Dimensions
159 x 239 x 25mm
Foreigner Adrian Gill (a Scot) goes in search of the essence of England and the English
Selecting fifteen destinations as likely to yield clues to the character of the English, A. A. Gill travels the kingdom in pursuit of his notion that beneath the picture-postcard vision of warm beer, village cricket and tolerance lurks a combative, belligerent nation. A call centre crackling with angry voices; a nightclub pounding with sweat and hormones; a football match which threatens a re-enactment of the Civil War; the Sealed Knot, which does actually re-enact it; Hadrian's Wall, awash with generations of animosity. Even the apparently staid beetle collection at the Natural History Museum - are all grist to A.A. Gill's investigative mill. He goes to Coventry (by motorway, in a Bentley); he goes to the dogs (with his own greyhound), he goes to Hell (a Northern sink estate), and everywhere he discovers a national psyche on the brink of violence and vituperation. And who better than our most read, most feared journalist to provoke and record our rage?
