Global Warning

14 June 2008

Theodore Dalrymple delivers a Global Warning

French air hostesses are elegant creatures, vastly superior to their passengers, who give the impression that they are gentlefolk fallen on hard times; German air hostesses have evidently missed their vocation as prison guards, but at least give the impression that they would know what to do in an emergency. Only British air hostesses have the voice of fishwives that would shatter or engrave glass, and make you want to scream and block your ears. Whatever happened to elocution lessons? In my opinion, they should replace sex education. They would certainly reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy far more than classes with bananas and condoms ever will.

The woman next to me on the way out was reading a magazine called Inside Soap. It was all about soap operas. Was Darren two-timing Kylie? I tried to imagine caring one way or the other, but I simply couldn’t. In fact, I find it far easier to enter the mind of Osama bin Laden than to enter the mind of my fellow Britons. British youth is another country; they do things differently there.

How ghastly the British were, compared to the Turks (for it was to Turkey that we went): how unrefined, how coarse-grained, how lumpen, vulgar and utterly stupid! I looked at them — the British — with the eyes of the Turks who served them, temporarily having to accept their rudeness and arrogance just because of a difference (also temporary) of per capita GDP, and plotted my revenge. When things are equalised, how delightful it will be to tell these self-satisfied morons to take a flying leap! Then it will be a kind of touristic Gallipoli, the barbarian hordes sent packing back to their damp homeland.

Kemal Pasha, thou shouldst be living at this hour! England hath need of thee.

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Andrew

June 12th, 2008 9:08am Report this comment

Isn't this getting a bit repetitive now?

Ed Lancey

June 12th, 2008 10:09pm Report this comment

He should never have given up the day job. He is turning into an expense account bore. Although I see the conference were too stingy to fly him out on a non-charter flight.

David Short

June 13th, 2008 4:22am Report this comment

Try Ryanair. I'm sure the 'flight attendants' there must have taken compulsory lessons in 'customer hostility'.

I try to avoid using the airline now, but when I do I absolutely never bother to smile or say hello, goodbye or thank you to them. It is never reciprocated, and they probably prefer surliness anyway...

By the way, don't forget that your own managing director contributed to the vulgarisation of British society when he dumbed down the previously excellent Sunday Times, which enriched my life as a young 'proletarian' when edited by Harold Evans!

EyeSee

June 13th, 2008 6:44pm Report this comment

Theo, you are a gem. It is as it is and if we could be rid of the real bores, the foul-mouthed English and have back the real English, then that would, strangely be progress. I defer to you Sir, not least because deferrence is a step in the right direction. You carry on saying what you like, because that is what I like.

Judith

June 16th, 2008 1:02pm Report this comment

On this side of the Atlantic, your British reputation of mannerly sophisticates & consummate gentelmen preceeds the evident reality of the more boorish Brit that you describe. Maybe it's all the upstairs-downstairs British television shows we watch in the States that enforces this misconceived idea we Americans have of the polite British. Thought it was an abberation when traveling in Hong Kong amidst all the British expatriates & watched them congregate in loud, druken stupor even in the most upscale hotel bars & city restaurants. Struggling to place my heavy carry-on suitcaste in the overhead bin of a British Airline plane, I figured some helpful English gentelmen would jump to assit me only to be rescued by a humble, classy American.

Lydia

June 30th, 2008 12:36am Report this comment

I haven't experienced the British in Britian, but have endured the worst through the net. The hardest to deal with are the young British women. The men are still a bit more decent. The women's comments on various blogs remind me of what Basil Fawlty said: There is only one brain between the lot of them. These are the young college women, mind you, a class that I used to think of as being more refined and knowledgeable about civilization.

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