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Kate Fox’s book “Watching the English” caught my attention when it came out (2004) and again when it was revised (2014). It is serious and insightful in a light-hearted way.

I recognised some of my own characteristics as I read.

When the Brexit referendum occurred and the debate became increasingly intense I wondered if the book might have something to say about that too.

So I wrote a Brexit sonnet.

I published it earlier. With Brexit deadlines coming closer, I thought I would publish again, this time with a little background information – and some images.

Here it is.

“Watching the English” (Kate Fox 2004, 2014) and Brexit

 
Robin Ford, June 2016

We English value modesty, she wrote,
And courtesy, and (most of all) fair play.
A diagram then showed — I roughly quote —
“How we respond and why we act that way.”
If there’s excess, respond with moderation.
“Social dis-ease” invokes a jolly jest.
When conflict’s foiled by courteous conversation
It sometimes seems hypocrisy, at best.
Like Eeyore, we expect grand schemes to fizzle.
(Perhaps the weather’s why this comes to pass.)
Empiric’ly we look out, through the mizzle,
Upon a culture unified by class.
An island people, reticent yet proud.
A referendum: secret thoughts out loud.