Brits are glad to be grumpy, but the Americans are not amused

[Snowden]

Brits are glad to be grumpy, but the Americans are not amused


First they said they didn’t understand it. Now they say we don’t have it any more. The British sense of humour, supposedly one of our defining national characteristics, is once again lost on the Americans.

It is particularly lost in Slough, the town so derided by John Betjeman. According to a book by an American observer, it has become the capital of the emerging British disease - misery.

Eric Weiner, a former New York Times journalist, spent a year travelling the world in search of the planet’s happy places. But after visiting Britain he felt only pity for a population unable to experience happiness. In The Geography of Bliss, he writes: “I feel sorry for the Brits; they don’t merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.”

His keenest commiseration was reserved for the town that provided the setting for one of the most acclaimed British comedy series of recent years, The Office. “Slough is a treasure trove of unhappiness, buried beneath a copious layer of gloom,” he wrote. “The colours range from deeper to lighter shades of grey. The people seem grey too, and slightly dishevelled. The word frumpy springs to mind.”

Andrew Blake-Herbert, a spokesman for Slough council, sprang to the town’s defence. “It’s all a big misconception that Slough is a grim place, exacerbated by programmes like The Office. The truth is that this is a lovely place where people are very happy.”

For the English, Weiner claims, happiness is an American import based on silly, infantile drivel. What the British like to be is grumpy, and they derive a perverse pleasure from their grumpiness. British life is not about happiness; it’s about getting by, he says.

He dislikes our chronically polite behaviour, saying the only thing worse than bland British cuisine is the bland British personality. Weiner did not find much evidence of that British humour, which has given the world everything from Benny Hill to Blackadder. It appears he may have been looking in the wrong place.

After studying 2,000 pairs of British twins and 500 pairs of Americans, researchers at the University of Western Ontario in Canada – not a nation famed for its home-grown jokes – concluded that humour lies in the genes. Both nations, the researchers found, liked positive humour, but only the British appreciated sarcasm, self-deprecation, teasing and ridicule, and the less pleasing aspects of racist or sexist humour.

Rod Martin, one of the researchers, said: “In North American families there was a genetic basis to positive humour, but negative humour seems to be entirely learnt.”

Television humour in Britain was more biting, whereas in North America it tended to be blander. “Self-defeating humour tends to be highly correlated with neuroticism. People who tend to be more negative, depressed and anxious tend to use that kind of humour,” Dr Martin said.

He took the example of The Office, which in its original British version with Ricky Gervais playing the loathsome David Brent, was biting, insensitive and intolerant compared with the subsequent US version, which was played in a much lower key.

Genetic and environmental differences could account for the British having a far greater tolerance for a wider range of humour, including such aggressively sarcastic or denigrating series as Fawlty Towers, One Foot in the Grave and Blackadder. Some British comedians have defended American humour as having a high level of wit and sophistication.

Charlie Higson, co-creator of The Fast Show, singled out Friends. “Our sitcoms tend to be about silly people doing silly things, whereas in America it’s clever people doing clever things.”

And there is no more satirical show on either side of the Atlantic beneath its comic-strip guise than The Simpsons.

British humour scored one significant victory yesterday with news that a long-running comic series about the wartime occupation of France has been sold to a nation with a reputation for being among the most humourless in Europe. After years of hammering at a closed door, the BBC has finally sold ’Allo ’Allo to the Germans.



Times Online - The Times and Sunday Times

[Snowden]

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Brits are glad to be grumpy, but the Americans are not amused




Alan Hamilton

Apparently the picture is what caused the original problem! It won't appear because it's .eml and I can't put it in my gallery. You can see him if you click through the URL. At least, I think you can.