How to be a Brit: Includes the Classic Bestseller How to be an Alien
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 024197500X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The indispensable manual for everyone who longs to attain True Britishness George Mikes's perceptive best-seller provides a complete guide to the British Way of Life. Having been born in Hungary, he eventually spent more than forty years in the field, and the fruits of his labour include insights on important topics including the weather, how to be rude and how to panic quietly. Loved by readers and authors alike, How to Be a Brit contains Mikes's three major works -- How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. If you're British, you'll love it; if you're a foreigner, you'll appreciate it. How to plan a town: "Street names should be painted clearly and distinctly on large boards. Then hide these boards carefully." Queuing: "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." Sex: "Continental people have sex lives: the English have hot water bottles."
Tyrolean nobleman. Believe that the aim of life is to have a nice time, go to nice places and meet nice people. (Now: to have a nice time means to have two more drinks daily than you can carry; nice places are the halls of great hotels, intimate little clubs, night clubs and private houses with large radiograms and no bookshelves; nice people are those who say silly things in good English – nasty people are those who drop clever remarks as well as their aitches.) In the old days the man who had
of streets of exactly the same name in different districts. If you have about twenty Princes Squares and Warwick Avenues in the town, the muddle – you may claim without immodesty – will be complete. 6. Street names should be painted clearly and distinctly on large boards. Then hide these boards carefully. Place them too high or too low, in shadow and darkness, upside down and inside out, or, even better, lock them up in a safe in your bank, otherwise they may give people some indication about
be in Tokyo and Brown in Sicily. If I go to Paris, Dupont is sure to be in London and Lebrun in Madagascar or Lyons. And so on. But if I stay in Rome, all my friends are absolutely sure to turn up at one time or another. The world means people for me. I stay here because I want to see the world.’ And he added after a short pause: ‘Besides, staying at home broadens the mind.’ ON WINE SNOBBERY A SIGNIFICANT development of the last decade is that wine-snobbery has definitely arrived in
people know no more than that a Hock is a white Rhine wine, and are constantly astonished at the ignorance of the Germans themselves who have never heard of Hock. Genuine expertise comes in, of course, when you begin to be able to recognize the type and the vintage of the wine served. There are two – and only two – ways of doing this: (1) Have a quick glance at the label when no one is watching. (2) Bluff. There is no other way. I was once the guest of one of the most famous Alsatian
after midnight. I could not help overhearing a great deal of their conversation. It went like this: BROTHER: It struck me when I was out before supper, that the wind is going round to the south… ITS SISTER: Yes… definitely. What do you think, Muriel? MURIEL: I couldn't agree with you more. Yes. Southerly. Definitely. Yes. BROTHER: I don't like south winds. Not in these parts. Do you, Grace? GRACE: Oh no… Heaven forbid. No south winds for me. Not in these parts. What do you think, Muriel?