It seems that the PR company charged with promoting the new edition of the Rough Guide to England have been peddling the headline grabbing quote “The English are overweight, binge-drinking reality TV addicts.” It’s certainly been successful given the amount of news coverage it’s got in the past 48 hours.

Apparently the Rough Guide accuses the English of being quarrelsome, contradictory and “obsessed with toffs and C-list celebrities” and labelling English people as “insular, self-important and irritating”. It goes on to say that political debate on issues such as immigration, Islamic terrorism and street crime is “served up with liberal dollops of celebrity chit-chat. Even the world’s most remote communities are on first-name terms with its princes, footballers and pop stars.”

However, the guide also pays the country some veiled compliments. For example, England is “a country of animal-loving, tea-drinking, charity donors, where queuing remains a national pastime and bastions of civilisation, like Radio 4, are jealously protected”. They conclude that “Of the 200-plus destinations across the world that Rough Guides covers, there is none so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse, yet as insular, self-important and irritating, as England.”

According to The Independent, the guide offers some less-than-complimentary opinions on some of the country’s towns and cities. It describes Blackpool, arguably one of Britain’s premiere seaside resorts, as “shamelessly brash”. Derby is “unexciting”, Plymouth is “bland” and, as for the English Riviera, Torquay, “St Tropez it ain’t” is The Rough Guide’s unforgiving verdict.

 

Given current suspicion towards travel guide writers, I wonder if those involved in writing this edition actually visited England!

It’s certainly got some local people riled. Here are some comments in the Gloucestershire Echo. I’ll let you know if I agree as we’re off to Gloucestershire later this week.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under ENGLISHNESS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.