Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship

Every once and a while, we try to bring a comparative perspective to the blog. (This helps me to keep my mind off of the merciless ridicule that KRJ heaps upon my alma mater.) For today, here’s a humorous tidbit from Great Britain.

in the Short Cuts column of the November 16 issue of the London Review of Books, Andrew O’Hagan mercilessly satirizes a recent publication from the Home Office entitled “Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship.” The book is obviously a noble effort on the part of the Home Office to assist the growing population of new citizens in Britain to “integrate.” But O’Hagan suggests that it may have missed the mark, calling it “the funniest book currently available in the English language.” O’Hagan writes:

“The book is not shy of suggesting how to gain and maintain a happy life in Britain. It mainly involves playing your music ‘at a reasonable level’ and making an effort to ‘greet one another in a friendly way’. There is no advice about how to swear properly or how to open a can of lager without spraying your jersey, but the authors must have assumed people would find that out for themselves. On the other hand, there is a wealth of advice about how to conduct yourself in pubs.”

He compares the Home Office’s new manual with the American approach — the somewhat esoteric citizenship examination. Of the Home Office publication, he writes, “[t]he notion is, of course, rather American, and, for years now, people who wish to become American citizens have had first to mug up on the fact that Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is called Minnie and that George Washington used to gad about wearing wooden teeth.”

The full column can be found at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n22/ohag01_.html

-jmc