I just love a thread that starts speculating when the actual records are out there to determine if there is any truth to the first entry.

It's 8 in the morning, and we might already be talkin'g bullsh&*!


Having writted that, as Bluebottle would say, above, I THEN went to the article to see if I had, once again, outwritten the title, and this time, I hadn't. The article either does the researcher a disservice by not backing up his study with any kind of explanation, or the researcher did that when interviewed. We get the judgment, but not the study, the facts, the methodology.

There are the stories that most of us know where several important folks declined to board lifeboats despite being offered. Some of those folks were most definitely American. There's a couple stories out there of males who donned female attire.

I believe the ship's complement of seamen were under-represented as well, and possibly most of them were English.

I think the news article itself might be a kind of 'troll' an attempt to generate conversation and contretemps out of little or nothing.

I am not in the least English, but I got a chance to visit London in another era, and I learned from everyone I saw there. From an Arab in a turban I learned to blow my nose on the street without benefit of tissue, from almost being run over by a taxi I learned that I have a sixth sense, from Marble Arch I learned that debate is messy, fun, and THERE IS NO LIMIT to what humans may believe, and from the plain people of England I lerned that queueing is a phenomenon that allows the average citizen to establish for him/ herself a sense of order, of the imposition of regularity over chaos. I found it unusual, almost incomprehensible, and wholly admirable. In Russia a year later I learned that if you want to get into a bus, just suppress your American sense of space, join the clot, and it will suck you inside, sort of a mechanical demonstration of the philosophical principle that when you look into the Abyss, the Abyss looks back. (The Abyss also has halitosis and puts fingers down your pockets).

I remember how in school we were kind of led to believe that the Victorians (Americans included) were bound by narrow minds, tight pockets, inadequate sanitation, and fear of the unknown future. Having left school and gotten an education, I know that is pretty much the reverse of the truth.

The sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy, and we have recast its symbolism with every new movie. But I will need a lot more convincing that the English need to change their time honoured habits as a result of this 'study'.

As Michael Flanders so acutely put it:

"The English, the English, the English are BEST,
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!"