Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of self-lacerating joy among the citizenry. The British rather enjoy feeling helpless, as the
Americans do not. The thought that there is absolutely nothing one can do is regarded by
some in the United States as defeatist, nihilistic and in some obscure sense unpatriotic. In
Britain, it brings with it a strange, luminous, semi-mystical kind of peace.
It is important to note that the British do not just complain about the weather when it is
cold and damp. They complain about it when it is hot and dry as well. In their view, too
much sunshine is almost as offensive as a tsunami. The British are not in general prima
donnas, and tend to disapprove of any such capricious behaviour. When it comes to the
weather, however, they can no more be satisfied than a pampered rock star who smashes
the bottles of Moët & Chandon champagne backstage because he asked for apple juice.
The weather, like seaside holidays and overseas football matches, is Britain's occasion for
infantile self-indulgence.
Another reason why the British talk about the weather so much is that it is one of the few
things common to everyone in a socially divided nation. It is also because the weather in
Britain is perpetually changing and wildly unpredictable, and thus lends itself to animated
discussion rather more than the unwavering heat of the Sahara. Along with illness, it is one
of the few dramatic aspects of everyday life. If the country were blessed with a calculable
climate, its citizens would be struck dumb. Talking about rain and fog, however, is also a
way of avoiding talking about more intimate matters, of which the British are notably shy.
(So, indeed, are the Irish, who seem more frank and open than their former proprietors but
who have all sorts of secret depths.) Sex as a topic of conversation is of general interest but
too revealing, while the demography of sixteenth-century Portugal is unrevealing but not
of general interest. So storm clouds and regions of low pressure must serve instead.
Grumbling in Britain is a mild form of social dissidence. It is a way of rebelling against
the current order of things without the bother of having to do anything about it, thus blunt-
ing the edge of one's protest with a very British stoicism. It also involves a kind of neg-
ative solidarity: one grouses to others who in turn bellyache back, in an anthropological
ritual whose gambits and conventions are intuitively understood. Discussing one's physic-
al ailments in gruesome detail, another time-honoured British pastime, is a similar form of
negative solidarity. People take it for granted that doctors are useless and hospitals crimin-
ally incompetent, and compete with each other to produce the most blood-chilling medical
anecdotes. Accidental amputations, hearts removed but not replaced, eyes left dangling on
cheeks, cell phones, pork pies and cigarette lighters sewn up inside patients by mistake: all
have been known to figure in this lugubrious one-upmanship. You can be obsessed with ill-
ness, however, without being neurotic about it, as some Americans are. The British assume
that the body will break down from time to time, and would feel deprived of an agreeable
topic of conversation if it did not. A super-efficient health service would plunder the nation
of precious grumbling resources, thus leaving people with a lot less to say to each other.
Contracting syphilis may be the only way to get to know the people next door.
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