Regarding British understatement and making the best of things, one has only to watch The Life of Brian, the crucifixion scene. But I wonder if it's an age thing. My poor late friend was terminally ill with cancer. I remember with great sadness but admiration how, when I asked her one day how she was feeling, she replied "Oh, a bit under the weather..." That afternoon she was dead. Yet last winter when my niece ,aged just twenty, had a cold, I phoned her up to see how SHE was feeling, and she replied "Like fucking SHIT, Auntie!"