Guide To... S1E5 "The English" (April 23, 2009)

To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life.

So said Cecil Rhodes, one of the grandfathers of British imperialism.

At its height, the British Empire ruled over one quarter of the world's population, and consequently exported Englishness to the furthest reaches of the globe.

But what is Englishness?

Is it stiff upper lips and fair play, village greens and tea and crumpets?

And who are the English?

Are we defined by a shared heritage, a common set of beliefs, by the language of Shakespeare?

Or in a multicultural modern age when more languages are spoken in England than in any other country in Europe, do we need to develop a new view of what it means to be English?

To discuss and define the nature and characteristics of the English, I'm joined by Stephen Merchant, graduate of the University of Warwick, an award-winning writer.

Thank you for having me.

And Carl Pilkinton, a man who, by his own admission, didn't go to school, has no qualification.

I'm just trying to get to the point that he's not qualified in anything or really

has no authority in any subject or hasn't got the right to

do it.

I think one thing that's very English is harping back and whinging combined.

People are saying, oh, England used to be better in my day.

Oh, England was better when I was a kid.

England was better in the 50s or whatever.

Carl, do you think England's better now?

Are you happier now

than you were when you were a kid?

Do you feel that life was better in, say, the 1950s?

I don't know, I wasn't around.

So do you understand what it was like in those days?

You've seen happy days.

I don't know.

People always say, don't they?

Old people always say, oh, you know, it was a better life in the 50s.

And he was like, yeah, it was for them.

Of course it was for them.

They're old now.

Being old isn't great, is it?

So you're just happy with your lot.

I suppose I was happiest in about

1984.

Right.

Specific years.

Why?

Because he was just always free and happy.

How old were you?

I don't know.

He's just counting on his fingers now.

12.

Right, okay.

And it was just good.

So the happiest days of your life were between the age of 12 and 13?

Yeah, it was good.

I had the world ahead of me.

Little did you know your hair was going to fall out and you were going to whinge every minute of the day.

I had my bike.

I liked messing about my bike.

You had your mates.

I had a pet magpie.

So you were probably the teenager that you eventually hate?

Probably.

Were you a good lad, law-abiding?

I wasn't bad.

I just sort of, you know,

just potted about.

I mean, when people talk about what was on the telly back then, I don't have that much memory of it because I was always out.

I was always playing out.

What were you doing when you were out?

Just playing about, just like on a bike or...

Just riding in a circle endlessly through blizzards,

rain, sleep, gale.

I never seemed to be in.

I was always...

When everyone always goes, where were you when Band Aid was happening?

I was always out on my bike.

And everything was...

Like you and McGregor.

A memory is always sort of like coming in for some orange.

and looking at the telly and seeing Princess Diana's getting married and my mum says, have you seen this?

And I'm going, oh, I'm going out on my bike.

I was always doing that.

The only time I was in the house.

This is why you don't know anything because you never stopped.

Yeah, but this is what being a kid's about.

That's what you mean.

You raced by on a bike.

It's almost like, you know, every season reaching your hair.

Your hair, your hair blowing in the wind.

Carl, you're a blowout one day.

Oh, don't talk, stupid, ma'am.

So yeah, 12 to 13 was good.

But you see, and it was all downhill from then, wasn't it?

13.

It's your teenager then, aren't you?

Life got tough.

Yeah.

How did it get tough?

Just straight away when I was 13, my mum was like, you know, oh, it's your thirteenth birthday, you're a teenager now.

And she gave us a quid to go and get a cake to celebrate it.

Went to the supermarket, got a cake, and I just thought, I don't like the look of this.

Don't like the look of the way the future is here.

On his 13th birthday, we were buying a cake, but what did you do?

Would you see the supermarket?

It was kind of like, I don't know, I suddenly felt grown up and I didn't like it.

But I think you were always about 58.

Really, with your outlook.

Well, yeah, my mum always said I was old.

She said I was an old baby.

She said I could frown before I could walk.

So they always had a bit of a worried look on my face.

Didn't say much, just always listened.

My eyes moved about more than I did.

Just sat there looking around,

looking stressed.

My eyes moved about more than I did.

Oh dear, I couldn't walk.

Well I can't walk, but I'll try and get a bit of movement in my face.

It's a workout, a baby workout.

Oh babies, well if you can't walk, what about your face?

Let your face do the walking.

It sounds like that horror film.

It sounds like Pilkinton's baby.

Yeah.

just you lying there in your cot i didn't like all the stuff that's set up for you like me my mum tried to send me to um like a nursery i said no i'm not having this

just like that i said so wait when i'm older when i'm older and i've got to go i'll go but let's leave out this bit and she said all right

i never thought he could reason with her i love him if he's like he's three years old with a pipe she's going you go to the nursery goes i think not mum

i mean kids don't play out do they

kids you know parents are scared to let the kids kids play out and that's why the streets are dangerous now because no one's playing out on the streets whereas when I was a kid everyone was out on the streets the streets were safer because there was more people knocking about right let the kids play out it must be like a constant like a Lowry painting his front garden do you know what I mean just loads of people just walking around

I was sort of taken away by some fella who were

no no I was in I was playing about in the garden yeah but my dad's mate Tony he did tiling with him.

He drove past.

And he saw me looking a bit fed up, so he just leant over, picked me up, took me to the pub.

Now the thing is, there wasn't panicked.

People weren't going, oh God, where's Carl gone?

He's out.

Just out of the way.

How old are you?

He's down in the pub.

He's out!

He's four years old, yeah.

He's down the pub.

Well, he's only having an arsenal.

He's down in the pub with Tony, probably playing dance.

Yeah, I was about three or four.

Sorry, so some blue drives by, who happens to be a friend of your dad's, thinks that baby looks grumpy.

Yeah.

I'm taking him down to the bathroom.

Tony, you bringing a baby to the pub?

Yeah, I might do, yeah.

We'll bring in ours.

Oh, I see you later, mate.

But that's what I'm saying.

Whereas now they go, the baby's gone.

There's a big full-on panic going on.

Yeah, but I think it says more about your parents.

They didn't do that.

They lived out in the back car and you were gone.

Some drugs driving off in a van.

They're just going, oh, well, doesn't Princess Diana look lovely?

This is absurd.

So what happened when you got down to the pub?

I just was there for a bit and then the...

There for a bit?

Just had a game of Paul.

Then the dad came in.

He was like, oh, there you are.

Oh, there you are.

I love that!

Where's my baby?

Going to drink, I'm just going to have a quick pie now.

Oh, there you are.

So,

yeah, I think things were better back then.

Rick, as you hinted at in your introduction,

the idea of Englishness and England, it's quite a vague term, isn't it?

You can play loose and fast with it.

I mean, for instance, I was looking at some quotes about England, and John Major, former Prime Minister, he typified England as being a place of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and old maids bicycling through the morning mist.

Very specific vision of England.

But he never came to the estate that I was born on.

You know what I mean?

I think I know of that.

If we go for a walk around Richmond, we see people playing cricket on the village green, and it's lovely, but

I don't know if it's typical.

I mean, I don't know.

I mean, I don't know where most people live.

But it looks probably 50-50, isn't it, in cities and the country.

But that's a wealthy country.

But that's, interestingly, that's the vision of England that people like to subscribe to.

When you buy your nan a box of biscuits for Christmas from Harrods, that's the image of England that's all I'm doing.

Why am I spending money at Harrods on my nan?

She's happy with sort of like broken custard greens.

You've earned a bit of money now.

Well, I know, they don't need to know that.

I mean, also, but both my grandmothers are dead, so it would be.

So, you would have brought that up, no, but I mean, who buys their...

Who spends good money at Harrods on biscuits where she just suck them and eat the Garibaldis and leave the...

I mean, I don't know why I'm wasting money on the elderly.

I worry that you've taken that too literally.

I was trying to get to making more of a point, like an analogy, but I don't shop at Harrods.

Right.

I mean, I might get some Easter eggs two days after Easter.

Well, what do you think of this then?

We were in Fortnite Mason's after Christmas and all and all the crackers were half price and there was a box of crackers for 500 quid down to 250 quid and I thought right that's got to be the best prizes anyone's ever seen.

I'm going to get Cartier watches in these things.

So we bought 250 quid.

I thought oh it's a bargain.

It's half price.

Got them home, pulled a couple and it was a little notebook that said wine notes.

That's one that ate wine notes.

So you drink a bottle of wine and

make a note of it, right?

There was another one that had something that it was like opera notes or something.

And then there was one for

travel notes.

What countries?

I'm thinking, what world are these crackers for?

Who's putting a cracker and going, I need it?

I've filled up my wine notebook.

It's like

500 quid.

Yeah.

For some little notebooks.

Yeah, I mean, if you'd have paid 500 quid, I mean, I don't know who buys those.

I assume they're for presents.

It's probably the absurd, clichéd, Toph Toffington Englishman Englishman who has no sense anymore of what were of any sense of worth of anything.

And it's just a crazy, you know, snotty-nosed inbreeding.

There was a silver-plated

muscle, you know, like the clam, the muscle, right?

But you know, when you eat mussels, you scoop them out with an open muscle.

Sure.

There's a silver-plated one.

Who carries that with them?

You get that out.

We go, oh, muscles.

Good.

I've brought it with me.

My silver-plated muscle to eat mussels.

I'm waiting.

This wine's delicious.

Let me make a note.

That's absurd.

Again, you see, it's interesting you said that because those are little images of what we would like England to be, aren't they?

They're pandering to that image of what we'd all like to be, that sort of upper-class English person who's worried about fine wine and good food.

And again, I mean,

does this England still exist?

I'm presuming there's a small minority that does.

But there are some people that are in that world that are posher than the royal family.

You know, I can understand what the Queen and Prince Charles are saying, but there are some people

What?

And I don't know what they're talking about either.

Well, I was never really aware of class and the English class system until I went to university.

Absolutely.

I became aware of it then.

Absolutely right.

When I got to university and everyone sort of spoke like royalty, that's when I discovered I was probably working class.

But when I hear those people who do actually speak in that kind of, oh, Jeff, Jeff, you know, that sort of absurd, oh, rugger, oh, you absolutely bloody hell.

You know what, though?

I don't mind the mega-posh people.

I don't mind that.

Ah, bloody hell, yeah.

Yeah, of course, take one.

Take it.

I don't mind one of those.

What I don't like is the ones that stand around in all bar one with a rugby shirt with a collar up.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those who are going to work in the sea, and they're loud and think they're gentry, but they're not.

It's that middle bit that annoys me more.

They've got that confidence, but without any of the charm.

But that's the England that I think people think of when they think of it.

It's the four weddings in a funeral England.

And yeah, it's not the England I experienced and grew up in.

So what is your typical image of an Englishman?

If I had to draw it for an alien,

he'd be

quite squat,

quite sturdy, sort of no-neck,

hairy.

Are you just thinking of yourself?

Do you know what?

It would be my build with Carl's head.

Really?

And no neck.

Yeah, I think he's sort of balding and unshaven.

And

he's like a shaved caveman.

I think he's tough.

He'd have tats.

He'd eat like a dog.

A Rear Winston type.

Yeah, that sort of

Tom Hoskins, just squat, strong, tough, doesn't take any messing, built like a giant wombat.

It's the bulldog breed.

It is the bulldog breed.

I am thinking of the bulldog breed.

Yeah.

You see, now my image of an Englishman is...

Is essentially that clichéd one.

It is, I think, Hugh Grant.

So you're modern, you're straight away modern now.

I would say, it's either mixed between Hugh Grant and Roger Moore when he was James Bond

you see that's another that's another small percentage of Englishness that sort of annoys me those people that think they're James Bond they think they can buy a suit and read GQ and they're suave and sophisticated and they get cars they can't afford or what they basically do the people who think they're James Bond all they do is work in a bank come home and flick through GQ at the adverts looking at people in with wearing watches and aftershave.

Who wears aftershave?

Do you wear aftershave car?

Normally, aftershave is a sort of thing I let other people buy me.

It's like underpants.

Underpants, tea towels, and sort of aftershave and that.

Other people buying me.

Who's buying you tea towels?

My ma'am.

Right?

Every time she turns up, she's got brilla pads and stuff.

I've got loads of them.

I keep saying to her, I don't need any of this.

But she always brings a box full of stuff.

Brilli pads, tea towels, underpants.

The underpant size hasn't gone up since I was 14.

But that's, I can rely on her for that.

So, do you not have anything in your life which you would think of as being gentlemanly?

Do you ever dress smartly?

What about suits?

I bought one suit that time when you invited me to the BAFTAs.

That's the only suit.

I wore it for the BAFTAs.

I think I wore it for one other thing.

I haven't worn it since.

I don't feel comfortable.

It's not me.

But don't you go to all of them.

That would be a lovely advert, wouldn't it?

Him with a suit, I'm going, I haven't wore it since.

Carl Pilkinton hasn't wore it since.

No, I don't like going to him.

I agree.

I mean even though you know them, they don't give you any time when you're there, do they?

They just sort of don't know whether you're there or not.

They're on cloud nine.

They don't know who's around.

It doesn't matter.

You don't know

with them on a murder day, it's all me, me, me, isn't it?

Oh, what are they like?

I know, unbelievable.

You don't even get to make a speech, do you?

Although I know you were annoyed, Steve.

Steve doesn't like to part with money.

I mean, I'm not, I'm, I don't know what the politically direct term is.

Stingy kind of thing.

It's fucking mean.

Right?

And if he ever has to spend out on a wedding gift to someone he's known, you know, all his life,

they look down the list and they find things under £25.

Then if he bothers spending that much, he's furious when someone, an usher, goes, just stick it there.

Oh, it drives me insane.

Well, firstly,

I'm annoyed about the wedding list.

I don't know when that's come along because I don't know why I can't just bring maybe something I've made at home.

No?

Why has there got to be a list of stuff?

What bride, what newly married bride doesn't want a pair of homemade clogs?

Exactly.

Do you know what I mean?

And then you arrive there and it's just, oh, thanks very much, stick it on the table.

But the same though, I think people very much appreciate you being at their wedding.

No, I don't know.

They do, they remember if you were there.

No, I do not.

They do.

You don't get invited to weddings because you've got any mates.

I know enough people.

Everyone's getting married.

But it's always in the middle of nowhere.

No, that annoys me when people say, come to our wedding.

Yeah, fine where.

Where I'm in Greece.

Well, no, down the road.

I might make it down the road for the reception.

Go to the quick.

What?

You want me to book a holiday and come to your wedding?

Well, the thing that drives me insane when you do go is when they put you on a table with people you don't know.

I've got all my mates there and they put...

Because I've got to mingle with some people.

I don't care.

I need decent people.

But that's what I'm not good at.

Talking to people once.

Talking to people who you don't know.

No, but you know, what sort of stuff would you make conversation about at a wedding?

I'd probably say, oh, first of all, how do you know them?

How do you know the people getting married?

And then, like, you know, do you think it'll last?

Imagine getting, imagine inviting Carl Pilkins and going, I wish we'd put him.

I don't know.

Is there a table for one?

Oh, just...

You've got a table with the kids.

Imagine being stuck with Carl Pilkington at a wedding.

Yeah, what else should you do?

You've asked them, do you think it'll last?

They've gone, I'm sorry.

Who are you?

Carl Pilkington from Manchester.

Right.

Yes, we think it'll last.

What else would you ask?

And what's your next?

You know it's going badly.

They're sort of like looking down their nose at you.

They're thinking, why do they invite this bald-headed scum?

The last wedding I went to, it's going back a couple of years, but everyone seems a bit snidey.

Do you know what I mean?

Because you've got a mixture of families there, haven't you?

Yeah.

And none of them really like each other.

And I got stuck with an old fellow who had a flatulence problem.

And then he went on to say it doesn't matter, the suit's hired.

And they just come.

I'm going to die.

I love that.

I love it.

He's basically saying that wedding.

It doesn't matter if I shit myself.

To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life.

So what do you think of that, Carl?

Maybe it's that thing that I don't appreciate what I've got.

But to me, being English isn't anything that great.

Really?

Why not?

Because

it's just what I've been dealt with.

But what would you having I mean, I know you know nothing about the world.

You've travelled nowhere.

No, no, nothing.

Yeah.

But if if you could be any nationality,

what would you be and why?

Probably be Italian.

Okay.

Why?

Well, just,

yeah, I like the idea of it.

I like it.

Italians are alright.

Where would you live?

Rome?

I probably wouldn't want to be in the middle of Rome.

It's too much hassle.

Have you been to Rome?

Yeah, it's nice to visit and stuff, but it's just I wouldn't want to live there.

You've got to get paperwork done and you just just want to put a picture up because everything's old, everything's listed.

He's only been Italian about three minutes and he's already slacking out.

He's already

Rome.

It's good.

A lot of old stuff.

Why have you chosen Italy?

I'm interested to know why, of all the countries, you've chosen Italy.

I was a latecomer to pasta.

But it's one-year-owned.

I like it now.

It's like one of my favourite things I have.

Which there isn't really anything like that in England.

That even though it's...

Oh, except pasta.

Pasta's not.

No, it's exactly like it.

Yeah,

we've got pasta.

It's not ours, though, is it?

And we don't know how to eat it.

What do you mean we don't know how to eat it?

We do it all the time.

You used to get up your arse again.

Look at me.

I know how to fucking eat it.

No, but what I mean is, if you saw a proper Italian and they saw what we did to pasta,

they would not be happy.

What we're doing wrong, Dan, what we're doing wrong.

Well, I don't know that, otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it wrong.

How did you know we're doing it wrong?

I just heard we do it wrong.

It's like how we have the coffee at all the wrong times.

They ordered a cappuccino somewhere, and the Italian fellow said you shouldn't be having that now.

It's a breakfast coffee.

Yeah, it is, yeah.

Before Before 12 o'clock.

Yeah, but I was having it at like quarter to 11 at night.

Oh,

well, that's absurd.

You get to sleep with a lovely cup of coffee.

Yeah, that's nice.

Well, I got to sleep anyway.

You shouldn't drink coffee anyway at night.

There was cappuccino or frappuccino or

mocha.

It doesn't matter.

Don't drink coffee after about four in the afternoon anyway.

Full stop.

So hang on.

So you love pasta, but you're not eating it right.

So you'd like to be Italian in order to be able to eat pasta correctly.

Even though you enjoy the pasta, you eat it.

What do you feel being Italian is?

And what's attractive?

It's just very sort of

a relaxed lifestyle.

Whenever you go to Italy, everyone's sat outside a cafe.

It doesn't matter what sort of person you are.

That's all you do now with your spare time is sat outside a cafe.

They get more respect over there for

it's like it's okay to do that.

There's older people sat outside cafes who do nothing.

I love the fact that he wants to be Italian so he can sit outside a cafe and get more respect than he does now sitting outside a cafe.

No, but everyone's rushing about here.

People have like colder coffee.

They have frappuccinos here because they haven't got time to have a hot coffee.

It's like they've got a coffee with ice and so I can neck it.

Get it down my neck and get on with my day.

Relax, enjoy your coffee.

I don't understand the rush.

You never enjoy anything.

You said that you don't enjoy anything.

You don't enjoy a coffee.

When you're having a coffee, you're probably going, oh, I don't know if I can enjoy it yet in retrospect.

Tomorrow I'll go, I like that coffee yesterday.

But the reason you enjoy Italy is because when you're there, you're on holiday.

That's why you're able to chill out and relax.

When you say that's old people, old people sat in some little Sicilian village.

Of course they got no money.

Here.

I went to

the Salvation Army.

Right.

Why?

Because it's nice.

What do you mean?

You can get toast and a cup of tea for a pound.

Go!

You little skin flint.

You little roundy head skin.

I'm not skin flinty about that.

That's just that should be the going rate, Steve.

I'm surprised I'm seeing you in there, to be honest.

But the thing is, where is it?

Now,

just near Camden.

What is it?

Is it like old people?

A lot of old people, mainly old people.

And this is what I'm saying.

These are people who are old and they've sat in a cafe, but they don't get any respect.

People are walking past and they don't want to go in.

The way you reacted when I said I was in the Salvation Army, that's the reaction they get.

Yet, an old Italian person, they looked after better.

Well, it's certainly true they look after their older families, aren't they?

And that's what I'm saying.

Whereas, I mean, it's a lovely place, Salvation Army.

Every old fellow in there has got a tie on.

Yeah.

They make an effort.

That chokes me when I see an old boy still put a shirt and tie on.

He's 90, he's like been through hardship, and yet on a Sunday, they're still shying their shoes.

You know what I mean?

When you sometimes can't even bother to put your trousers on.

No, I know.

Well, I've got an elasticated waistband and they're still fiddling with braces and buttons.

So anyway, yeah, that's what I like about Italians and that.

There's a lot of.

So you want to be Italian because when you're old, you can sit outside a cafe and get more respect than you do here.

Yeah.

Look at the old people in this country.

They never look happy, do they?

Really?

Most of the time when you see them walking around, they get they go to pot, no one's keeping an eye on them.

Well it's a an important thing isn't it?

That that um my uh my mum this is when she was about sixty, sixty-five and there was a a neighbour who was uh like

you know eighty-five, ninety

and um again, completely alone.

And my mum used to go on there every day, do you want any shopping?

Do it right.

She she was she was she was good for us, she was like her witness in the world, you know, to her existence.

But I remember calling her once and

she's coming back, I said, What have you been doing?

She went, oh, I've been around so-and-so.

So I went, all right.

She went, oh, she won't die, Rick.

Like she's helping her, but she's thinking, this is getting silly now.

You were meant to go years ago here.

I was like,

well, that's the problem, you know, if you if you get pally with an old person, then you could be stuck with them for years.

And having to do stuff, you know, that's what you don't want to do, isn't it?

You you m you meet an old you know, an old fella and then you've got to start popping in his sort of piles or whatever when he can't do them himself.

You know, what do you do?

If you're...

It depends how friendly you are, though.

I mean, I'm just talking about someone you meet at the bus stop, as opposed to popping the piles back in.

How does that happen?

Jesus.

Just the ones on the estate I grew up on.

As soon as you got to a certain age, it was Mrs.

Knowles who went mental.

One day she seemed fine, next day she was chucking cans in everyone's garden.

You could just hear her coming.

Which was weird.

Daniel, now you brought up weird people.

There was a fellow called Shortsman.

It's so pedestrian.

I love the Shortsman wore some shorts.

No, no, what I like, yeah, he did, but they were really short.

They were that sort where, you know, it's almost pointless having them on.

What do you mean?

They were just, you know, like shorts now for blokes, they go up to your knees, don't they?

There's no chance, there's no accident happening there.

There's nothing going to pop out.

But Shortsman, he liked it.

He liked the fact that that happened.

And he used to walk with big strides to sort of help the chance along.

So that he knew with the big strides and the short shorts.

Yeah.

They were going to pop out.

Did you ever see it pop out?

Yeah.

Why?

Why do you look at the shorts?

Just because

it was like playing Buckaroo.

It was like, when are they going to pop out?

But

it's just what happened.

So, right, but Schwartzmann.

So he was an exhibitionist.

Basically, what people did is veg.

Yeah, and they were out more than they were in.

I mean, they they had a tan.

Right?

Now, the thing is,

what what we like in England, I think we like that, we like local characters.

Eccentric, yeah, eccentric's very that's very British, eccentric,

and I and I'm glad I grew up down there with all them people because they were interesting.

Well, there is a certain uh mindset about the great English, certainly the older English people.

I mean, my

grandparents are, you know, my grandfather died recently, but they're amazing, kind of eccentric very English seemingly

no friends from what I can identify I don't know if this is unique to them or true a lot of English people

older people terrified of what the neighbours might say

always did that thing of speaking like that in case I want to

like the neighbors are constantly listening in they've got glasses against the wall they're constantly listening into what my grand's got to say

they had about three teeth between them it was extraordinary my grandfather had a plate of false teeth during the war that had a wooden palate, a wooden upper palate with teeth on it.

And those teeth slowly fell off during the course of the years, never got replaced.

So they'd sort of invite you to Sunday roast, and

they would wake up at six in the morning to put the beef on, and they wouldn't have it till six in the evening.

They would cook it.

The biggest compliment you could have, if you made some food for my grand, if it was some beef, would be, oh, you're so lovely, this, so tender, you can suck it away.

If you could suck your Sunday roast through a straw she was happy well didn't have any teeth right exactly basically they got to about the age of 60 or something and it was as though they were just waiting to die it was strange they and they lived for another or my grandfather lived for at least another 25 years

so it was that you must have been gutted but

my father needed a winter coat a big heavy winter coat and he was thinking of buying one and um my grand said oh don't worry about that ron you can have your father's winter coat and um he said well, but you know, he's still alive.

What do you mean talking?

He needs a winter coat.

She went, no, he'll be dead soon.

Just don't silly to waste it.

Seems to waste it.

You know, just wait.

My father must have been waiting ten years for that winter coat.

I love the fact he waited.

You can see where Steve got it from.

Of course, he's waiting.

Stupid, I'm waiting now.

Steve, you must be freezing.

I am cold, but I'll tell you, lovely coat.

In English society, traditionally and now, is manners.

I mean obviously manners change but what is etiquette?

What is good manners?

I think that a lot of that has been lost.

Well I was thinking the other day have you ever heard of the finishing school?

Yeah.

Yeah of course.

Do you know that?

The idea is that you know the sort of gentrified ladies

after they finished their education they would go to finishing school where they would literally be taught you know how to...

knives and forks, walking with a book on your head, just things like what to say.

I mean that's proposing.

I mean it's like it's it's like a year of being a lizard doodle isn't it don't put your elbows on the table if you start with start from outwards going inwards with cutlery you know you eat soup the spoon goes away there's things like that the fork you're never meant to face those prongs up that you so you either stab your peas or you know there's ways of eating soup you know the spoon needs to be moving away from you yeah yeah scooping it up and bring it back to your mouth I mean it's crazy but you know the people that subscribe to that stuff would look at the way you live your life, the way you eat your food, Carl, and would be appalled.

Yeah, but.

In the same way we think that's absurd, they would think you're a disgrace.

But as long as you're enjoying it.

No, they would say no.

Well, no, there are certain things that I can't stand.

I can't stand eating with a mouth open.

I think that's rude.

I banned chewing gum on the set of a film, because I think it's rude.

I think it's rude.

The people who stand there talking to you.

Yeah, but we all know you're a preposterous hypocrite.

I mean, the way you eat food, come on.

No, I don't eat with my mouth open.

I don't...

I do eat with just my right hand and mash it and scoop it in, but I see nothing wrong with it.

I would say it was slightly rude when you're ordering the bill and getting up to leave when I'm still finishing my main course.

I'd say there was a touch of rude.

But I go into a restaurant to eat.

Yeah, but you're supposed to wait when you're with the other people and let them finish as well.

This is my ideal restaurant.

It is empty.

They know what I want and it's waiting for me when I walk in.

I leave still chewing and I go put it on my bill.

That's the ideal restaurant for me yeah you're pretty much there

yeah I try I try and that's what I try and try and do yeah

but you know there are certain things I am one for manners I think I hate rudeness I hate lateness I hate all those things but some of them are ridiculous the elbows on the table is arbitrary why

I mean there's a reason you say please and thank you because it shows courtesy

Those make sense.

There's a reason you don't talk when you're eating because it goes everywhere and it's disgusting.

There's a reason you don't lick your fingers and then put it back in the chips because it's someone else has got to share that but don't put your elbows on the table or or start with that fork I think it's ludicrous you know there's those rules when you meet a member of the royal family for instance if you were at the Royal Variety Performance and you met the Queen there's various rules they yeah you don't fart or call her love exactly for for one but also you don't speak until you're spoken to you have to do a slight bow I was um invited to the the palace a couple of times.

The first time was after the office sort of of broke and I got an invite um company of her majesty the queen would like you to come to a one of those dinner parties and I know what you're thinking why didn't you get one yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking well wait wait wait I was I was a big shot quicker than you because I was in it don't forget you didn't appear until

series two

if we'd if we'd split the atom they would invite both of us

not just the guide as the press conference so so the thing came through and I thought oh I don't I didn't I was worried about it to be honest

but it just said

I will be attending I will not be attending tick the box and I couldn't bear to just tick I will not be attending because it was too harsh so there was an RSPV number and I phoned up and it was obviously the head of the house or a butler or I don't know someone and he went hello Buckingham Palace and I said hello it's Ricky Gervaise I just got an invite to come and meet her

and I it sounds weird, but I couldn't bear to just tick, I will not be attending.

He went, well, you're the first person ever to bother to do that.

Thank you so much.

I went, oh, my pleasure.

Sorry I can't make it.

But don't you think that's weird?

It is strangely brutal.

It is strangely brutal, isn't it?

I wonder if they've changed it by now.

Yeah, there's a little asterisk thanks to Ricky Gervais.

And it now says,

I am too fat and lazy and busy eating cheese to visit Your Majesty.

What I think is this, that no one's ever ticked I will not be attending.

Right, yeah.

So it was never a problem.

So why did you not want to go?

I don't know, I just thought it was a bit intense and

I turned down all those things.

I think I would like to go now just to look around.

I don't know, I just felt a bit funny just being invited there.

I was invited to all those things at the

Downing Street as well.

And I just thought, you're inviting me because I'm on the telly now, because I'm famous.

Well, where was my invite when I was on the doll?

Do you know what I mean?

With respect I wouldn't have invited you

circa 1983.

No I haven't got a problem with

going to the palace or

except I do have a problem with sort of being wheeled around as a celebrity.

Because I used to think if I was ever invited to get given an MBE or a knighthood or something, I'd be like, nah, I'm not part of the system, you know, I'm a rebel, I'm outside.

Now I think it would be be quite cool.

Well I only think it's it's a problem for a comedian because, you know, we're sort of meant to dish it out, and it's difficult to dish it out if you're being seen.

What I do find weird is the idea of having to bow and scrape before people because I'm told to do that.

What I find is that idea of

I'm obligated to be respectful to such a degree just because someone's the queen.

Like, obviously, I'd always be respectful, but why can't I speak when she turns up?

I don't understand.

That's how I find a strange idea.

well I just say you know honour to meet your Majesty but you know I don't understand why I can't initiate that why if I'm not thinking that if you went if you went honour to meet you before she'd spoken what's she's gonna say she's gonna go cheeky camp

I talks first lanky

Carl what do you think about all the pomp and circumstance around um

it's it's all alien it's not it's not for me I don't like that sort of uh

I try and not put myself in the same sort of

circles as posh people because it's just a different it's like a different club in it it's like like I said to you about young people and old people there's such a different life going on they say like the the whale and the hippo are related you never see them together and it's the same with with really posh you know well-off people and someone who's just getting on with the life but it's but I mean that's the thing that's changed as well the stiff upper lip thing that's out of the window now I mean it's like

everyone's got a new addiction Everyone's, oh, I'm addicted to drugs, alcohol.

I'm addicted to sex.

Not a problem.

Have a wank.

And everyone's got depression now.

Can you be addicted to sex if you're not getting any?

Because if that's the case, then...

Oh, dear.

Do you think there's a big difference, Carl, between the Englishman of yesteryear who didn't complain?

I mean, he just got on with things.

He might have whinged about the weather and the like, but he just got on with things.

He's carried an umbrella.

Yeah, whereas

people are getting their prosaic and their anti-depression.

Someone to therapy.

Yeah.

He kept out of stuff as well.

Just go to war and so and so.

Alright.

They're coming this way.

If they come over here, give them a slap.

Why are we getting involved now and everything?

Thoughts on that, Carl?

It's news now, innit?

Sometimes I think, don't tell me.

Don't want to know.

Just get on with it.

Whoever's job that is, get on with it.

Why am I being told about it?

When I've got a problem in my job, no one else knows.

No one helps me out and goes, well, I've got an opinion for him.

This might help him.

No one helps me.

But I'm being bombarded by everyone else's asshole.

They love talking, actually.

That's what the English do.

Talking, but they never finalise it.

They'd love just being in the meeting room, talking, saying, Yeah, we could do this, we could do that.

I'm the only one in that room not getting paid.

Everyone else is on a wage.

I'm there looking at my watch, thinking, right, I've been here for an hour, nothing's been sorted.

They're looking, thinking we can drag this out for another half hour, get us to lunch.

That's what annoys me.

They're all sat there just pushing bullshit around the room like dung beetles.

I'm sick of it.

And that's what the English do.

It's a shame because I don't think they used to be like that.

I wish everybody just sort of kept to themselves more.

Like, you know, certain animals do.

You just get on with it.

It's like an old-fashioned way.

What animals keep themselves.

Well, any animals keep themselves to themselves.

That's what I've said.

Loads of things.

What animals keep to themselves?

Badges.

Why do they keep themselves?

No, they just.

Whenever you've seen them and you're sort of wandering about about a roadside, they're on their own.

They're not sort of

in pairs.

I don't know.

Most of the time they're dead.

I've seen more dead badgers than alive ones.

I've never seen a live badger.

I don't know what his point is.

So that's why they're one alone and two getting on with it.

I love it.

Most of them are.

I love that.

It started off with some kind of poetic analogy.

I don't know what that was.

Just uh.

Oh, God.

I like this thing of the the Englishman I knew growing up

was

you had to

when you hit a certain age, when you hit like

manhood or puberty or whatever, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, you had to start showing your metal.

Then the most important thing then was to

well, the worst thing to be growing up was gay.

That was like you couldn't be gay.

That was it couldn't be gay.

Anything but gay.

And then you had to be hard, had to be tough.

I remember, right, when I first started going to pubs, right, so I'm, I don't know, say 18, you walk into a toilet, the rhinos, and the first thing everyone did was fart and gob.

That was it, right?

If you couldn't do that, then you get funny looks.

You know, you're going to the original, and they'd look at you, oh, sorry.

It was all about

being a man.

I think wearing glasses makes you slightly exempt from that.

It's like you don't have to...

People automatically dissociate.

It's like if I was in prison, I wouldn't have to do that because I'd just be the professor.

Do you know what I mean?

Or friends.

I wouldn't need to be a part of it.

I'm never a threat because I never look like I'm going to be a tough guy.

So consequently, I live in this sort of parallel stratosphere where I haven't got a piss and gob.

Yeah.

Has that got more popular?

Yes.

Has it?

Yeah.

There's a lot of gobbling it in the streets now.

Really?

It's like a vote in Hampstead.

It still is, you know.

When I walk...

The only person gobbing in Hampstead is me.

Jane says, don't gob.

People are looking.

Well, it is.

It's your trail that I'm seeing there.

It's like a load of sort of washed-up jellyfish in London.

Just big blobs of it.

I mean, I don't know how they're coughing this stuff up.

I mean, it shouldn't still be alive.

Some of them have like organs in them.

It's just big lumps of stuff.

I mean, that list of

idyllic, antiquated England of you know, tea and cakes and cricket, I mean, is is valid.

But I think the things that sum up Englishness,

I mean, talking of the weather, I think drinking,

war, we love a ruck.

Yeah.

We've built on war.

We're a warrior race.

We're pretty good at war.

We are good.

We used to be good.

I don't know.

Yeah, no, we're very good.

We're very good.

I mean, I think we've reached our peak with Churchill.

It's probably our greatest hour.

Our finest hour.

According to him.

Yeah.

Well, he should know he was there.

He should know.

And he'd like to drink, didn't he?

He loved a brandy.

He's just not afraid of a drink,

he'd get pissed up and he'd no wonder he'd fight him on the beaches he'd fight him anywhere yeah see there's an example of a posh bloke it was like I was saying he'd lead you into battle he'll have a weapon too he'd go in there he didn't he didn't sit back I mean when he was old he did but nothing wrong with being posh if you're willing to go and you know get stuck in what do you think Carl

is it as scary though I mean imagine if if he was rougher sounding and he was on the on the front line like he went he He went, you fucking little cunt.

I'll fight you on the beach.

See me down in Brighton Monday.

I'm going to fucking smack your head in, you little fucking German cunt.

Like that, you mean?

Yeah.

Well, that's the other point, isn't it?

That he was, those speeches were for as much as morale as information and defiance.

You don't want to feel like...

that the leader of your country could glass you if you got on the wrong side no exactly it's got to be it's got to to be rules under war, hasn't it?

I mean that fair play has got to come into it as well.

Talking of the English sense of fair play

and war,

when

the crossbow was invented, a lot of people wouldn't use it.

They said it was un-Christian.

So our soldiers sort of resisted it.

So Europeans got this thing that needed no skill.

And it was shooting these bolts and they could reload quick

versus our bowmen.

What do you think of that?

What What do you think of going, oh, it's cheating, we won't use it, but having a disadvantage?

That's honour, isn't it?

It's almost like it's okay to kill someone, but with skill.

But what's the problem here?

What am I meant to be worrying about?

Well,

you've got bow and arrows.

They're amazing.

They're heavy.

They've got trained bowmen.

They're skilled.

The most skilled sort of marksman

soldiers in the country.

Someone comes along and goes, don't worry about that.

Here's a crossbow.

Just pop it in, pull it back,

deadly, deadly quick.

Anyone can use it.

So now you've got anyone with a crossbow killing people.

Women, children.

Anyone can use it.

So the Europeans, they're going crazy.

Oh, William Tellon is

shooting apples off heads.

Right?

But we resisted it because we thought it was, you know, unchristian and cheating to kill without skill.

What do you think of that?

But

where were the actual bows and that being made?

Because that's the thing, isn't it?

The company who's making them, they just want to get out to a big market.

Brilliant.

That's what they do now with the iPod and everything.

It's not about people wanting more music than ever before.

That's not the case.

It's about having the accessory.

And if the bow and arrow was sold as this, you know, light to carry for all the family.

That's how it would have happened.

That's what it's all about.

He knew bow and arrow from Ronco.

But what do you think the problem is?

Yeah, but you're not quite getting Ricky's point.

His point is the idea of there being sort of rules and fair play and etiquette in war.

The idea is to kill the family.

I don't think war and that is a place to start getting all uppity about someone cheating or having a better system.

Really?

You think all fair in love and war, do you?

Yeah, definitely.

Right, but it's just about all, isn't it?

No, not in a war, there isn't rules.

So what about things like the Geneva Convention?

It's the understanding that even if we're entering into a war, theoretically, there's a set of agreements.

It's good for both sides, isn't it?

Fair play has got to come into everything.

What's extraordinary about the idea of English fair play is you know famously the you know the approach during the First World War that we would sort of walk up out of the trenches onto no man's land and sort of politely march at a slow steady pace across towards the enemy.

I mean and then we were just being machine gunned down.

I mean it was absurd.

I know we were fodder.

It was fodder to use up some of their bullets.

I mean it was crazy.

I mean it's madness but in a way it's it's the gentry who are leading us seeing you know the average Tommy as a sort of as their

realise that most of these people didn't want to be there, most of them didn't even understand it.

I mean, and if you think of the first and second, you know, they were just wars, you know, but um, I just I can't just can't imagine

what it would be like do you think, Carl, in a war situation?

You've seen all those films of the uh I mean that's the one they had a

knockabout and stuff, didn't they?

They took

a football in No Man's Land, yeah, Christmas Day.

But who who took a football there?

If I was on the front line, I would not be getting out the rule book.

I can tell you that much.

I'd be going mental.

Are you saying there should be some rules or no rules?

I mean, you've got to have some rules, otherwise, it's just going to be like Grand Feft Auto, innit?

I'm just going to go about battering everyone.

Yeah.

And you soon get bored of that.

So I think you've got to have some rules.

Which rules would you repeal that already exist that you don't like?

It's a shame you can't tip as much as you used to be able to.

You mean in a restaurant?

No, just when you're getting rid of a mattress or something.

So fly tipping, you'd like to see more fly tipping.

What do you mean?

This is something so personal, he's fed up, he had to take something.

No, it's just that they used to put stuff outside the house, and just like you had mattresses, you had sideboards,

sewing machines.

The thing is, it was a good way of recycling.

Now they say recycle, but we're not recycling, it's just been put in a bin.

So, you'd like to see more fly tip in?

No, not you see,

this is the problem, you see.

Look what's happened.

Look what's happened to what I've said.

It's been taken the wrong way.

Right.

I'm not saying tip, I'm not saying chuck your bin bags out the door and let crisp packets go everywhere.

I'm saying if you've got old furniture,

you should be allowed to leave it outside your house without the council going move that, it's dangerous, someone's going to trip over it.

Well, if they trip over it, you should have been looking where they're going.

Well, what if they're blind?

Well, what if they're blind?

That's why you don't leave things out in the pavement, because blind people will fall over them and smack their face in.

What if a woman with a couple of kids in pushchairs has to go out into the road to get past

and get crushed?

No, because I'm leaving it.

I'm not leaving it on the pavement.

Well, you said you were.

Where are you leaving it?

Sort of outside the house.

Right.

In your front garden.

Who's going to take it from there?

That's just thieving.

No, sort of.

Where are you leaving it?

Where are you leaving it, Carl?

You haven't established where you're leaving this yet.

Because so far, a blind person's fallen over and broken his neck.

I've never seen a blind person trip over anything.

You've never seen a blind person trip over anything?

Definitely not.

They're better on the feet than some people because they're more cautious, aren't they?

Make it more fun for them, if anything.

Why can't you just have this stuff collected by a second-hand shop or something?

Because they want to come, Steve.

Honestly, they don't.

I've called up people and they say in, yeah, we'll be there in an hour.

And I say, right, I'm going to put it out on the street and are you going to come and get it?

Yeah, we'll be there.

An hour passes by.

They haven't been.

Suddenly, the council goes by.

on the floor, blooded nooses.

And the council said, I call them up.

Do you want to shift it?

Well, we might, but don't know when.

Well, it's outside the house now.

Well, you can't leave it there.

It's your responsibility.

You have to stay with it.

Suddenly, I'm wasting time sat outside my house with rubbish that someone else might want, but you're not allowed to leave there because a blind person might come along.

What's the dog doing?

What

do you make of

St.

George's patron saint?

What's your take on that?

Is he the one who killed a dragon?

Right.

Tell us the story.

There was a dragon problem.

Must have been in England.

Right.

George took it on.

He took on the job.

He was like a renter kill.

He came out.

The interesting thing with him is, right,

he was a hero then.

I honestly think if he did that now, there'd be an uproar.

Because

it's the last dragon.

It's the same way we're trying to save the panda and all that now.

If he came out and said, I've done it, and they've gone done what?

They'd have just killed the last dragon.

They'd be all mental.

They'd be marches.

Idiot, bloody idiot.

And that's what's interesting.

It was going around burning people.

Doesn't matter, we shouldn't have killed an asshole.

It's the last one.

And that's what it would be like.

You say you should have saved it.

You should have captured it and put it in a cage so we can all look at it.

There's no point.

You couldn't have bred anyway.

It was the last one.

Was it definitely the last one?

Well, you were saying it was the last one.

I'm not bothered either way.

So you think that there were dragons?

Why are we celebrating them?

Well, it could be a metaphor, a dragon slayer.

It could be

a bad thing amongst us.

It could be a foreign threat.

It could be things that threaten aren't it?

It could be anything.

It's not to be taken literally, is it?

The real legend of George was that he was a figure who stood up for Christianity.

Have you ever done anything brave?

There was a kid at school who used to have epileptic fits a lot and the teacher used to always say, If it happens, grab his tongue.

And I sort of had a go at that once.

His tongue.

His tongue?

Yeah.

What it was what did he have a tongue for?

To pick stuff up.

What do you mean a tongue?

His tongue in his mouth.

Oh, his tongue.

Oh, his tongue.

Might have gone.

And they used to say,

if he starts doing it,

grab his tongue and that.

And and I sort of had a go at that once.

And it was wasn't wasn't nice what how'd you grab it well you grabbed his tongue did you well I tried to it's like grabbing a slug

and plus his mouth's going up and down that you think he's gonna have me handy

so you sort of do that thing where

you're trying to grab hold of a kid's tongue yeah and he was he started throwing himself all over the place it was in a physics lesson I sort of had a go and then I thought this isn't happening so I just sort of kept putting my hand in like I'm having a go but in my head I was going I'm not gonna get hold of it what you could have used is a pair of tongs well firstly, I don't see why this is brave.

Kids have an athletic fit, and you're just supposed to help them.

I don't know why that's bravery, but even given that, the fact that you were thinking more about yourself in that situation than this other kid, you were thinking, I'll make it look like I'm helping, but I'm not really.

And yet, there's this kid having a little bit of a picture.

Well, I did at the beginning.

I'm going to show you what Carl, selfish.

No, no, it doesn't.

Because

no one else was having a go.

At least I did try and grab it.

You won't do anything.

You were just making it look like you were.

Have you ever tried to grab a tongue?

It's like chasing a chicken.

It's murder.

And after a while it wears you out.

And it was weird anyway, because it was like...

How the hell is he doing it for?

I don't know.

Why don't you know after hours of chasing this kid's tongue?

I love the idea.

Have you ever tried grabbing a tongue?

It's a valid question.

I love that.

He's annoyed.

He's annoyed at this pinch.

That was your technique.

Were you trying to grab it?

Just with your thumb and your...

What's it, finger?

Like a pincher thing.

Yeah.

But it was because his mouth's going down and

was he shouting or just...

No, just throwing himself around.

So that's your one attempt at bravery.

Well hang on a minute, let me just think of it.

Trying to grab a tongue.

There was a time you were chased by a bee and you scored a goal.

What about that?

That isn't really bravery.

Is it as you were as you were running away from a bee and the ball happened to hit your foot and go in?

Doesn't that count as bravery?

I remember when he goes up to the Purley gates and goes, well, you know, have you done the act of courage?

I pretended to grab a tongue.

A what?

A tongue.

A tongue.

Yeah.

Got chased by a bee, scored a goal.

It doesn't count as brave at all.

And what have you ever done?

Well, it's a good question.

I thought of some of them.

When I was a kid on the beach, there was a a baby, like a toddler.

I was about twelve,

and uh they were out, their little boat was going up, the mother had missed it, and they were miles out, and the mother was sort of distraught.

And I swam out, and I was a good swimmer then, and I pulled it in, right?

And she bought me a box of chocolates.

It's not enough, is it?

What?

It's not enough, a box of chocolates.

I'd have been furious.

Really?

I'd have wanted a lot more.

I didn't expect anything.

No, it was like when I found that old lady's purse and I sent it back to her and she sent me a little thank you note but nothing.

No cash, nothing.

I was furious.

I thought, come on,

I could have kept that purse.

I sent it back to you.

I need more than the little thank you note.

I didn't expect it and I was so sort of, I wasn't even particularly proud of myself because I just thought, well,

I could just do it.

I mean, if it happened now, I'd go, what's in it for me?

I've just eaten.

I'd go, is that your kid?

They're miles away.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got less brave.

I've got more scared of the world.

Yeah.

The things I used to do, jump off sheds, I used to jump down flights of stairs to see if I could do it, walk along, all those things that kids do.

And you lose your nerve, I think.

Apparently, if you haven't bungee jumped by you're 30, you never will.

Really?

Yeah, you sort of, I think it's a sensible gene kicks in.

I'm pretty sensible.

Yeah, you think, well, this is not worth dying for.

Don't do it.

I think having glasses prevents me from doing a lot of things.

No, seriously, because it's hard to be brave with glasses.

Because if I stepped into the middle of a fight and there's people being bullied and I stepped in, my glasses come off, that's it.

Now I'm just being bullied as well.

I'm also blind in this.

So I'm just crawling around.

It's very hard to strike fear into your opponents when you're crawling around on the floor looking for your frames, going, don't step, don't tread lightly, tread lightly.

That's totally quick there.

Oh, God.

I love that when you took up judo and you think you overheard the judo instructor say just knock his glasses off.

Just knock his glasses off.

But why are you, why are you, who are you, Woody Allen, what are you doing in this scenario?

Why are you stepping into the dojo wearing a pair of glasses?

Well, how am I supposed to do judo without wearing my supplies?

Well they'll come off immediately.

But what am I supposed to do?

Not do any form of martial art because of the glasses?

I don't know.

Actually, I haven't thought about that.

Exactly.

This is the problem, isn't it?

People don't think that.

You never see boxers with glasses.

Well, of course you don't.

Right, exactly.

So I got no kind of athletic role models in that way except Dennis Taylor

oh god a man with glasses me and my glasses yes I tell you this I could I could write a book on the difficulties of having glasses but I suppose it's completely affected your life of course it has everything you do of course it has fashion fashion yeah um sort of sport dancing, moshing, can't go in the mosh pit.

I've always wanted to jump on the stage, you know, take my shirt off and then jump back in and everyone catches you and they sort of you sort of swear along on top of everyone's hands.

Can't do it.

The glasses would come flying off.

But how do you swim in the swing?

And you have to hand them to the singer and then

I went to, I was in India recently, I went to Goa and I got myself a pair of prescription goggles.

Could not believe my love.

It's revolutionised my swimming experience.

All right.

Goggles which have got the same lenses in as my glasses so I can see all right.

That's good.

Went in there.

Literally, and they're pricey as well.

Went in the water.

Within seconds, giant wave had come over and it was crazy.

It was like real all over again.

It ripped off both my trunks and my goggles.

They went flying off my head.

No, I could only grab one of them.

My trunk would never come off.

Maybe once I've dived in, they come down.

They came loose and they slipped down, thus revealing penis.

Goggles came off, floating down.

I reckon you're

shorts, man.

I think you've been doing it on purpose.

You know how most swimming floors.

Try your shorts up, Steve.

No, I'm just going to see.

But

if they come off, then you might see something.

You know how most swimming goggles would float?

My prescription is so dense that they just sunk straight to the bottom.

If I should die, think only this of me,

that there some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.

There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed, a dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam, a body of England's breathing English air, washed by the rivers, blessed by sons of home.

And think this heart, all evil shed away, a pulse in the eternal mind no less, gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given, her sights and sounds, dreams happy as her day, and laughter learnt of friends and gentleness, in hearts at peace under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, the soldier.

What an amazing poem that is.

Yeah.

It's a shame you read it, though.

Thanks for listening to the Wikidourays guide to the English.

That's it for a little while.

Five in that series of guides to plenty to be going on with.

Plenty to be going on with.

There's also the rest of the back catalogue as well.

And we might do the odd free one.

But we'll be back soon anyway with maybe

another series.

of guides to who knows Carl thoughts I've enjoyed this have you yeah my favourite ones I like learning stuff you know that if I can learn something and make a few quid I'm happy

unlike the people who are listening to this who have are down two quid and have learned absolutely nothing and what they have learned from you is total borox so thanks that's goodbye from me Mickey to A, Stephen Merchant, goodbye and Carl Filkerton.