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Al Murray: Interview
• Interview: Malcolm Hay
• Time Out asked the legend of landlording for ten Great British Inventions, that‘s to say ’a few things we came up with along the way to becoming the country everyone wants to be‘
1. The train
We – the British – invented trains. Don’t let anyone forget. And ever since Stephenson’s rocket turned up ten minutes after it was supposed to, the British love affair with the train has bloomed. It’s the sort of love affair where you want to punch each other’s lights out, but it’s a love affair nevertheless. As for trains being late? So what. If you’re a lawyer, accountant, HR, PR, inter-nerd or whatever it is people do these days now we don’t make anything, surely it’s for the best if you’re late to work.
2. Humour
Until the British came along no one had laughed at the French. Our sense of humour is, without a doubt, the greatest in the world. You only have to look at the sheer number of Benny Hill videos sold around the world, and the simple fact that Americans expect British television to consist of short men being chased around parks by busty lovelies with the film sped up, to confirm the lasting power and superiority of the British sense of humour. There are starving children in Africa, yes, but fortunately their lives are nourished by the gift of Benny Hill repeats. You do know that there’s no German word for funny?
3. Time
The British invented time. This is undeniable. Until Harrison’s clock, people had a fair idea of what sort of time it was: noon-ish, not yet noon, afternoon – it was mainly noon-based time-keeping, but it was the British who gave the world five-to, quarter-past, half-past and all the other classics. It’s no coincidence that Doctor Who, a Timelord, is British. The world runs to Greenwich Meantime (GMT) not Paris Meantime (PMT). Imagine the chaos. Your clock goes tick-tock, not tique-toque.
4. Football
Football was our idea: you don’t need FIFA if you’ve got the sweet FA. So no matter how a game of football goes, we win, because it was our idea. It was us that put the foot to the ball and the ball in the back of the net. True, the French have many great players, and they can be pretty smug about it at times. But where are they playing? At a club with the word ‘Arse’ in its name. In England. If that doesn’t demonstrate our superior sense of humour [See invention two], nothing does. When there’s a petanque World Cup, then we’ll talk, Thierry.
5. Pop music
Pop music is a British invention: that is, in its current form. The reason for this is British men are among the ugliest on the planet, so our bands can’t fall back on their looks to sell records. They can’t just do their hair and get their teeth fixed, smile and hope for the best. No, they have to dig deep and write decent music.
6. Proper food
London has recently undergone some sort of assault of French-based, Japanese-based and every other kind of food imaginable. Outrage. British food ain’t broke, so why fix it? Single-syllable food – pie, chips, beans, peas, cheese, nuts, crisps, bread, marge, pork, lamb, beef, spuds – you can’t argue with that. Mind you, I did see a Nepalese restaurant the other day. My eyes welled up at the thought of the noble Gurkha chef therein, chopping onions with his kukri.
7. Computers
The British invented computers, with which to crack the German codes in the last big one. (A proper war, that one. We didn’t start it, which is the right way of doing things, and that’s really my problem with Mr Blair: no sense of tradition.) These codes were extra difficult to crack because the original messages were in German, which is a bastard to learn, as the verb is at the end of the sentence and you never really know what a German is saying until he’s finished.
8. Gentlemen amateurs
A dying breed, but the gentleman amateur is everything a man could hope to be – something we should cherish. In an age when even chewing gum claims to be ‘professional’, the gentleman amateur – the fellow with a bare grasp of the facts, sturdy shoes and a walking stick – is without a doubt one of our greatest achievements. And if he holds a door open for the lady, so what? It’s manners; he’s not patronising you, sweetheart.
9. Evolution
The only reason Yanks don’t like evolution is it wasn’t one of them who thought of it. It’s clear that what pisses them off about Darwin’s theory of evolution isn’t the notion that they’re descended from apes, but that a dusty bloke with a big beard from England figured it out rather than some bunch of white-coated snazzy fellas in an all-expenses-paid mission control super-lab full of former Nazi scientists.
10. France
I know, this might seem odd, coming from me, but France is one of our greatest inventions. The reason for this is simple: being British is pretty vague, because we’re a beautifully mixed bag, after all. If you had to sum up Great Britain in confectionery terms, you’d have to say Quality Street. (I like Curly Wurlys too, but that doesn’t really do us justice.) So, Henry VIII deliberately got out of France, so the French could come along and give us something not to be, in case we were ever feeling a bit too vague about being British. Genius!
