from a review of Kate Atkinson's BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM

In light of last month's events, it was rather amusing to come across this statement in an old NYT Book Review clipping: "England will probably never reach the World Cup final again." In light of the attention paid to Yorkshire (b/c of the start of that bike race that just ended), it was also entertaining to reread the opening of the review, titled "Yorkshire Terrors"


Ben Macintyre, in the NYTBR, March 31, 1996:

Yorkshire has an established and self-nurtured reputation as a place of heroic complaint. Nothing is ever quite so bad as it is in Yorkshire. The weather is worse, life is harder, the coal mines are deeper and darker and the scenery harsher, you will be told, than in other, softer lands.

Until, of course, someone unlucky enough to be born outside Yorkshire should dare to chime in to this litany of grievance, at which point the Yorkshire native will point out that the beer and cricket are better, the emotions richer, the history deeper, the women kinder and the men braver than anywhere else on earth. The sheer bloody awfulness of life is a badge of honor, to be worn with grim humor in the knowledge that while existence may be easier elsewhere, it could not be better.

-
Ben Macintyre, March 31, 1996

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/382844.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.

from a review of Kate Atkinson's BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM

In light of last month's events (and the dour, dire expectations re England's performance before any of the matches), it was rather amusing to come across this statement in a NYT Book Review clipping from 1996: "England will probably never reach the World Cup final again." In light of the attention paid to Yorkshire (b/c of the start of that bike race that just ended), it was also entertaining to reread the opening of the review, titled "Yorkshire Terrors":

Yorkshire has an established and self-nurtured reputation as a place of heroic complaint. Nothing is ever quite so bad as it is in Yorkshire. The weather is worse, life is harder, the coal mines are deeper and darker and the scenery harsher, you will be told, than in other, softer lands.

Until, of course, someone unlucky enough to be born outside Yorkshire should dare to chime in to this litany of grievance, at which point the Yorkshire native will point out that the beer and cricket are better, the emotions richer, the history deeper, the women kinder and the men braver than anywhere else on earth. The sheer bloody awfulness of life is a badge of honor, to be worn with grim humor in the knowledge that while existence may be easier elsewhere, it could not be better.

- Ben Macintyre, March 31, 1996

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/382844.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.