Mr Paxman recently gave me a thorough introduction to my kind through his book The English - A Portrait of a People. I found it fascinating but far from familiar. According to my birth certificate and my expired passport I am English - but I don’t fit the mould that snugly. Rather than cataloguing a list of all my discrepancies I will share those few points where I do connect with his findings.
Without needing to look at my over-stacked shelves or numerous to-be-read lists he observes that ‘books are a national currency’. He goes on to discuss ‘the absurdly overproductive British publishing business, which turns out 100,000 new books a year - more than the entire American publishing industry’ - one very good reason to call this island my home.
The most telling character trait I share with the typical English is my comfort in resigned pessimism - he confirms that we are ‘a people marching backwards into the future, for whom change always means change for the worse’.
And a further list also prompts ticks in a number of boxes - ‘individualism, pragmatism, love of words… fundamental cussedness’.
