Nowadays, I march into a house and turn the television off myself. It is the only way to get the patient s full attention even if he or she is seriously ill and likely to die without medical treatment. But the nurses always say, The patients want it on, and will continue to say it even though a straw poll usually reveals precisely the opposite. But it is on Saturday night, provincial downtown, that the unquenchable English thirst for entertainment at least among the young is seen to best advantage. To reach Saturday night is the summit of ambition of much of English youth.
Nothing fills their minds with such anticipation or eagerness.
On Saturday night, the center of the city has a quite distinct atmosphere. It is as if a devastating epidemic had swept over the country and left alive no one who has reached middle age. There is festivity in the air, but also menace. The young men especially those with shaved heads and ironmongery in their noses and eyebrows squint angrily at the world, as if they expect to be attacked at any moment from any direction, or as if they have been deprived of something to which they were entitled. Even some of the young women seem aggressive.