Last week, I related a conversation I’d had with my sister, and a few of you got in touch expressing your horror at her cruelty. Thanks! But the truth is that my sister is a nice person. Much nicer than I am, in fact, and funnier, too. If she turned up on substack, you’d all ditch me in a second and read her newsletter instead. Luckily for me, she hasn’t got time to be fannying around on the internet, because her life is already full of kids, dogs, jobs, a falling-down house, and an annoying sister (me). Anyway, I left out the part of the conversation where I slightly twisted her words to make her look like more of a twat than she actually is. In my defence, it was all for the purposes of entertainment. I kind of assumed everyone would realise this, but apparently you’ve all underestimated what a twatbag I actually am.
No one better tell my sister I said all those nice things about her, by the way. We are British, and we don’t do that.
This is an aspect of our culture that often confuses people in the rest of the world. Basically, the more a British person likes you, the more they will insult you, mock you, and laugh at your flaws. All close relationships between British people involve a great deal of calling each other affectionate nicknames like dickhead, wanker, buttface, nincompoop, dingleberry, and so on. (Unless one of the people is a toddler, in which case you might not call them a ‘wanker’ very often, mainly because you don’t want them yelling it in the supermarket. ‘Dickhead’ is fine, as long as it’s only an Aldi.)
It’s just how we are. We’re extremely polite to strangers, and utter bastards to those we love. The worst thing that can happen in a close friendship is that the other person starts being polite to you. This means they have decided they absolutely can’t stand you anymore. You can try cajoling them, saying things like, why are you being so weird, buttface? But unless they’ve had a mini stroke, the weirdness is just them killing the friendship dead. Now when you see them, they smile and call you ‘Georgina’ and you know it’s because they thoroughly despise you. (Unless your name isn’t actually Georgina, in which case I suspect the friendship can probably be salvaged.)
When I taught ESOL, many years back, students would sometimes express the opinion that British people are dishonest. We’re polite and kind to your face, but slag you off behind your back. We go around saying please, thank you, sorry, excuse me till the cows come home, but it never turns into friendship, going round each other’s houses, marrying your sons etc.
This is obviously true. I’m not going round someone’s house unless I can walk straight into the kitchen and say, put the kettle on then, you massive loser. And have them respond, put it on yourself, you festering little boil. And I’m certainly not marrying anyone who isn’t willing and able to come up with loving nicknames for me, like ‘you arsehole’.
Yes, we are two-faced, sometimes even more-faced. But surely that’s how it should be? I prefer that to how they go about it in Japan, for example, where many people’s idea of politeness is coming up to you in a clothes shop and helpfully telling you you’re fat and should go to a special shop for fat people because there’s nothing for you here. Because you’re fat.
Then again, there are obviously some insults that are going too far, even for Brits. (I don’t mean the c-word. That’s actually reserved for people you really love, or, if you’re in Scotland, literally anyone at all.) No, I mean things like saying their outfit looks ‘fine’, or taking a sip of a cup of tea they made you and looking a bit disappointed with it. Maybe these kind of things fly in some households, but for God’s sake, we must have some standards.
Speaking of standards, I spent most of the heatwave and now the cold-and-rain-wave writing and rewriting essays about the Ice Age for my other newsletter, Wake of the Ancestors, which launches on 15th June. I’m going to be podcasting as well as writing over there so that’s fucking terrifying and confusing new and exciting.
Also this week I finally bench pressed 45kg, and stopped peeing my pants when I deadlift. Which is a shame for anyone who really loves me and wants to mock me mercilessly for my weak pelvic floor.
Like this post? Subscribe, you massive loser. If you are one of the buttheads who pays me for this newsletter, thanks, you snivelling little worm. (I don’t mean it. You are a beautiful little worm, and I love you.)
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