How to be a Brit

a fiddle. A
fiddle helps; a fiddle solves all the problems; a fiddle is the secret of
success or at least of survival. Instead of muddling through, nowadays we are
fiddling through. If you come here from abroad, bring your own fiddle and you
may get on top. The top cheat — the Fiddler on the Roof — is the hero of the
hour.

THE GENERATION GAP
     
     
    ‘Great craftsmen?
Their days are over,’ said Mr S., that genius of a patisserie maker, one of the
great craftsmen left in this country for whom money is nothing, quality and
satisfaction of the customer is everything.
    I am no sweet-eater. Old
aunts hated me as a child because I never touched the cakes they had made for
me with so much care and love. I still would not touch anybody else’s chocolate
cakes with a barge-pole. But Mr S. is in a class of his own. Perhaps you are
not fond of Harold Pinter or Tom Stoppard — excellent playwrights though they
are — but still raise your hat to Shakespeare; you may not be impressed by
Brasilia, yet you are awestruck by Venice; you may not be fond of pop music but
you are haunted by the Ninth Symphony. In other words, Mr S. is the
Shakespeare-cum-Beethoven of the Chelsea Bun.
    ‘When I retire or die,’ he
went on ruefully, ‘that will be the end of my craft. Nobody will produce this
sort of stuff; and if someone produced it people wouldn’t appreciate it. They
would buy and enjoy frozen muck at the supermarket. Young people are no good. I
have nobody, just nobody, to pass my business and skill on to.’
    ‘I thought you had a son,’
I interjected.
    Mr S. got angry.
    ‘Yes, I do have a son. He’s
a good-for-nothing. A dead loss.’
    I couldn’t ask which prison
he was in, so I put it more tactfully: ‘What is he doing?’
    He sighed deeply: ‘He’s a
professor of mathematics at London University.’
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IS THE ECONOMY REALLY ON THE MEND?
     
     
    When I was young, I heard this
joke in Budapest. A man goes to the rabbi and complains: ‘Rabbi, I am in
despair. At my wits’ end. Life is unbearable. We just cannot stand it any
longer. There are nine of us — my wife and myself, her parents and five children
— and we all live in one room. What can I do?’
    >
    The rabbi tells him kindly:
‘Take the goat in.’
    The man is incredulous: ‘In
the room?’
    ‘Yes, in the room. Do as
you are told. Take the goat in and come back in a week’s time.’
    A week later the man comes
back, half dead: ‘Rabbi, we just cannot stand it. All of us are going crazy.
The goat is filthy. Loud. Dirty. It stinks. It makes a mess.’
    The rabbi told him: ‘Go
home and let the goat out. And come back in a week’s time.’
    A radiantly happy man
visits the rabbi a week later. ‘Life is beautiful, rabbi. Lovely. We all enjoy
every minute of life. No goat: only the nine of us.’
    The same has happened to
the British economy. The bank rate — or minimum lending rate — went up to
fifteen per cent. Then down to twelve and a half. Now the country is
rapturously happy and oozing optimism. How wonderful: a lending-rate as low as
twelve and a half per cent.
    All that has happened is
that the goat has been taken out of the British economy.
    >

HOW TO LOSE AN EMPIRE
     
     
    To lose an Empire is a bit of
a shock. I personally did not like it at all. I am that mildly left-wing
liberal who has always preached that we (it became ‘we’ for me after the war)
ought to give it up. But I never expected that Attlee would follow my advice.
It is very satisfactory to advocate a noble deed; but it is quite shocking to
see responsible people acting on your advice.
    The change of atmosphere
came very suddenly to the whole world. Before the war Hitler declared that the
Sudetenland was his last territorial demand in Europe and all he wanted was the
return of the former German colonies. I do not remember one single voice —
including African or Asian voices — declaring that the Age of Colonies was
over, that all nations and tribes wished to be independent now and that the
idea of imperialism was, or should be, dead. People said instead that it was
quite reasonable on Herr Hitler’s part, we would see what we could do. We
hinted that Hitler could have other people’s colonies — that would be only fair
— but not ours. There were some whispers about the Germans having been harsh
and cruel colonisers, not so decent and universally beloved as the British, the
French, the Dutch, the Belgians or the Portuguese. But, I repeat, not one
single