Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A Very Fine American
Unlike Americans, the British are a notoriously godless bunch. They treat their religion
rather like alcohol. It is when religious faith starts to interfere with one's everyday life that it
is time to give it up. The odd weekly drinking session, like the weekly visit to church, does
nobody any harm, but bingeing on the Almighty is as bad for your health as getting smashed
on vodka. God is a splendid chap, but there is no point in letting him go to your head. Brood
on him too long and before you know where you are you will be breaking down bedroom
doors and dragging adulterers out of each other's arms. It is imprudent to take things to ex-
tremes. Religious faith may have caused Jesus to be crucified, but that was in another coun-
try, and a long time ago. One should find a way of worshipping him which is compatible
with support for the monarchy and the odd luxury cruise in the Mediterranean.
Elsewhere in the Western world, sport has largely replaced religion as a weekly ceremony
in which ordinary men and women worship superior beings. In the States, the two forms
of liturgy continue to exist side by side. If sport is so vital to American life, it is because
it writes large the qualities most valued in everyday existence: strength, heroism, glamour,
spectacle, self-discipline, stamina, recklessness, a winning spirit, a consuming desire for
wealth, and ferocious competitiveness. It is as though it incarnates the very essence of Amer-
ican life, rather as a man with a beret, an accordion and a string of onions round his neck
signifies Frenchness. I was once crossing the campus of a university famous for its foot-
ball team when I was suddenly assailed by a small posse of security guards, who held me
back as though I were an enraged crowd about to storm an embassy. On a signal from one
of the guards, a line of football players, each one a precious commodity on legs as thick as
tree trunks, plodded slowly from one field to another and disappeared from view. I was then
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