lie back and think of England, you mean?’; ‘Will you explain the mystery of how the English manage to reproduce?’ And these were all from English friends and informants. Foreigners occasionally made similar jokes, but the English almost invariably did so. Clearly, the notion that the English do not have much sex, or have a laughably low sex-drive, is widely accepted as fact – even, indeed especially, among the English themselves.

  Or is it? Do we really believe in the popular international stereotype of the passionless, reserved, sexually naïve, amorously challenged English? The bloke who would really rather be watching football, and his wife who would prefer a nice cup of tea? And, moving up the social scale, the awkward, tongue-tied, timid, public-schoolboy character, and his equally clueless horsey female counterpart who cannot stop giggling? Is this really how we see ourselves? Is this really how we are?

  In purely factual, quantitative terms, our sexless image is inaccurate. The English are human, and sex is naturally as important to us as to any other members of the species. Our sexually incompetent reputation is not borne out by the facts and figures, which suggest that we manage to copulate and reproduce just like the rest of the world. If anything, we start younger: the English have the highest rates of teenage sexual activity in the industrialised world, with 86 per cent of unmarried girls sexually active by the age of nineteen (the US comes a poor second, with 75 per cent). There are also plenty of other nations that are far more prudish and repressive about sex than the English, and where the English are regarded as dangerously permissive. Our censorship laws may be stricter than many other European countries’, and our politicians more likely to be forced to resign over what some other Europeans would consider minor sexual peccadilloes, but in most respects, by international standards, we are fairly liberal.

  Stereotypes do not come out of thin air, however, and one as widely recognised and acknowledged as the unsexy English must surely have at least some basis in reality. Sex may be a natural, instinctive, universal human activity, which the English must perform like everyone else – but it is also a social activity, involving emotional engagement with other humans, contact, intimacy, and so on, which we have already established are not exactly our strong points. Still, our apparent readiness to accept this decidedly unfla
ttering stereotype (we are much more patriotically defensive about our weather than about our sexual prowess) could be seen as somewhat bizarre, and requires explanation.

  Looking back at my research notes, I find that I was continually struck by the difficulty of having any sort of sensible conversation about sex with English informants. ‘The English simply cannot talk about sex without making a joke of it,’ I complained in my notebook, ‘usually the same joke: if one more person offers to “help me with my research” for the sex chapter, I’m going to scream.’ The mere mention of the word ‘sex’ seems automatically to trigger a quip or witticism or, among the less articulate, a crude nudge-nudge remark, a bit of Carry-On-style oohing and face-pulling, or at the very least a snigger. This is more than a rule: it is an involuntary, unthinking reflex – a knee-jerk response. Mention sex, and the English humour reflex kicks in. And we all know that self-deprecating jokes are the most effective, the most widely appreciated form of humour. The ‘blank pages’ quips about my sex chapter were thus not necessarily a sign that we fully accept the sexually-challenged-English stereotype, but just a typically English reaction to the word ‘sex’.

  Why do we find sex so funny? We don’t, not really: it’s just that humour is our standard way of dealing with anything that makes us feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. This is surely one of the Ten Commandments of Englishness: when in doubt, joke. Yes, other nations joke about sex, but none, in my experience or to my knowledge, does so with the same tedious knee-jerk predictability as the English. In other parts of the world, sex may be regarded as a sin, an art form, a healthy leisure activity, a commodity, a political issue and/or a problem requiring years of therapy and umpteen self-help ‘relationship’ books. In England, it is a joke.