30 January 2021

English

How The English hold a tea cup

Having described Americans in vivid detail, it is only fair that I should summarise The English. I am not talking about the English language but the English people. Of course Yorkshire people do not consider themselves to be fully English. We are first and foremost of Yorkshire and we trace our heritage back to Viking invaders and to the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.

No my friends, the true English live south of here in faraway counties with strange names - Surrey, Hampshire, Kent, Bedfordshire, Essex and the like. And of course that is where London is situated - the great metropolis of The English.

The English all talk as if their mouths are filled with marbles. Their vowel sounds are very similar. Favourite utterances of The English  are "Gosh!", "Golly!" and "Oh, I say!"

The English send their sons to boarding schools when they are still in nappies (American: diapers) where the play rugger and cricket, learn Latin, eat from tuck boxes and suffer physical or sexual abuse at the hands of their housemasters. Meantime English daughters ride ponies at gymkhanas, take piano lessons and stomp off to their rooms yelling "It's not fair!"

The English have afternoon tea every day. Crustless salmon paste and cucumber sandwiches are presented on cake stands with iced buns, scones and jam tarts. The tea itself arrives in a china teapot with exquisite cups and saucers and silver spoons.

In the summer they attend horse racing events at Ascot or ride their own horses across The South Downs or through The New Forest, yelling "Tally-ho!"

The father of the house is called either Tarquin, Douglas or Neville . He smokes a pipe while checking how his stocks and shares are doing in "The Financial Times". On weekdays he travels into London on a crowded train wearing a bowler hat, carrying an umbrella and a leather briefcase like all the others on board.

The mother has gardening gloves and secateurs to prune roses. She is called Arabella, Fiona or Belinda and she titters behind her lace handkerchief when ever her beloved husband makes an amusing remark. At Christmas she goes wild, treating herself to a small dry sherry. She has a spaniel called Tinkle who is an "absolute darling".

The English know little of Yorkshire and the other counties "Up North". They never travel there, preferring to visit The Isle of Wight, Cornwall or The French Riviera and Tuscany for their holidays. As old maps used to say of unexplored regions - "There Be Dragons!"

The English always vote for The Conservative Party and have framed photographs of Churchill, Thatcher or John Major in their bathrooms. Presumably, this avoids any need for laxatives. Out on their manicured lawns they play croquet and down in the village they occasionally visit "The Red Lion" to guffaw under the horse brasses with a buxom landlady called Joyce who is an "absolute darling".

Obviously, I could say much more about The English. I have observed them all my life. They are the true inheritors of The British Empire. If you require further information about The English please pose your questions in the comments below.

37 comments:

  1. You have described my background almost perfectly YP. How uncanny. Only a few slight differences, hardly worth mentioning really.
    Parents called Fred and Doris; living on a huge council estate of 1950s pebble-dashed houses, some with broken down cars parked outside, others with semi-feral dogs barking as you passed by very quickly, hoping they wouldn't chase you; gravel pits and railway line at the end of the street and a fine view of the Borstal from the bedroom window.
    Such luxuries.

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    1. Harrumph! Sounds like you grew up in the suburbs of Bucharest JayCee. Are you perchance Romanian?

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    2. I am proudly English through and through... except for the parts that are Irish, Spanish and Jewish that is.

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    3. Okay. If you genuinely are English through and through JayCee, what's the third verse of "God Save The Queen"? Eh?

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  2. *Damn you, England. You're rotting now, and quite soon you'll disappear.*
    John Osborne, in a letter to The Times. 1961.


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    1. For a brief moment, I thought that was something that Nicola Sturgeon said recently in a letter to "The Daily Record" 2021.

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  3. Sounds about right to me. Doesn't everyone have an Aga stove? And a nanny? And a vintage Land Rover that they take to pheasant shoots?

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    1. Your intimate knowledge of the English is disarmingly accurate Goody Moon.

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  4. John Osborne was summoned from his unquiet grave, as the Witch of Endor summoned the prophet Samuel:

    *Miss Knickers, the Crabbit Wee Mouse that Squeaked, wants a hard border between Scotia and Angleterre, and the Scots will never stop paying for it, poor bastards. Where there was peace and plenty, that voodoo doll Sturgeon will create an economic wilderness. The Scots will be selling their children for a Deep Fried Mars Bar with Chips and a bottle of Irn Bru. Mass famine will abound such as the Micks never knew.

    *As for you, Yorky, you are a Whining, Soft Left, Public Sector, Guardianista Git! If Yorkshire wants independence, then you can bloody well Sod Off. I shall dance over your economic grave, wearing my Saville Row suit and Bowler Hat. I used to enjoy a cup of tea at Betty's in Harrogate, always gave the girls Sixpence, but those days are over. Sir Freddy Trueman agrees with me 99 per cent.*

    The above remarks do not reflect the views of Hameldaeme, a mild man who only wants to finish his biography of Flann O'Brien aka Myles na gCopaleen, who taught James Joyce how to read Homer and Virgil.

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    1. Homer and Virgil? I believe that John Osborne would agree with me that "The Simpsons" are hardly worthy of serious academic study.

      When Scotland is independent, trucks from France had better take the west coast route through northern England or risk huge tariffs at the Yorkshire border.

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  5. My lady in waiting thought that hilarious, YP. Nah then, take thee cloth cap off and park thee sel on't settle and av a swill.

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    1. Well, I never realised that you were fluent in the Yorkshire language. Did you do it for A level?

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  6. Do the English still eat chips with everything? I also believe all council workers and bus drivers read the Daily Mirror. Could they be planning a Revolution? Any thoughts about Cricket YP? Wasn't it invented in Pudsey? You could be an English Bill Bryson: Notes From A Tory Country. Two great posts.

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    1. Thanks Dave. Don't get me started on The Irish!

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    2. I hope you do all the home countries and maybe Australia YP?

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    3. Perhaps I will "do" Lancashire. They should not have stolen my Hull City bobble hat close to Burnden Park in 1967! And they should not have stolen all the wheels from my big brother's car in Liverpool the same year!

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  7. Well you danced around that one neatly so that you wouldn't make fun of yourself. But I have it on good authority from a Yorkshire person that Yorkshiremen are English and not any Viking at all. So ya, these descriptions apply to you, Pudding!

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    1. Your "authority" was banished from Yorkshire decades ago. Sent to the wilds of Canada as punishment for her wrongdoing. This should tell you everything.

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  8. Detectorists and Car Share seem to give a truer picture.

    EH

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    1. Neither were set in Yorkshire but I did enjoy both of those shows.

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  9. Neville and Fiona are as guttersnipes compared to my mental picture of Nigel and Penelope. I do enjoy watching Father Brown and All Creatures Great And Small. I also have fond memories of Jennifer and Clarissa, the Two Fat Ladies.

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    1. Not many men had the hots for the "Two Fat Ladies" but hey, each to their own!

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  10. Anonymous9:53 pm

    I am given to wondering how these English people reproduce?

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    1. They have Yorkshire gardeners, delivery men and plumbers to do it for them.

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  11. As a Yorkshireman, living away from Cornwall, Tuscany and the French Riviera, I'm thinking you must qualify as a dragon

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  12. I'm not sure which part of you is NOT English, and I will not ask, but I will point out that your report is dreadfully incomplete: nothing at all about full English breakfasts, nor one word about Yorkshire pudding. Midsomer Murders and Father Brown. Some also have a strange affinity for naming inanimate objects and having full conversations with them.

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    1. Good job I cannot currently fly to Pennsylvania to slap you with a wet codfish.

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    2. I thought you all were unfailingly cheerful. ANOTHER illusion shattered! thanks heaps for that.

      Cheerio! Toodle!

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  13. Don't forget "cheerio!" Everyone says cheerio. Even I say it. (Not really.)

    As for "It's not fair!" I'm pretty sure ALL children say that.

    I wonder if there's a genetically detectable difference between people from northern England and southern England? I'm sure Ancestry DNA could figure that out. There IS apparently a detectable difference between the English and the Scottish, at least according to the tests I've taken.

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    1. Viking blood will be far more common hereabouts than in Down South.

      Cheerio Steve! Toodle pip!

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  14. Re your response to my comment on your previous post:
    Would you believe it, we are suddenly in lockdown here in Perth after the virus escaped from hotel quarantine (UK strain, I might add!) and I have only ONE roll of toilet paper in the house.

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    1. The WA response is as strong as it is admirable. As Punch used to say in seaside shows - "That's the way to do it!"

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  15. You have not mentioned the skill to queue, honed to perfection, that no other people has cultivated like the English. And what about the ever-polite policemen and posties?

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    1. I apologise for presenting an incomprehensive portrait. However, may I point out that you have little experience of the English as your experience of this island is almost wholly focused upon Yorkshire!

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  16. All English vote Conservative? I'm an American with many English relatives. Many if not most vote Labour. One is actually a Labour Lord.

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    1. Thanks for calling by Maggie. Do your relatives live in The North?

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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