| Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour | 
 enlarge | Author: Kate Fox
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £1.97
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Avg. Customer Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 838
Media: Paperback
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0340818867
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780340818862
ASIN: 0340818867
Publication Date: April 11, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Urggghhh!! Sweeping generalisations galore. January 21, 2008
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Like many others who have posted here, I bought this book expecting original observations and examinations (with supporting facts and figures, please) of whether stereotypes about the British actually contained any truth. Instead I found myself ploughing through page after page of seemingly arbitrary value judgements and gross generalisations.
I quote: "You would certainly never boast about having spent an excessive amount of money on something...Only brash, crass Americans display their wealth by boasting about how much something cost them" (p. 230). I really, truly hope that Fox meant this in a tongue-in-cheek way, but having read the rest of the book and her gross class assumptions, I fear not.
The part about teens' attire left me cold: "Saskia and Tracey...may both have a short denim jacket from TopShop, but Tracey will wear hers with tight,slightly shiny, black lycra/nylon trousers and clumpy, black, high-heeled, platform shoes, while Saskia's identical jacket will be worn with a pair of cords, boots and a big, soft scarf wrapped several times around her neck." (pp. 284-5). I'm sure Tracey and her family would love the same soft scarf and newer trousers with more natural fibres but find that the family's purse-strings don't stretch to these lofty levels so they need to re-wash and iron Tracey's nylon trousers, making them even shinier, and put up with the value judgements that rain down on them from the likes of Royal Ascot-attending Fox.
Oh, one final gripe, although I could go on all night: the book is so South-centric! "Most Yorkshire people are probably no more blunt than any other Northerners" (p. 189). Ah, so it isn't people from Yorkshire who are blunt but ALL Northeners!! Nice sweeping judgement! I would respond with "our cynical English catchphrase: 'Oh, come off it!'" (p. 180), except it's a phrase which I would never use, sounding as dated as it does, much less call it our national catchphrase.
I wish I'd bought A Thousand Splendid Suns instead.
 Pretty good attempt December 31, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
The English as a species from the perspective of an (English) woman anthropologist.
The female perspective is perhaps more interesting, and it does make good reading despite the odd dry spot here and there.
Should the English feel strange and 'cold' to you, this book will demistify their rituals quite a bit.
Well worth reading.
Work of self promotion in which writer brings out all the old cliches October 22, 2007
12 out of 20 found this review helpful
Having received this 'free' as part of a three for the price of two in a bookshop and attracted by the concept I sat down to read through what I thought would be light hearted 'humorous' 'social anthropology lite' look at English behaviour - good for relaxing beach reading.
Being a social scientist myself I had no illusions that it would offer any profound insights but was prepared to give it a go.
I wish I hadnt bothered and resent the small amount of money I may have given to Kate Fox in the process of buying this book.
As I made my way through the book I got more and more annoyed - at Fox's writing style which is Daily Mail-ish in its populist, 'common-sense' approach and lack of insight, at the old cliches that were wheeled out - yes we all know that they contain an element of truth but we want to go beyond the standard thought to gain a deeper understanding and the endless repetition of apparently significant English traits which gets extremely tiresome. When you add in the endless self promotion for Fox's company which apparently carries out social science research studies this book has very little going for it.
On several occasions I wanted to throw this book into the sea, so annoyed was I with the author's tiresome 'insights', but I persevered until the end thinking that it would get better - it didnt. This book adds nothing to our understanding of Englishness - merely a series of cliches laid out in an annoying 'ok yah' headgirl style which soon begins to grate.
 Well worth reading October 13, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I found this book both entertaining and informative: I know several non-English people living in England who say they wish they had read the book when they first arrived in the country as it would have explained a lot of things to them from the outset.
While agreeing with some criticisms, for example there is too much emphasis at times on class differences and research does seem to have stopped at Watford (I spent a number of years commuting by train into Manchester, and people in the north do speak to each other on trains), in general the observations ring very true. Living in Germany, as I now do, I have cited the book to people sometimes to explain why I find some German traits difficult to understand!
And to the person who criticised the use of apostrophes - the "Rules Rule" is correct in the context used (sorry. Being English I need to apologise for pointing this out).
... and I thought I was different September 7, 2007
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
I am an Englishman who hasn't lived in England for the past 13 years. I have always prided myself on the fact that I was different from the typical English person (though when I think about it, I'm not sure why this was a source of pride for me). Anyway, my (non-English) wife gave me this book, and I have been engrossed in it from start to finish. I have taken to sharing its findings with friends and colleagues as I realise how deeply ingrained certain aspects of my national character are in me. While there is a certain amount of repetition within the text, as observed by some of the other reviewers, Ms. Fox's self deprecating wit and engaging style kept me thoroughly engrossed.
It is true that much of what is observed is confirmation of things which I was subliminally aware of, but that is the point of the book - not to tell us things we don't know, but to raise our consciousness about things that we do, and how engaging or enraging they are to those around us. For an English person who is trying to relate to people from other countries and cultures, or for a non-Englsih person who is trying to understand what is going on with English friends, colleagues or business partners, this book is a fascinating insight into what is going on in our heads at a subliminal level.
Perhaps I am disappointed to discover that the fact that I make a joke out of everything that ever happens to me is not because I have a highly tuned sense of humour, but in fact just a result of my deeply-ingrained social dis-ease. But I'm sure I'll get over it.
Definitely worth a read.
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