How to be a Brit

head with grim determination:
    ‘It escapes me too. These
peculiar African names... I know it is called something or other. It may
come back to me presently.’
    Mr Trevor, the original
enquirer, was growing irritated.
    The wretched place is quite
near Dar es Salaam. It’s called... Wait a minute...’
    I saw the name was on the
tip of his tongue. I tried to be helpful.
    ‘Isn’t it called Zan…’
    One or two murderous
glances made me shut up. I meant to put it in question form only but as that
would have involved uttering the name sought for, it would not do. The word
stuck in my throat. I went on in the same pensive tone:
    ‘I mean... What I meant
was, isn’t it Czechoslovakia?’
    The Vice-President of one
of our geographical societies shook his head sadly.
    ‘I don’t think so... I
can’t be sure, of course... But I shouldn’t think so.’
    Mr Trevor was almost
desperate.
    ‘Just south of the equator.
It sounds something like..’
    But he could not produce
the word. Then a benevolent looking elderly gentleman, with a white goatee
beard smiled pleasantly at Trevor and told him in a confident, guttural voice:
    ‘Ziss islant iss kolt
Zsantsibar, yes?’
    There was deadly, hostile
silence in the room. Then a retired colonel on my left leaned forward and
whispered into my ear:
    ‘Once a German always a
German.’
    The bishop on my right
nodded grimly:
    ‘And they’re surprised if
we’re prejudiced against them.’
     
     

ON THE DECLINE OF MUDDLE
     
    I have always been immensely proud of English muddle and
thought that in this respect we were absolute and unbeatable masters with no
serious rivals. I never look at any of my books once they are published, but
until recently I used to read and re-read with swelling pride a chapter on ‘How
to Build a Muddle’ in one of my earlier works. The English idea of giving
neighbouring streets almost identical names — such as Belsize Gardens, Belsize
Road, Belsize Villas, Belsize Crescent, Belsize Park Road, etc., was most
ingenious, likely to confuse the most cunning foreigner; and if a few of them
were not confused by this, then the numbering of the houses came in: numbers
running consecutively along one side of the road and back along the other;
giving names to houses instead of numbers. A subtle variation is to name your house ‘Twenty-Seven’ when its number is really 359. I was also delighted
to spend two years of my life as an inhabitant of Walm Lane, North-West London.
I was proud of Walm Lane. Walm Lane performs the unique trick — unique even in
this country — of, suddenly and unexpectedly, becoming its own side-street.

    But a terrible shock
awaited me. I was informed by letter from Germany — of all places — that in a
small town (I am afraid I have forgotten its name and lost the letter) they
have done much, much better than we do in England. House numbers there run in
chronological order: in other words, the house built first is 1, the house
built next at the other end of the road is 2, then one in the middle is 3 and
so on, and so on. Needless to say, the confusion achieved is consummate and the
apparently daring English idea of running the numbers up one side and back down
the other seems childish and amateurish in comparison.
    I did not mind the loss of
India. I was prepared to accept British nationality even after the Empire was
gone. I even survived the loss of the Ashes. But that the Germans — the most
orderly, the most tidy-minded of all peoples — should beat us at our own game
and should be able to produce more senseless and more glorious muddle in their
towns than we can, that, I am afraid, is the mark of our real decadence.
    What next? Are we going to
be thrashed at cricket by the Bulgarians? Are the Albanians going to teach us
how to make Scotch whisky? Or are we — no, we cannot sink quite as low as that
— are we going to introduce some sense into our weights and measures next? I am
inclined to exclaim: Après moi le déluge! (That is a cry of despair and
it means: After me the decimal system of coinage!)

HOW TO DIE
     
    The English are the only race
in the world who enjoy dying. Most other peoples contemplate death with abject
and rather contemptible fear; the English look forward to it with gusto.
    They speak of death as if
it were something natural. It is, of course, more natural than birth. Hundreds
of millions of people are not born; but all who are born, die. During the
bombing raids of the last war people on