There is also something quintessentially English about the nature of our response to earnestness. The ‘Oh, come off it!’ rule encapsulates a peculiarly English blend of armchair cynicism, ironic detachment, a squeamish distaste for sentimentality, a stubborn (empiricist?) refusal to be duped or taken in by fine rhetoric, and a mischievous delight in pin-pricking the balloons of pomposity and self-importance.
