As Lonely Planet attacks the once polite, well-mannered British as now being foul-mouthed drunkards.......
Yes, there is a lot to complain about but, by God, Britain's still a glorious place to live
By SANDY MITCHELL
24th May 2007
Daily Mail
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the journey home on the crowded train from Paddington yesterday afternoon, after what had been a perfect day at the Chelsea Flower Show, my annual treat.
So to cheer myself up I bought a freshly-made beef pie sold from a stall on the station concourse and a cup of strong tea from the trolley that passed down the train soon after leaving the platform.
It was just as I was taking the first juicy bite of my pie, somewhere near Slough, that a loud voice broke into my pleasant private world, and demanded to see passengers' tickets.
The matronly black inspector punched my ticket, then scrutinised my railcard, before pointing out that it was a week out of date. "But don't worry, dear," she said, giving a confiding smile. "Get yourself a new railcard at the station next time. I'll pretend I didn't see."
A game of cricket in the beautiful summer sunshine: Britain may be suffering an identity crisis but it's still a great place to live
So I started to relax again, enjoying the view from the carriage window of the early evening games of cricket in the golden sunshine on every spare patch of green in Berkshire, and the quick flash of the mighty Windsor Castle passing by on its squat hill, and then I opened my Daily Mail.
And I read this: "Forget afternoon tea, cricket on the village green, roast beef and good manners.
Britain is suffering an identity crisis as our genteel traditions are eroded by an obsession with TV talent shows, junk food, binge-drinking and porn, and diluted by multiculturalism."
Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, is the world's largest occupied castle
The piece was prompted by the publication of the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Great Britain, which concludes its woeful picture of national life with the unqualified judgment that we have lost any sense of a unifying culture and that our sceptred isle is submerged in a sea of junk food and yobbery.
There is, sadly, a lot of truth in what they say. I know this partly because I have spent much of my recent life criss-crossing this country researching articles for the American magazine National Geographic. And some of the people I have met on my travels conform to the pornaddicted, square-eyed zombies that the Lonely Planet guide describes.
There's much worse, too. I have been to sink estates where the souls of the young and old have been sucked out by drugs and hopelessness like air from a plastic bag.
Like so many of us, I am appalled by the increasing drunkeness and loutishness I have have encountered in many of our young. And I shudder at the memory of inner-city areas where the volatile mix of poverty, violent crime and the results of unmanaged immigration have left me feeling nothing but shame.
But there is another side to Britain - one that the Lonely Planet has balefully ignored. A succession of editors and photographers have jetted over here from the U.S. to join me on my journeys, and as soon as they arrived I have taken care to brief each of them about the sort of England they should expect: it is not all flint-walled cottages and thatched roofs, I warn.
Then when I take the new arrivals out on tours, sometimes through London, or sometimes on great sweeps across the countryside and through provincial cities, their reaction is identical. At some point on the journey their eyes began to mist and - I am not exaggerating here - they begin to utter soft but repeated cries of "Oh, my. Oh, my".
The truth is that they are helplessly seduced by the almost preposterous beauty of so many of our towns and so much of our countryside. And these Americans are hardly innocents on their first trip overseas. They are veteran globetrotters, men and women who spend their lives exploring the world's most beautiful and dramatic places.
What of the people they meet over here? Whether it is grizzled farmers on Dartmoor, housewives in Edinburgh, or hippyish young women in Brighton, the fundamentals of their lives and natures seem the same.
They share a powerful sense of rootedness and determined pride in their home area, and an equally strong determination to make a living despite often overpowering economic odds.
The Lonely Planet guide would have us believe that the young are hopelessly detached and careless about the world about them. Funny that. Out of curiosity, I recently joined my daughter's class of seven-year-olds on their weekly nature walk through a nearby wood in Wiltshire that I know well - or imagined I did.
The children were told by their teacher at the start of the walk to sketch any birds and animals, or any signs of wildlife, that they spotted. "Rabbit poo," shouted one boy with glee as soon as we entered the trees, and he quickly sat down to sketch his find with loving attention on his pad of paper.
It was not what the teacher was hoping for, yet by the time the class had left the wood an hour later the children had identified three different species of deer from their footprints in the mud.
They had found tiny snails with shells of various designs, translucent green caterpillars and furry black ones with orange heads, as well as endless types of fungus, together with hidden badger setts and fox earths. Their delight was inexhaustible. My eyes were opened to a natural world I had never noticed.
And the real point to remember is that these are the exact same children, as I know all too well from my own household, whom you will find playing with their Nintendos or happily glued to Pop Idol.
If I had the chance, I could take the sorry editors of the Lonely Planet guide to any one of dozens of towns or villages in any county they care to choose where they would find old ladies watering window boxes, and young couples apologising for accidentally bumping into strangers, and beefy middle-aged men trying to pluck up the courage to complain that they have been waiting half an hour for their steak to be served in the local restaurant.
There these editors would find the English with their stiff upper lips and their modesty, their tenacity and humour doing almost in parody what we are known for throughout the world.
But if I could take them to just one spot that would open their eyes to the embarrassing omissions in the guide, I would show them the river where I spent the last fading hour of daylight yesterday evening, after reaching my home in the countryside.
The mayfly had just started their annual hatch from the river. Swallows cartwheeled across the sky in delirious loops, hungrily intercepting the insects floating upwards from the river.
Swifts tried even more daring manoeuvres, skimming level with the water's surface and dipping their sharp beaks into the film to snatch their dinner, while a kingfisher in a flash of blue streaked like a jet in a straight line.
I was so mesmerised that I almost failed to notice the trout that sipped the mayfly tied to the end of my fishing line - a big brown trout whose cheeks glimmered like old gold when I finally pulled him on to the bank.
Why didn't I take him home for my supper? Because the scene was too perfect to break the spell, and because somehow by releasing the fish I felt I might magically be able to replay the English summer's day exactly as it was.
So even as I was caught up in my rush for this morning's train, I made a point to remember the river and the birds and the mayfly, and to reassure myself that Britain is brimming with charming people like that forgiving ticket inspector on my way back from the Chelsea Flower Show - and with places, traditions and pleasures that have changed astonishingly little in a century.
dailymail.co.uk
Yes, there is a lot to complain about but, by God, Britain's still a glorious place to live
By SANDY MITCHELL
24th May 2007
Daily Mail
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the journey home on the crowded train from Paddington yesterday afternoon, after what had been a perfect day at the Chelsea Flower Show, my annual treat.
So to cheer myself up I bought a freshly-made beef pie sold from a stall on the station concourse and a cup of strong tea from the trolley that passed down the train soon after leaving the platform.
It was just as I was taking the first juicy bite of my pie, somewhere near Slough, that a loud voice broke into my pleasant private world, and demanded to see passengers' tickets.
The matronly black inspector punched my ticket, then scrutinised my railcard, before pointing out that it was a week out of date. "But don't worry, dear," she said, giving a confiding smile. "Get yourself a new railcard at the station next time. I'll pretend I didn't see."
A game of cricket in the beautiful summer sunshine: Britain may be suffering an identity crisis but it's still a great place to live
So I started to relax again, enjoying the view from the carriage window of the early evening games of cricket in the golden sunshine on every spare patch of green in Berkshire, and the quick flash of the mighty Windsor Castle passing by on its squat hill, and then I opened my Daily Mail.
And I read this: "Forget afternoon tea, cricket on the village green, roast beef and good manners.
Britain is suffering an identity crisis as our genteel traditions are eroded by an obsession with TV talent shows, junk food, binge-drinking and porn, and diluted by multiculturalism."
Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, is the world's largest occupied castle
The piece was prompted by the publication of the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Great Britain, which concludes its woeful picture of national life with the unqualified judgment that we have lost any sense of a unifying culture and that our sceptred isle is submerged in a sea of junk food and yobbery.
There is, sadly, a lot of truth in what they say. I know this partly because I have spent much of my recent life criss-crossing this country researching articles for the American magazine National Geographic. And some of the people I have met on my travels conform to the pornaddicted, square-eyed zombies that the Lonely Planet guide describes.
There's much worse, too. I have been to sink estates where the souls of the young and old have been sucked out by drugs and hopelessness like air from a plastic bag.
Like so many of us, I am appalled by the increasing drunkeness and loutishness I have have encountered in many of our young. And I shudder at the memory of inner-city areas where the volatile mix of poverty, violent crime and the results of unmanaged immigration have left me feeling nothing but shame.
But there is another side to Britain - one that the Lonely Planet has balefully ignored. A succession of editors and photographers have jetted over here from the U.S. to join me on my journeys, and as soon as they arrived I have taken care to brief each of them about the sort of England they should expect: it is not all flint-walled cottages and thatched roofs, I warn.
Then when I take the new arrivals out on tours, sometimes through London, or sometimes on great sweeps across the countryside and through provincial cities, their reaction is identical. At some point on the journey their eyes began to mist and - I am not exaggerating here - they begin to utter soft but repeated cries of "Oh, my. Oh, my".
The truth is that they are helplessly seduced by the almost preposterous beauty of so many of our towns and so much of our countryside. And these Americans are hardly innocents on their first trip overseas. They are veteran globetrotters, men and women who spend their lives exploring the world's most beautiful and dramatic places.
What of the people they meet over here? Whether it is grizzled farmers on Dartmoor, housewives in Edinburgh, or hippyish young women in Brighton, the fundamentals of their lives and natures seem the same.
They share a powerful sense of rootedness and determined pride in their home area, and an equally strong determination to make a living despite often overpowering economic odds.
The Lonely Planet guide would have us believe that the young are hopelessly detached and careless about the world about them. Funny that. Out of curiosity, I recently joined my daughter's class of seven-year-olds on their weekly nature walk through a nearby wood in Wiltshire that I know well - or imagined I did.
The children were told by their teacher at the start of the walk to sketch any birds and animals, or any signs of wildlife, that they spotted. "Rabbit poo," shouted one boy with glee as soon as we entered the trees, and he quickly sat down to sketch his find with loving attention on his pad of paper.
It was not what the teacher was hoping for, yet by the time the class had left the wood an hour later the children had identified three different species of deer from their footprints in the mud.
They had found tiny snails with shells of various designs, translucent green caterpillars and furry black ones with orange heads, as well as endless types of fungus, together with hidden badger setts and fox earths. Their delight was inexhaustible. My eyes were opened to a natural world I had never noticed.
And the real point to remember is that these are the exact same children, as I know all too well from my own household, whom you will find playing with their Nintendos or happily glued to Pop Idol.
If I had the chance, I could take the sorry editors of the Lonely Planet guide to any one of dozens of towns or villages in any county they care to choose where they would find old ladies watering window boxes, and young couples apologising for accidentally bumping into strangers, and beefy middle-aged men trying to pluck up the courage to complain that they have been waiting half an hour for their steak to be served in the local restaurant.
There these editors would find the English with their stiff upper lips and their modesty, their tenacity and humour doing almost in parody what we are known for throughout the world.
But if I could take them to just one spot that would open their eyes to the embarrassing omissions in the guide, I would show them the river where I spent the last fading hour of daylight yesterday evening, after reaching my home in the countryside.
The mayfly had just started their annual hatch from the river. Swallows cartwheeled across the sky in delirious loops, hungrily intercepting the insects floating upwards from the river.
Swifts tried even more daring manoeuvres, skimming level with the water's surface and dipping their sharp beaks into the film to snatch their dinner, while a kingfisher in a flash of blue streaked like a jet in a straight line.
I was so mesmerised that I almost failed to notice the trout that sipped the mayfly tied to the end of my fishing line - a big brown trout whose cheeks glimmered like old gold when I finally pulled him on to the bank.
Why didn't I take him home for my supper? Because the scene was too perfect to break the spell, and because somehow by releasing the fish I felt I might magically be able to replay the English summer's day exactly as it was.
So even as I was caught up in my rush for this morning's train, I made a point to remember the river and the birds and the mayfly, and to reassure myself that Britain is brimming with charming people like that forgiving ticket inspector on my way back from the Chelsea Flower Show - and with places, traditions and pleasures that have changed astonishingly little in a century.
dailymail.co.uk
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