Welcome to Anytown

Julian Baggini, journalist and philospher, decided to spend six months in the most "normal" place in Britain as part of a quest to discover more about the English mind. This turned out to be a postcode area in Rotherham - S66 - and the book tells the story of his time there and his reflections afterwards.
It's a great book, particularly when Baggini (who reminds me all too much of people I knew at University) encounters average working class Brits in the places they like to use - pubs, working men's clubs, shopping centres and holiday resourts. He somehow managed to be himself while getting to know ordinary people with genuine emapathy and understanding. You get the feeling he really likes the people he meets. This book can sometimes be a bit like Louis Therou with philosophy.
He concludes that British people like "fair play" but that this doesn't mean playing by the rules. It means getting your due - which may be technically illegal. He thinks that we are "conservative communitarians" who believe that rights are not universal but dependent on our commitment and membership of English society. In other words, we have no real problem with removing those rights for those considered "outsiders". He finds himself liking popular culture and argues that good art does not become good art because you need several degrees to understand it. He thinks we consider food to be fuel and sex to be dirty, and we are too busy thinking about how much we can get - or how little we should be allowed - that we don't really enjoy either. He's stunned by how inflexible gender roles have turned out to be, and he thinks we like to gamble because we like to think the universe is talking to us... The "good life" for the English is defined by comfort, familiarity and niceness. Julian Baggini suprises himself with the observation that this is not neccessarily a bad thing!
The word "heft" is one he finds very helpful. Hefted sheep don't need to be herded or penned, they know where they belong. We are all, he says, "hefted holidaymakers who believe in finding what we like and sticking to it" - and he recognises something of himself in this...
It's a great book and does have a great deal to say about the English mind. Having read Jeremy Paxman's effort, I have to say, I prefer this... but...
Baggini is at his best when he's talking about his own experiences and his own thoughts. The chapter on food is powerfully familiar. I could see myself somewhere in there. He was also at his best when talking about the people he met, the places he visited and the effect this had on his own journey. Occassionally, however, he slips into a more bookish mode. The chapter on sex was little more than a list of facts, and the chapter on gender differences read like a post-feminist essay. I was particulalry disapointed with the chapter on gambling and religion - which actually had a great title "Gambling on Reality". He quickly slipped into accademic philosophy and restated what sounded like a pre-set position. There was a great chapter to be written here about the English approach to faith - but this wasn't it. The title was right and I think there is a great deal of truth in what he says, but it wasn't personal and therefore missed the mark somewhere...
All in all, a great book and well work picking up if you want to find out more about the people who inhabit this place some of us call home.
It's only by accident I publish this on St George's Day - but there you go, perhaps the Universe is talking to me too...