Being British, “wot wot”

In a few weeks time, if all goes to plan, I will find myself standing before a slightly frayed individual in a slightly musty room, swearing allegiance to the Queen, capital Q. Yes, after 6 years of ‘service to the crown’, and a whole lot of moola, I will qualify to become a citizen of Great Britain. But will this actually make me British? I mean really and truly tea-lovingly British?

The surprising truth is that I think I may well be, and I am not entirely sure how to feel about this. I have always been especially patriotic to my home country of South Africa. It is the country that shaped who I am and the country I feel passionate enough about to defend, feel guilty about, feel proud of and just plain love. And yet here I am, displaying a range of undeniably British characteristics.

What else could explain the fact that in just over a week, I will voluntarily be attending a “summer” music festival? Only someone intrinsically British would sign up to an activity which will more than likely see me brandishing welly wounds – an affliction I have only recently become aware of – following a weekend spent largely dealing with a rain-sodden tent in a squishy field?

And then there’s public transport: simultaneously the pride and the pain of many a good Brit. Public transport is, as my delightful friend Marcin will tell you, for the public, not for me. This was brought home to me only yesterday when I was forced into a position of intimacy with a man with whom I had not even exchanges pleasantries. Naturally I put on a display of denial and distracted myself instead by surreptitiously reading over the shoulder of the woman to the left of me – how rude!

I am, of course, only familiar with the transport services available to Londoners, but I must say, as a mere mortal I find it fascinating. Just think what rapture its observation provides for social anthropologists in the capitol! Personally, I have always been amazed at how so large a mass of people can be so silent; hundreds of people on one tube platform, and barely a sound. Sometimes I feel almost compelled to burst into song, just to see how people would react. In fact , there are many things I think it would be fun to try on the tube. I’d like for example, to sully one of those “baby on board” badges for pregnant women by wearing a “no baby on board” badge. Do you reckon people would give up their seat for me, and if so, how would they feel upon taking a closer look at the badge? Perhaps they would merely sit seething in their seats silently composing sternly worded letters in their heads. For this is a theory of mine: I suspect that the reason the tube is so devoid of human voice is that everyone is far too busy composing sternly worded letters in their heads to actually say anything. For the sternly worded letter is most definitely a defining characteristic of the good Brit. And I admit, I have caught this disease.

Then of course there is the queue. I have been reading Kate Fox’s Watching the English which, as the title suggests, is particularly about English, rather than British, behaviour. A nugget of information that has stood out for me so far is that the typical Englishman/woman is naturally inclined to the queue and in the absence of others, will still form an orderly queue of one. It’s true, even when there is no one else at the bus stop, I find myself dutifully standing where the front of the queue would be if there were in fact other people to form it. Am I doomed?

And then there’s the weather. No discussion about being British would be complete without reference to this nation’s obsession with the weather. I am going to refrain from a lengthy thesis on the topic because the simple fact that there is a new show on BBC TV entitled “The Great British Weather” means that really, no words are necessary. But I confess, I have the Met Office weather App on my iPhone: does this make me British?

But all this; the queues, the sternly worded letters, the under-the breath clucking at people on the tube and the incomprehensible capacity for the ‘stiff upper lip’ approach to outdoor activities in the the rain seems nothing in comparison to the big one, the ultimate sign of Britishness…

..the unfailing belief in the power of…The Cup of Tea.

I may have passed the official ‘Life in the UK Test’ but I don’t drink tea.

Am I automatically disqualified?