To walk the narrow lanes of the city is to wade through history and to find oneself in the past, present, and future all at the same time. A train ride from central London's Victoria Station to the southern suburb of Bromley is as predictable as a Swiss timepiece. Here on public transportation the celebrated English reserve and the stiff upper lip are on full display. People, young men and women and older pensioners, travel absorbed in their own world in stony silence. Each one traveling in his own invisible cocoon.
Conversations are almost nonexistent even among friends traveling together.
It is just not proper. And when they do speak, they speak proper English. The headline of an article in the Times of London begged for attention. While a PhD student at Yale, she was appalled by the dismal state of English language and literature. I could hear echoes of the irrepressible Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.