Which brings me to another English characteristic: hypocrisy. Not that our pious denial of our class-obsession is specifically intended to mislead – it often seems to be more a matter of self-deception than any deliberate deception of others; a kind of collective self-deception, perhaps? I have a hunch that this distinctively English brand of hypocrisy will come up again, and might even turn out to be one of the ‘defining characteristics’ we are looking for.
