patriots

In yesterday's post, I mentioned our embattled Prime Minister. I didn't say he was embattled, but he is, barely staying afloat in a rough sea of bad news. There's the phone hacking scandal, deeply unpopular austerity measures and an economy that only Greece would be proud to have. Even Portugal would probably choose to keep its own, should a swap be offered. The one-year countdown to the Olympics gave David Cameron a welcome opportunity to step in front of the cameras with good news.

The spirit in which he took to the occasion says a lot about the English (and probably the British as a whole). He said, with delight in his words, that "normally you would be asking me, with a year to go, about strikes, why the swimming pool is leaking and the velodrome isn't built." He goes on to say, with obvious surprise in his words, that everything is pretty much ready to go, and bring it on.

I find this self-deprecating humor quite refreshing, though it can be exasperating in arguments, when a patriotic Brit will agree with every point you make about the miserable state of the railroads up and down the country and still insist that things are ok for the most part, and there's no need to bother. But it's a nice change from the uptight self-importance of France and the in-your-face patriotism of the US.

It's also much healthier than the Germans' obsession with flaws and imperfection. In Germany, if a train is late by two minutes or the weather forecast off by a degree or a façade not freshly painted and sparkling, it's a sure sign of impending doom, proof that the country is going to hell, and it's taken dead-seriously. It drives the mood down and embitters people. There's no love for the country or pride. There's no reason for it.

The British, in contrast, are patriotic. They love their country. They love it so much that even after centuries of successful conquests, they'd rather live in a council flat in Northumberlandshire than on an estate somewhere in the colonies. Ok, there aren't any colonies left, but you get what I mean. Like lifelong lovers, the British accept and cherish the limitations of their country – and there are a few: driving on the wrong side of the road, archaic orthography, the worst-quality housing in Europe, warm beer, atrocious railroads – as charming quirks. It's like the therapist in (the painfully gooey) Good Will Hunting who loved his deceased wife for her farts and smells, the intimate details only he knew.

Unless they're football fans and drunk, the British never get carried away too far with visions of glory. (If they're England fans, they never get carried away, period, though that's for different reasons.) Clarkson on Top Gear the other day gave a good example of what British patriotism is: To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jaguar E type, the best British car ever and the best-looking, he took a fleet of them to Beachy Head and, to music of God Save the Queen, had a Royal Air Force commando attach a Union flag the size of a football field to the cliff. Filmed in sweeping panoramic shots, it was all very solemn. Then he turned the key to drive off but nothing happened. "Won't start", he said with a grin into the camera, popping the hot-air balloon of pompousness.

The Prime Minister followed the same logic in his announcement of the Olympic countdown, though in the opposite order. Once he had got the self-deprecation out of the way, he said excitedly that "we're in this good position of facilities being completed a year in advance. We are in the position to test and make sure everything is pitch-perfect." Nice – with one caveat: It wouldn't be very British if it actually turned out to be pitch-perfect.