Why Does Everybody Hate the English?

Or how to get "Simcerity" when it alls goes wrong. 

I came across a comment on Facebook last Saturday, following England’s humbling defeat in Dublin. It was made by a ‘friend’ who I actually know and have even had a coherent conversation face to face with, as opposed to the hordes of cyber-whackos on Facebook who inform me that they’ve just had a monster dump or are off to bed; so I thought I’d have a go at answering it.

            It read thus: “I find it funny that everyone is so chuffed that England lost. If you hate the English so much why do you all live here ?????”

            Before the pedants amongst you – and I pride myself as being in their number - tell me that this is actually a question, it is referred to as ‘a comment’ on Facebook.

            To answer this question/comment, you have ask another: is this in fact the case, or is my friend simply suffering from acute paranoia in the face of yet another of England’s recent spectacular sporting humiliations? What she is referring to – I assume - are the indigenous British Islanders who live in England and not the principalities, republics or provinces of their ancestry. Those with great expectations of what life in England can offer. Exiles from the parochial dullness of their own countries - those who will support anyone other than their adopted country of domicile on match day. In other words, the Celts and the ex-colonials.

            There is a huge body of evidence, both anecdotal and factual which supports this.             

            Recently, Marc Lievrement, the French coach was quoted in the Times: “We don’t like the English.” Gosh! Now that comes as a real surprise, Marc; five little words which confirm what we’ve suspected all along. It was the fact that he said it and kept his job, which was the real surprise. Imagine if Martin Johnson said: “We don’t like the Scots”? Or, “…we really don’t like anyone from west of the Severn bridge.

            Go with this for a moment: what if Andy Flower, currently shepherding that other under-achieving English national team towards some sort of international respectability, said: “We don’t like the Pakistanis”?  There’d be public outcry.

            Lievremont wasn’t finished: “We don’t like black people; we don’t like them and it’s better to say so than to be hypocritical.” He also went on to say how little the French like the Jews, and got all misty eyed about the Italians and Celtic conviviality, suggesting that they are all buddies because they don’t like black people either. But it was his comment about the English that was the real take home message.

            Of course, it back-fired on him at the end of the week when England won at Twickenham; the sound of chickens coming home to roost mingled with raucous English celebration long into South Western London night skies.

            But Lievremont is not the only England basher: a few years ago, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, John O’Neill, was quoted saying: “It doesn’t matter whether it’s cricket, rugby union, rugby league – we all hate England.” He went on to suggest that the only reason that France were awarded the soccer World Cup was that no one would vote for England, and France was the only other country in the running. Don’t sit on the fence, John: say what you really think. He kept his job too.

            Okay, so the evidence supports my friend’s claim, but why does everybody hate the English? O’Neill explained this to some degree by referring to their “…born-to-rule mentality”. And here, I believe, he has a point. Without wishing to pour oil on burning waters by mentioning Tony Blair or Piers Morgan, the past is littered with historic figures whose barbaric subjugation of the provinces has left wounds which will fester, for ever, on the playing fields and in the stadia of the kingdom they unified. The aftershocks of transporting our criminals to the sunshine and oranges of Australia, Cromwell’s activities in Ireland; what Edward 1^st did to the Scots, and what Thatcher did to the Welsh miners, will be felt long after seismic events in Japan become a distant memory.

            Take the legendary half-time team talk by Scotland captain Gordon Brown (Broon frae Troon - not Clarkson’s one-eyed Scottish idiot) at Twickenham in the early ‘70s:           

            “Remember Culloden, lads?”

            “Aye”, came the reply from brother Peter, “We bloody lost that one too!”

            As for the French, despite their proximity, they are no more a natural ally to the English than Tom is to Jerry.

            But leaving history aside, there is something else which makes English rugby so difficult to like: arrogance.

            Back to Facebook: I found other comments which support this: “…going down the Black Horse to watch England give the paddies a good slap.” Really? And “…come on England: bash those thick micks.” Not that thick, it transpired. And, worst, of all: “We’re 80 minutes from the Grand Slam – Ireland, don’t even bother to turn up!”

            Now I’m sure that these comments are polarised and those who wrote them - like Lievrement -  now regret them, but it does expose a certain mis-placed cockiness that serves to fan the flames which England so frequently go down in.

             It doesn’t stop there either: it extends right the way up to the management and coaching staff. Johnson’s men went into the most important game since the last World Cup final woefully under-prepared. Sure, they had beaten a poor Welsh side, roused themselves sufficiently to make Lievrement eat his words; they had flooded a porous Italian defence and ground out a win against a manned-up but inept Scottish outfit; however none of this made anyone, other than the English themselves, see Johnson’s team as serious contenders to lift the Webb Ellis Cup on 23^rd October. Southern hemisphere sides are not quaking in their boots, and that’s who England will have to beat.

            Against Ireland, England didn’t think it was worth bothering with a plan B. By the time they realised that Ireland could easily read the inside ball, the long, deep pass behind the predictable line of drifting dummy runners, and the blunt attack of two massive but easily corralled centres, the game was up. Then Youngs prevented Ireland taking the quick throw and was yellow-carded. Johnson marked his arrogant and petulant behaviour by banishing him to the bowels of the stand. No swan diving for Ashton, either – an act which is tantamount to brandishing the middle finger to the opposition - as wave after wave of do-or-die Irish defenders enveloped him, sensing that this, if not their championship, was at least their day.

            Of course, in the lead-up to last Saturday, there was much talk in the England camp about how Ireland should not be taken lightly; how lessons had been learned from past complacencies, of how Dublin was a hard place to go and win. In 2003, in Dublin, when England won their last Slam, Johnson  - correctly I believe - refused to move his men at the request of a provocative ‘jobs’ worth’ before the national anthems. He declined to be pushed around; this galvanised England, who deservedly won. But that was Woodward’s team, an England team more focused and better prepared than any before or any since; a team high on confidence whose winning mentality was based on proven performance rather than hope – or arrogance. Certainly a team with a back-up plan.

            How far England has come under Johnson remains an unanswered question. Whether last Saturday’s woeful performance is down to selection – they played markedly better when the bench was emptied in the second half - or attitude, remains to be seen; as does the question as to whether England have over or under-achieved in this season’s Six Nations’.

            So those of us exiles who live in England, but take great pleasure at the odd Celtic victory or even the very occasional Grand Slam, can be vindicated thus: England, by virtue of sheer numbers, should be the favourites to win the Six Nations every year; but they don’t. Yet there is an expectancy from the management, players and supporters which sits perilously close to a “born-to-rule”, or “born-to-win” mentality.

            And so my suggestion to those, who, like my Facebook friend find England bashing distasteful, is in two parts: first, use this rancour to your advantage - as England did against the French - but second and more importantly - try a little bit of humility; in other words - to quote current management-speak: - manage your expectations, then you might receive a little “simcerity”, when England lose.

            That way perhaps, we all just might - yes even us exiles - get behind an England team in New Zealand if all of ours have caught the early plane home.

    

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE CRIMINALLY STUPID

Ever wondered how often someone says: ‘Life hasn’t worked out quite as I’d planned; nah, think I’m going to try my hand at house-breaking’?
Very rarely, I’d say; at least not in an off-the-cuff, I’ll give it a go sort of way. The route to crime is, I’d guess, a dysfunctional upbringing leading to the gradual de-construction of normality; the severing of the societal umbilical cords, followed by the slow realisation that your employment prospects are absolutely zero. If you’d applied yourself a bit at school you might have got a job as someone who signs off the paperwork on the toilet door claiming that you’d cleaned it; not that you’d fancy that much. Maybe you didn’t meet that charismatic headmaster who you would have told to ‘f**k off’ when he found you smoking in the playground; you know the one…instead of administering a sound thrashing and a month’s detentions – which was what you deserved – he smiled, understood you, and put you on the road to becoming the next Richard Branson.
But crime does pay – it pays admirably for those who are good at it, measure the risks, and are prepared to accept the consequences when it all goes wrong. Crime, in reality, is no worse a career path than banking or estate agency. Unless you kill - or worse, maim someone – you’ll be no less popular than a corporate big-wig at Barclays. And no one will have much sympathy for your victims if greed and stupidity can be attributed toward their loss.
Take land banking, for instance, today’s new faceless crime. Thousands of gullible people have given away their savings or inheritance, mesmerized by the promise of huge, speedy returns from land development. The BBC recently reported that twenty schemes are currently being investigated by both the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the City of London Police. Billy McNaught, a 75 year old former soldier from Yorkshire was a victim of such a scam. He was reported to have parted with over £100,000 - inherited from his mother and wife - to buy eight strips of ‘green belt’ land with no access, and with as much chance of getting planning permission as an application for a nuclear power station on Balmoral village green. His strips were later valued at a collective worth of £75. Mr McNaught didn’t deem it necessary to get a solicitor involved in the transactions.
‘Three years ago’ he said, ‘I could buy whatever I wanted. And now I don’t even turn my central heating on any more.’ Well, my heart bleeds for you Billy, but no one coshed you on the head and stuffed your money into a sack bearing the word ‘swag’: I’m sorry, but you did it to yourself.
On a flight to Malaga the other day, I noticed a teenager opposite me laboriously two-fingering out an essay on his laptop. Beside his device was a piece of paper - someone else’s work - which he was blatantly copying. I observed him making a few changes, of course, but in the casual everybody-plagiarises-so-can’t-be-arsed manner that Gadhafi junior did for his doctoral thesis at LSE. Stealing someone else’s words and ideas is no less a crime than stealing someone’s Stradivarius, or de-frauding pensioners from their savings. But to be any good at crime, you have to have a nose for sniffing out the crossroads where naivety meets opportunity. And that brings me on to stupidity.
The thing about stupidity is that it doesn’t discriminate between the morally corrupt and the morally upright. You can be honest but stupid - such as Billy - or dishonest and stupid such as the bloke who attempted to sell the £1.2m Stradivarius he had stolen for £100. Why, in the name of Zeus, risk jail for a gain that’s worth half the price of what a tank of unleaded will cost in a week’s time?
But then a few days ago, I too fell into the stupidity trap: I had my push bike nicked. I had paid a visit to my solicitor, parking it in front of the bay window outside his secretary’s office. His business premises are within a substantial detached Victorian property in affluent and leafy Wilmslow. The house is set back from the road and my bike was hidden from passing view, or so I thought. When I came out, no more than ten minutes later, it had gone. Stupidly I had left it unchained, assuming that it would be safe as: a) I was only going to be a few minutes, b) this was Wilmslow, not Toxteth and c) it was broad daylight. Nobody had seen a thing. No one had much sympathy for me - least of all the police - as I had clearly been stupid to assume an unsecured bicycle wouldn’t attract attention, even in Wilmslow. I gave them the details, got a crime number and thought that was the end of it. The insurance would pay up and all it would cost me was the hundred pound excess and the inconvenience; annoying and costly, but hardly the end of the world.
You can imagine my surprise, when a few days later I received a call from the Greater Manchester police informing me that they had found my bike. Not only did it match my description, but it also matched the serial number I had given them. My joy knew no bounds when they informed me they had also caught the little scroat who had nicked it. Things got even better when they generously offered to send a couple of officers out to me with the bike for my positive identification, and to take a statement. The thief was in custody, and they needed urgent confirmation that it was my bicycle in order to charge him.
Half an hour later a large police van arrived. My bicycle was unloaded by Officers Green and Deans who proudly awaited my confirmation that another unsolved crime was about to be cleared up. The only problem was that it wasn’t my bike.
‘It has to be,’ claimed PC Deans, frustration showing in his voice as the case for the prosecution evaporated before his eyes. ‘Look, here’s the frame number you gave us.’ It was the same number, but it wasn’t my bike. You see, my bike, a distinctive white Specialised ‘Hard rock’ mountain bike, was identical in every way down to the after sales trip computer and the fitted lights except that it didn’t have a metal pannier rack and two saddle bags affixed to the rear wheel. I had bought a rack and saddle bags some time ago some time ago, but never fitted the things as reading the instructions had given me a headache. Was I losing my mind? It clearly was my bike, but I sure as hell hadn’t fitted these adornments…or had I? No, someone else had, but why?
I put this question to PC Green:
‘Apparently, he’d been using your bike as a getaway vehicle, sir. We apprehended him leaving a house which had just been burgled. Saddle bags were full of costume jewellery; nothing worth much – he’d overlooked the really valuable stuff. Denies it of course, says he was given the saddle bags to “look after” by a friend. Presume he fitted them himself.’
‘Must have, I suppose’, I replied. PC Green unclipped the saddle bags. ‘Better keep these as evidence then.’ Neither of us had an appetite for dismantling the pannier frame and so it stayed on the bike.
As I wheeled the bike to the back of the house leaving PCs Green and Deans to persevere with their endless paperwork, I reflected that not only had I been a victim of a crime through my own stupidity, but that I’d also profited from crime due to someone else’s. Those frames aren’t cheap; I’d paid around fifty quid for mine.
I asked PC Deans what would happen to the perpetrator: ‘It’s down to the CPA [Crown Prosecution Service]’ he said, ‘if they think there’s sufficient evidence, it’ll go to court.’
‘And if not…?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, I’m afraid; case closed.’
What? Even after being apprehended exiting a freshly-burgled house with two saddle-bags full of loot and his dabs all over my bike? How much public money would have been wasted should one rogue, guilty in the eyes of the law of nothing other than stupidity, be returned, unprosecuted, to the streets.
This, I’d say, is nothing short of criminally stupid.