Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior

by Kate Fox

No wonder animals are so important to the English: for many of us, they represent our only significant experience of open, unguarded, emotional involvement with another sentient being.

The English have a habit of inventing ‘traditions’ out of thin air, to suit the spirit of the times, and then almost immediately waxing mournfully nostalgic about them, as though they were a vital and now tragically dying part of our cultural heritage.