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 enlarge | Author: Jeremy Paxman
Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks
Category: Book
Buy New: £14.75
New (1) Used (5) from £2.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 241628
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged edition
Number Of Items: 4
Pages: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0141803347
Dewey Decimal Number: 941
EAN: 9780141803340
ASIN: 0141803347
Publication Date: October 25, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Sometimes Inaccurate and often wide of the mark March 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kate Fox highlighted some of Paxman's errors and misconceptions in her more informative "Watching the English" book. Some of Paxman's book ought to be called "Watching the Middle Class English" as his statements are at odds with reality or are only true of that social stratum. As for his assertion that the English lack a cafe culture where we can while away hours over a coffee and a newspaper, we have had a cafe culture - from Lyons Corner House teashops right to the modern day coffeeshop franchises. It's entertaining, but if you are genuinely interested in who the English think they are and why they behave in certain ways, Kate Fox's book is more accurate. To be honest, I sometimes wondered if the author was writing about the same England I live in.
As for not living in the street like our continental friends ... with our climate and our privacy culture?
 CHATTERING CLASSES DINNER TIME FODDER February 23, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It is gratifying -if a bit churlish - to see someone such as Paxman who is so accomplished and good on Newsnight fall flat on his face. You could probably guess that he can't dance and that he probably has little artistic ability but anything cerebral and I would expect him to excel - wrong!
This book is written in the tone of a schoolboy smugly correcting a `school master' and glorying in the fact of "I told you so!" So many of the references are centuries old quotes that Paxman then tries to fit onto 20th Century lifestyles. As the quotes, anecdotes and references tend to be from the intellectual `monied' class and there is absolutely no reference nor attempt to describe the different values held by either aristocrats or working class; the reader is expected to believe that a quoted attitude held by a 17th century Earl was practised by a 20th century factory worker.
I knew this book was complete tosh when on reading the chapter "Home Alone" where Paxman tries to paint a picture of English homes inhabited by hermits who will avoid any contact with fellow hermits if at all possible. He compares to continental Europe where "....you live on the street. It is the place where you eat, drink, commiserate, flirt, laugh and pass the time of day." "The English answer to the street is the back garden in which socializing (sic) is by invitation only." Nowhere in this chapter is there mention of the pub culture of socialising in England. A culture that is so endemic and successful in England, catering for all types of English people and their leisure pursuits but Paxman does not think it is either worthy of a mention or relevant to his point.
Another example of whether Paxman has even visited England is when he is describing the English attitude to home ownership and the resulting pride where he states "Drive through an English suburb - any suburb - and the thing that strikes you is the fact that almost everyone has given their house a name." In a country that has in excess of 20m homes even those from throughout the world who do not know where England is even; know this statement to be rubbish - and unfortunately for the reader this book is full of such nonsense.
Paxman is not a sociologist, historian nor an anthropologist he is a journalist and true to breed he has gone for a headline.
Not the England i know May 25, 2007
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I am nearing the end the end of the book, yet i do not recognise the country i have lived in as a guest for the last 15 years.
It may or may not be a fair portrait of the upper classes, but you have to wade through an incredible amount of ponderous, self indulging, often pedantic and belaboured points to find some interesting insight, for instance the debunking of the English passion for the countryside (although the bogus countryfolks are not an English exclusivity) and the passion for games.
The main problem is that Paxman takes turn as a would be historian, or academic, when he is none of the two, all of which weighs down the book with unnecessary rambling digressions that lead him to state the bleeding obvious "geography and the insular history influence the national psyche", well I never...
The book's main interest is that it leads you to think more about the subject than you ever did, and it has a few funny digs at the French, but don't expect any of whatever your views are on the subject to be challenged or any disturbing truth.
An ideal book for gran' ma.
Self indulgence January 30, 2007
4 out of 13 found this review helpful
On the TV Jeremy is almost a hero of mine. However, like Stephen Fry, his writing style is nothing like you would have imagined. I put this book down and decided not to continue reading at the end of chapter one as I felt he was making sweeping comments and self indulgent generalisations about the English with no clear focus on anything in particular. Sorry!
 Enlighting July 21, 2006
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
As a non-English reader, I found this book not only fascinating but widely enlighting for as to understand much more clearly the "why's" of Englishness. Through a recent business trip in England, I found this book in a convenience store and immediately found myself reading the most reveling story of the origins, habits, customs and even vices of this incredible culture that has given so much (in good and bad) to the world. For the first time I could krystal clear comprehend the differences (huge) between Scots, Irish, Welsh and English, which as a foreigner are not always clear (from the outside, you are in great risk of believing for all of your life that Jack's Union flag is the English flag, and never understand either the difference between St. George, St. Andrew and / or St. Patrick). Take the case of Renaissance; this is the first time I understand why are there so many outstanding representatives of literature or choral music in England and not so sculptors or painters for instance. Why French food is an art and not so English food is was another interesting discovery. Being "English" as a choice vs. being British as a convenience, well, fascinating hipothesis. It definitely is a "must"; read it.
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