Laughter is generally a social phenomenon; usually, it is very difficult to laugh at, say, a comedy program if nobody else in the room is so doing. It is also even more difficult to do, for some reason, when reading -- a naturally isolated activity --, and, up until recently, only one book ever made me laugh out loud, The Gatekeeper, Terry Eagleton's account of growing up as a working class Catholic lad.  It nearly finished off my marriage, my wife naturally finding it most obnoxious that I would lie in bed at night, killing myself laughing, while she couldn't share the joke.

I can now add a second volume to the list: Sarah Lyall, The Anglo Files:A Field Guide to the British.  Lyall, the NYT correspondent in London, has done a remarkable job in capturing the British (well, mainly the English).   Anyone who wants to know why we have no time for anything like therapy and possess an infinite capacity and imagination for inflicting pain and humiliation should read this book.  The description of how Londoners handled David Blaine on pp. 176-79 brought tears of laughter to my cheeks, but that's probably because I am part of the same nasty race that is being analysed so acutely.  All peoples are totally depraved; but some, it appears, might be more totally depraved than others.  And the experience of British men dating American women is fascinating: the latter being, it seems, completely hung up on how we (British men) have `emotional issues' and are `in denial'.  Given the rise of concern about `emotional issues' and `being in denial' in American evangelical circles, I now understand why I feel so perplexed over here most of the time.  Our dentistry may be awful; but we can't abide shrinks and shrinkology.

In short, English friends, Lyall nails us, particularly what she describes as the 'insouciance' towards trouble' and the `emotional isolationism' into which we retreat at the first sight of trouble or soppy sentimentalism.  Long may we continue in such.