This week John Cleese observed that London “is no longer an
English city”. For reasons both good and bad, he’s partly right and partly
wrong. London never was entirely English (the Romans and the Normans, remember
them?), but having enjoyed previous spells as the psychological “capital of the
world” in the late nineteenth century, during the Second World War, and in the
1960s, London has again become the de
facto World City. That is something of which we, as a nation, can be proud.
That so many of the world’s peoples should, for a myriad reasons - admirable or
otherwise - want to make it their home, and that so many more should want to
visit it, implies a destination of unusual quality. World Central. London thus occupies
a role different from any other British city and most other urban hubs around
the globe - Paris, New York and Los
Angeles being obvious rival contenders. It is
an English city, but it is both more and less than that.
Be that as it may, today’s London is not the same metropolis
that Cleese first encountered, when first up from Weston-super-Mare via Bristol
and Cambridge, and if it were otherwise, it would be a dead city, ossified and
stagnant. Vital cities change constantly, though not necessarily, and not
always, for the better. Some decline (Florence, Istanbul) or go through rough
patches (Berlin, Glasgow). While it is Cleese’s observation of the markedly
changed demographics of London that has drawn the hysteria of those congenitally
hypersensitive to such matters there is much else that makes the city different
from how it used to be, the architecture and the sheer busyness to be
encountered almost everywhere being two of the most significant factors.
Cleese gets berated for talking about Englishness. Nigel
Farage, who probably knows better than
most what it is like to be routinely and mindlessly slandered by the self-appointed
arbiters of righteousness, wrote in his 2011 autobiographical ‘Flying Free’ - “Freedom of speech and belief is not
subject to approval by a transitory authority. It is absolute or it is
nothing.” That’s almost a definition of Englishness itself. Cleese’s generation
(and mine, a decade later) flowered at a time when that sentiment was still true
and completely unobjectionable. At the same time, Cleese himself was one of the
two gigantic Johns (he was taller than the other one, and had better eyesight)
who played a huge role in defining key aspects of English culture – comedy and
music – in the mid-twentieth century, right across the English-speaking world,
and beyond. So I believe he is more than entitled, as indeed we all are, for
whatever reason or for no good reason at all, to like and to dislike what and
who he chooses to. That’s called freedom. No ifs and buts.
Cleese’s
later career has – perhaps inevitably - been less amusing than his earlier one,
and because he’s 79 and has lived for many years outside the UK he makes
himself an easy target for holier-than-thou finger-waggers. However, the key
point he is getting at, and one with which I agree absolutely (and it is not
unrelated to the fact of getting older) is that we are a less tolerant society
than we used to be. This is ironic, because the more that attempts are made to
enforce tolerance, the worse matters become. Fear of saying the wrong thing takes
precedence over personal conviction; Cleese has dared to speak his mind, and
good for him.
Compared to
the mid-twentieth century what we have here today is a society in which everything
has to be just-so, algorithmic, pre-defined, budgeted, quantified, formulaic, procedural,
box-ticked, programmed, legalistic, deliberate, unironic, simplistic, shallow, sanitised,
unimaginative, assertive-aggressive, angry, loud, unsubtle, inflexible, humourless,
self-righteous, devoid of initiative, tediously literal, and often profoundly
dim and depressing. Oh yes, and of course, smart. Smart is very important.
Seen from the
perspective of older age, that’s the nation we have become, the kind of people
we have become. Not, it has to be said, what we traditionally think of as
English. I think that is really what John Cleese is getting at. Our traditional
good-humoured fondness for self-deprecation has been turned round and weaponised
by those who don’t appreciate such traits. We’re expected to be very
left-brained, as befits a gadget-obsessed, money-fixated, quantitative-minded,
secular society. In other words, half-brained. Not all of us, of course, but
more than enough. Not much future for Basil or for the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Not much future in being old, decent, sensitive, imaginative, or honest. Not
much future in being silly.
Cleese’s last
TV series “Hold the sunset” unfortunately lacked the focused scripts or
hilarity of “Python” or “Fawlty”. Conventionally, perhaps, comedically, it was not
a great success, but for me, Cleese limping laconically round the dog-emptying leafy
avenues of Richmond was a delight – I was just waiting for him to erupt into
some venomous outburst – but even though that never quite happened, his persona
seemed spot on for a man of his age and past achievements. I felt I could read
his thoughts: now that’s acting for you. What that gentle suburban setting
emphasised for me, though, with my peculiar psychogeographical predilections
and all that, was the difficulty in finding the kind of London that so many of
us grew up to love; it was there in the programme, and it certainly still
exists in small pockets, but you have to seek it out. This isn’t about
simplistic observations of ethnicity or class, but rather more about the
intangibles of subjectivity and atmosphere, of architecture and environment and
way of life. England, London, as it used to be.
Nostalgia
gets ridiculed, unfairly, but a sense of place and permanence contributes to
psychological well-being. That’s a big part of Englishness (or any other
national identity) – the streets and houses, not necessarily who lives in them.
The trees, the horizons, the sky. Take away your origins, and don’t be
surprised by subsequent unhappiness. When you’re getting on, you appreciate the
comforts of familiarity, and you don’t always need edginess or change. If you’re
younger you do need them, you need to live in the present and in the future, and
you’ll reject much of what John Cleese (or I) have to say.
Not everyone
will be entranced by Richmond, of course, so you have to wander around the vast
and varied city and find what grabs you. Dalston or Catford, perhaps. You need
to be generous and open minded, magnanimous (that Churchillian word) towards
what you don’t personally get, adopting
the attitude of the expectant flâneur
(if you can put up with such pompous terminology) - because those moments of
revelation that this is London can
occur in unexpected locations. Just
round the next corner. Wow !
Whatever else it implies, Englishness has a lot to do with a sense of place and belonging, even more so with a sense of respect and love and longing, and – as Cleese has noted - with quietness, good manners, humour, and politeness. An attitude, a way of life, a shared past, a togetherness, a commonality. And – it would be nice to think – a common future goal. Qualities easy to mock as old-fashioned, elitist, reactionary, inefficient, boring and … old. But, why ever not? They served us fine for long enough. For my money, Cleese is someone who has given me many hours of side-splitting pleasure, and for that I’m immensely grateful. He’s a national treasure and is to be hugely respected. Perhaps he should retire to Weston-super-Mare or to a small hotel in Torquay.
