Watching the English: the hidden rules of English behaviour, by Kate Fox

An English colleague of mine recommended reading this book as a good first introduction on the eccentricities of English behaviour, what it means and why it is what it is. The author is a English anthropologist who is trying to look at her countrymen from a distance and make sense of it. (It takes her also quite an effort, I must say!). I would highly recommend reading this book to anyone who has stayed long enough in the UK to be confused and is curious enough to look for answers;-). Its a longish book and will take patience to finish. However, its written in a light funny way and will be an enjoyable read for sure.

The author looks at many different aspects of the English way of life - work, play, pubs, social interaction and so on - and based on the behaviours in these situations, comes out with a synthesised list of reasons why they are what they are. The picture below is the outcome of the book. I think its still too cryptic to get it fully just looking at the picture, you need to read the book to understand the English well.

Defining Englishness

Alternatively, based on my synthesis, the main defining features of the English are their social awkwardness and hence looking for props to be social (e.g., being part of clubs, pubs, sports etc); need for fair play (e.g., obsessive queuing); love for privacy (e.g., love for their homes, cars and the English gardens); politeness which is linked to fair play and love of privacy; hypocritical in their class divisions; humourous (a key attribute on their attitude to everything in life) making them never earnest about anything; moaning about everything but never being assertive about their moaning; always willing to accept things not working; modesty, not taking praise well and being self-deprecating, hence the humour everywhere and a lack of ability to be frank and clear. And some of their typical comments which showcase these features are 'Typical' and 'Come off it'! Now there, that should help you understand the English perfectly well:) (just kidding!).

It would take me long to write a complete review of the book, so again I will just share some random interesting bits from the book to convince you to go read it!

Conversations
When women chat, the flow is always 'yours is better than mine', trying to moan about yourself while displaying how awesome you still are;-). The men however do it in the opposite manner of one-upmanship.

Classes
Its well known that England is a class based society, and everything about you - how you talk, what you wear, what you drive and so on - betrays the class you belong to. However, there are a lot more similarities between the upper and the working classes than the middle! Classes always are trying to differentiate themselves from the one just below. For example, the middle-uppers would be trying to do things differently from the middle-middles (and yes, the middle class is also split into multiple classes!)

Houses 
A Englishman's house is his castle and hence they all have gardens. The back gardens are their private space, however the front garden is not to enjoy but to show when they are socially available to chat! Its acceptable to chat with someone working out in their front garden, but not as acceptable to ring the bell and talk to your neighbour!

Outside their houses
When out of their homes on public transport, the English pretend they do not exist and neither do the others! They may go on the same train with the same people for years but will avoid talking to them ever.
If someone breaks the rules (e.g., in a queue), they are too polite to say anything to the offender. All they would do is raised eyebrows, a bit of tutting and puffing and seething with indignation, and that's it. So if the offender is English, he would surely get it, but of course a lot of foreigners will never notice these signals!
Also English people are so polite, that they say sorry to anyone they bump into (which is normal) but also anyone who bumps into them!!! And this was even tested out by the author multiple times! I would actually vouch for that. Given the amount of time I have spent in UK, I have started doing the same myself too!
Mercedes, BMW and even Jaguar are treated as middle class working cars, irrespective of their costs! This is so different than in India!

At work
Because of humour and irony being a part of anything they say, it's never clear what the English mean (apparently even to the English themselves!). If they are ever honest, even that is taken as being ironic!
Office Christmas parties are always expected to be wild (by English standards of course, where everything is moderate)
And marketing is anti-English. Marketing involves boasting which is not something that comes easily to them. Hence a lot of ads just say that their stuff is not bad!! (I would love to notice this on TV)

At play
English soaps are all about the private lives of real lower class people. Its generally involves a very low level of humour too. Given their love of privacy, TV offers them the only place where they can pry into their neighbour's life trying to figure out what really goes on in the world around them!
The English love their pets (sometimes even more than their children!). These are apparently the only functional warm open affectionate relationships they have!
The English prefer to socialise in an organised manner at a specific place with specific rules and so on. That is the reason for the unlimited number of societies and clubs they are a part of. They pretend that the cause is the reason they are there and the social bonding is just a side effect (use of props for socialising as mentioned above)
Round buying in a pub is like the English male saying 'I love you' to his mates without having to indulge in the emotions and sloppiness:))

Dress codes
The English suck at fashion (as I noticed in my last post about London vs Paris:) ). They can dress well when there are clear rules and uniforms to adhere too. Otherwise they are clueless, and that's one of the reasons that casual Fridays which were imported from America haven't really picked up yet. Individual eccentric dressing is also rare (Other than the Queen that is, who is supposed to have been dressing eccentrically forever)


This is in no way a comprehensive list as there is a lot more depth in the book. If you are curious, go pick up your own copy:)