17/11/2004 00:00
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by MONITOR l THE British are always wringing their hands these days about the way in which they and their society are changing, and for the worse.
Yet it seems that foreign observers perceive very little that is different from the images of us that they have formed from British literature and films. A survey undertaken in India (Mumbai), Italy (Milan) and the United States (Chicago) by the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (the RSA) reveals opinions about the British that could easily have been heard twenty or fifty years ago. We show a tremendous amount of reserve and have really bad teeth. In British society people “have learned how to make their traditions comfortable to live in; the weight of manners is very great, the weight of social conformity at times is very severe”, according to one American. Teeth seem to be important; an Italian questioned for the survey spoke of the British sense of humour as “laughing with tight teeth”.

THEN, of course, there's our famed reserve which an American journalist temporarily resident in Britain spoke of as “a reluctance to express emotion in normal discourse, they are more formal and slower to make friends”. A more favourable view was taken of our “cleverness” and, with it, our “wit”. Another American said that “cleverness makes me think of British humour. Clever is a word and concept that I think is particular to Britain”. How nice, but at the same time we have to accept that for others, including some Italians, “snobbishness” and “cold detachment” are more typical British traits.

Although opinions naturally differed there was a unanimity of opinion in Milan and Mumbai (Bombay): “Britain is too closely allied to the United States”.