The improvement-talk rules highlight an extreme version of the generic modesty rule, involving an exercise in competitive modesty that can only be described as 'one-downmanship'. Other nations have rituals of polite modesty and self-deprecation (the Japanese immediately spring to mind here), but the English improvement-talk one-downmanship is distinctive for the importance of humour: it is not enough merely to speak disparagingly of one's incompetent DIY efforts (in the way that, say, Japanese etiquette requires denigration of a gift one is offering) one must do so in a witty and amusing manner.
The 'non-specific praise' requirement raises a misunderstanding about English 'reserve' and politeness that needs to be addressed. There is a distinctively English form of bland, insipid politeness, which is primarily concerned, even when paying compliments, with the avoidance of offence or embarrassment rather than with actually giving pleasure or expressing positive feelings. This reserve, which foreigners often interpret as coldness or stand-offishness, must be understood in the light of the crucial distinction the English make between friends and acquaintances, and between friends and close friends. It is not that the English are cold or incapable of being open and expressive, it is just that we find it more difficult than many other cultures to be uninhibited among people we do not know well - and this reticence in turn means that it takes us longer to get to know people well enough to shed our inhibitions. A vicious circle resulting in, among other problems, chronic over-use of the word 'nice'.
The awful estate agent rule highlights not only the extent to which our identity is bound up with our homes, but also, again, the importance of humour in English culture. Estate agents are an intrusive threat to our sense of identity, so we 'neutralize' their power by making fun of them. This is to some extent a universal human coping mechanism: in all cultures, people who are perceived to be threatening tend to be the subject of such defensive jokes, but the use of this strategy does seem to be more marked, and more frequently employed, among the English than elsewhere. We use humour to deal not only with the threatening or unfamiliar but with any and every social or practical difficulty, from the most trivial problems to issues of national importance.
Both the front- and back-garden rules confirm the English preoccupation with privacy. The front-garden rules also highlight the related themes of social inhibition and politeness: if home equals self, the front garden is our 'public face' - formal and carefully arranged in the horticultural equivalent of a blank social smile.
The counter-culture garden-sofa exception underlines the now familiar themes of 'orderly disorder' and ineffectual but socially therapeutic moaning - but it also brings to light a rather more amiable quality: a distinctive English capacity for tolerance. Admittedly, our tolerance of counter-culture sofas and other odd behaviour tends to be grudging and stoical rather than warm and open-hearted - but even this passive, grumbling forbearance is worth noting, and perhaps worthy of commendation. It may be the quality responsible for the relatively good race relations in this country (the key word here is 'relatively', of course: race relations in England are, as Jeremy Paxman puts it, 'by and large, not bad' only in comparison with other much less tolerant nations).
The back-garden formula, as well as dispelling a few rose-tinted myths about The English Garden, highlights the quiet, restrained aspects of Englishness, our dislike of flashy extremes, our predilection for moderation, for domesticity, for the comfortingly tame and familiar. The NSPCG rule also indicates a strong tendency to comply with unwritten social rules and expectations, a sense of duty and obligation. Finally, the class rules, the eccentricity clause and the ironic-gnome rule remind us of the convoluted nature of English class distinctions, and also the complexities of the rules governing English eccentricity. We find that contrived eccentricities, such as ironic gnomes, can backfire: idiosyncrasies and unconventional tastes are applauded only if they are seen to be genuine, unaffected - products of authentic nuttiness, not manufactured foibles.
I am now starting to see some patterns, which may lead to the development of a diagram that will encapsulate not only the defining characteristics of Englishness, but also the relationships and interactions among these core qualities. I am not all that good at diagrams - I tried to do one once of a particular kind of social network I was studying, and it looked like the webs produced by spiders on LSD - but if the next few chapters help to clarify the 'grammatical' relationships between rules of Englishness, it should be possible even for me to represent these on a chart of some sort.
26. This observation is borne out by the latest statistics. In France, Italy and Germany, over half the new homes built in the 1990s were apartments, in England only 15% were apartments. Nearly 70% of English people own the homes in which they live, well above the European average.
27. If you want more figures: we spend ?8,500 million every year on DIY.
28. If you don't believe me, try looking out of the window of a train next time you are travelling anywhere in England: I can guarantee that almost all of the back gardens you see will be variations on this 'formula'. An anglophile American friend was reluctantly converted to my theory when she tried this experiment.
29. Although the English passion for gardening now seems to be catching on in some other European countries. It is particularly popular in Germany at the moment, where I am told that translations of English gardening books are selling well.
30. For stats-junkies: in the most recent national government census survey, over 60 per cent of the population reported that they had spent time gardening in the four weeks prior to the census date.
31. Echoing (although he does not mention it) the sentiment of the Edwardian rhyme 'The Germans live in Germany; The Romans live in Rome; The Turkeys live in Turkey; But the English live at home.'
RULES OF THE ROAD
If home is what the insular, inhibited English have instead of social skills, how do we cope when we venture outside our castles? The quick answer, as you might expect, is 'not very well'. But after more than ten years of participant observation in train stations, on buses and on the streets, I should be a bit more specific than that, and try to decipher the unwritten codes of conduct involved. I'm calling these 'rules of the road' for shorthand, but I'm really talking about every kind of transport - cars, trains, aeroplanes, taxis, buses, bicycles, motorbikes, feet, etc. - and every aspect of the process of getting from a to b.
Speaking of cars, I should mention that I can't drive. I did try to learn, once, but after a few lessons the driving instructor and I agreed that it was not a good idea, and that I could save a lot of innocent lives by sticking to public transport. From a research point of view, this apparent handicap has proved a blessing in disguise, as it means that I get to spend a lot of time observing English behaviour and conducting devious little field-experiments on trains and buses, and interviewing captive taxi drivers about the quirks and habits of their passengers. And whenever I do travel by car, some long-suffering friend or relative is always doing the driving, which leaves me free to scrutinize their behaviour and that of other road users.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT RULES
But I'll start with the rules of behaviour on public transport, as these more graphically illustrate the problems faced by the English when we step outside the security and privacy of our homes.
The Denial Rule
Our main coping mechanism on public transport is a form of what psychologists call 'denial': we try to avoid acknowledging that we are among a scary crowd of strangers, and to maintain as much privacy as possible, by pretending that they do not exist - and, much of the time, pretending that we do not exist either. The denial rule requires us to avoid talking to strangers, or even making eye contact with them, or indeed acknowledging their presence in any way unless absolutely necessary. At the same time, the rule imposes an obligation to avoid drawing attention to oneself and to mind one's own business.