Book description
The English are naturally, congenitally, collectively and singularly,
livid much of the time. In between the incoherent bellowing of the
terraces and the pursed, rigid eye-rolling of the commuter carriage,
they reach the end of their tethers and the thin end of their wedges.
They're incensed, incandescent, splenetic, prickly, touchy and
fractious. They sit apart on their half of a damply disappointing little
island, nursing and picking at their irritations. Perhaps aware that
they're living on top of a keg of fulminating fury, the English have,
throughout their history, come up with hundreds of ingenious and bizarre
ways to diffuse anger or transform it into something benign. Good
manners and queues, roundabouts and garden sheds, and almost every game
ever invented from tennis to bridge. They've built things, discovered
stuff, made puddings, written hymns and novels, and for people who don't
like to talk much, they have come up with the most minutely nuanced and
replete language ever spoken - just so there'll be no misunderstandings.
In this hugely witty, personal and readable book, AA Gill looks anger
and the English straight in the eye.
