This made me think that, while in France (according to stereotype), everything tends towards eroticism or poetry, and in Germany towards metaphysics, in England everything, however joyous or catastrophic, tends to a sort of smutty, end-of-the-pier quality.
Friends from overseas oughtn't to worry about us, though - well, not more than everyone worries about everyone during this horrible pandemic. This is just what we like, it's a tendency that runs through our popular culture like the lettering in rock (meaning, the confectionery commonly sold at the English seaside rather than the music), from George Formby via the Beatles ("what do you see when you turn out the light?/ I can't tell you but I know it's mine" from Sgt Pepper is a caption from a Donald McGill postcard, mutated into tenderness and lyricism) through Monty Python's Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink Man (redundant punchline: though obsessed with sex, he's never actually, you know, slept with a lady) and on to the frenzied seediness of punk-as-music-hall.
(And as regards punk-as-music-hall - our quintessential national cultural terminus, in which the inherently not very good is raised into a kind of art form - think back to that telling exchange in 'The Filth and the Fury' where, touring America, a burnt-out-end-of-hippiedom radio DJ tells our boys that you can get anything you want here, ma-an, this is America... to which the very English heroin addict and sociopath Sid Vicious responds, "can you get egg and chips?" You see, we don't exactly do freedom here; instead, we perform constraint. It's not at all the same thing, except when it sort of, well, is; and the freedom that the DJ speaks of is itself - in this 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' moment and in this context - a lie).
The best avatar, to my mind, of all this would be Archie Rice, the antihero of John Osborne's 'The Entertainer' (1957), and of Tony Richardson's film of the play (1960), in which Laurence Olivier plays him. Archie is a creature both of the end of the pier and of the end of the line; with television on the rise, his music hall shtick plays to increasingly empty houses. Yet despite being a financial, aesthetic, and moral bankrupt, he effortlessly holds the viewer's attention through the whole film as he uses his constant patter (this man is never off the stage; his persona killed what was truest and best in him years ago) to seduce and to wound.
Archie's a sort of transitional character, you might say. He's what George Formby (whose cheeky-chappy persona and infectious only-having-a-laff grin disarmed censorious critics during his near-constant censorship battles with the BBC and other cultural gatekeepers) might have been if he'd been a less pleasant human being and if he hadn't had the cultural wind behind him (ooo-er missus). A decade and a half later, Johnny Rotten carried on like Archie's great nephew - "ever had the feeling you've been cheated?" - and these days Bojo's a sort of late, posh version; amazing just how many of us have been scammed by this lazy, selfish, vain man - still, I wouldn't wish him any harm personally; "pray for me, I am a sinner too" as the priest says when you've been to Confession; I'm just glad to hear that he's out of hospital and on the mend. [May update: he's the Prime Minister you'd least want at the helm at a time like this, but thank goodness he's all better. And he and Carrie have a little one: bless 'em!]
In this post, I've talked about England rather than about Britain; Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and (according to some partisans) Liverpool and Cornwall are all quite different places... and if you want to listen to some real punk rock, try the Stiff Little Fingers, beginning with 'Inflammable Material': while the Sex Pistols were hanging around in Vivienne Westwood's shop in Chelsea, the Stiffs were growing up in an actual warzone; this lends their music a kind of reportage quality. I've also fallen in love with the New York Dolls song, 'Personality Crisis'... but, again, that's for another day.
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If you've enjoyed reading this post, you might want to read more about punk-as-music-hall, or possibly you'd be more interested to read about Brit noir ('Sightseers', 'The End of the F**king World') or about British kitchen sink films and proto-fascism.
And, listen: if you're not on the frontline, take it easy. Stay Home, Save Lives, Speak Truth to Power etc. Your good health! [Raises glass].
