How to be a Brit

recognition; the newsagents —
unlike their English predecessors — send me the papers I have ordered and they arrive early in the morning. And the Indians keep their shops open at
all the hours when you want to shop, not only at the so-called regular hours
when you do not or cannot. The new Indian Empire is heartily welcome, by me at
least, but alas there are limits to its expansion. At Earl’s Court —
particularly around Gloucester Road — the Indian Empire reaches Arab territory
and this Empire is more staunchly defended than ever our Empire was. No
question of granting independence to Gloucester Road.
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    Even the EEC countries are
quick to seize their chances. I wrote some years ago that the Common Market
ought to beware because Britain is not, in fact, joining Europe but is founding
a new Empire. I could not have been more wrong. It is our EEC partners who are
colonising us. Britain is being invaded. The Ministry of Defence keeps a
sinister silence about this new invasion which is much more effective than
William’s amateurish attempt was in 1066.
    Anyone who has eyes, can
see what is happening. A large foreign army, broken up into small units, is
arriving day after day at Dover and Harwich. They are armed with travellers
cheques and foreign currencies with great power of penetration. They bring with
them vast shopping bags disguised as motor-cars and shooting brakes. The groups
look quite innocent, except that from time to time their eyes roll ferociously
and they utter a menacing battle-cry which sounds like: ‘Marks and Spencer!
Marks and Spencer!’
    There is one great
difference between the new invasion and that of William: William’s army has stayed
in England for a thousand years and there is little hope that their descendants
will ever leave. The new invaders grab their loot and withdraw almost
immediately.
    Once upon a time it was the
British who invaded strange lands and got hold of foreign treasure in exchange
for beads and other worthless bric-à-brac. Now its our turn to be invaded, and
the invaders pay with something called pound sterling which they can pick up on
their shores for practically nothing. No doubt the moral is: ‘Plus ça change…’

ON CEASING TO BE AN ISLAND
     
     
    I could put up with all this. What I cannot bear is our giving
up our most sacred heritage. Look what’s happening.
    I have spent the best years
of my life becoming a true Englishman and now the whole country is turning alien,
lock, stock and barrel. Britain joining Europe was as if the Pope had turned
Anglican or Ghadafi had emigrated to Israel and joined a kibbutz. And even that
was not all. Decimal currency has come to stay. Where are the glorious days
when every wretched foreign visitor was puzzled, foxed and driven to despair
when he had to calculate what he’d have left from seven and six after paying
six and eleven? Where are the glorious days of the half crown — the half of a
non-existent crown? Why is the guinea dead? What is happening to Fahrenheit —
that completely senseless measurement of temperature, invented by an East
Prussian but so supremely English? As a system, it was rotten, of course, but
that’s not the point. No bloody foreigner could understand it — not even Herr
Fahrenheit, I am sure — and that was the glory of it.
    I do not mind Britain
becoming decadent but I very much mind Britain ceasing to be an island. And
that’s what’s happening. Not because of the aeroplane; not because of the speed
of communications; not because of the invention of nuclear power; not even
because of our being colonised by Arabs, Indians and Europeans. The crunch has
come with invasion by the decimal point — by kilos, grams, and millimetres, by
a logical, easy system of measurement. This is our final humiliation.
    I hate being a prophet of
doom but I must speak up. When the furlong, the chain, the rod, pole and perch,
the peck, the bushel and the gill are gone, Britain as an island will have
disappeared and the country will have become a suburb of Brussels.

ENVOI
     
     
    Let
us not get
hysterical. What does it matter whether we are colonising the Punjab or the
Punjab is colonising Fulham?... But, you may ask, if that does not matter, what
does?
    The virtues the English
still possess matter. The tolerance, the courtesy, the still fairly decent
table manners, the sly good humour, the passion for queueing, the
self-deprecation and dislike of flattery, the cool-headedness (even