to avoid address abuse, please type it yourself

Did you ever have a sensation that the author of a book is charting your behavior, explaining your problems, scoffing at you?

the English love of flowers

from England Your England by George Orwell (1945)

But here it is worth noticing a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centers round things which even when they are communal are not official - the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the ‘nice cup of tea’. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is a liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amuse- ments instead of having them chosen for you from above.

wild flowers of Grabov Rat

 2011-06-19 

2011-06-12
2011-06-05
2011-05-29
2011-05-22
2011-05-15
2011-05-08
2011-05-01
2011-04-24
2011-04-17
2011-04-10
2011-04-03
2011-03-27
2011-03-20
2011-03-13
2011-03-06
2011-02-27
2011-02-20
2011-02-13
2011-02-06
2011-01-30
2011-01-23
2011-01-16
2011-01-09
2011-01-02
2010-12-26
2010-12-19
2010-12-12
2010-12-05

 

previous

 

WEBSITE  EDITOR:
Krešimir J. Adamić