Stuff White Brits Like

Not just for beggars, busking is a popular activity for white Brits. This will particularly appeal to drama students or other Brits of an exhibitionist nature. Busking also allows the white Brit to pretend to be poor for a while, and they will later expatiate on how invisible they were to everyone else, and that they now understand how beggars must feel.

Busking will often be combined with raising money or awareness for a charity. This will make the white Brit feel even more ethical, and if fundraising is not as high as expected, the innate greed of passersby will be blamed rather than the poor quality of their own performance.

Even white Brits who do not personally busk will feel the need to donate generously when they hear a busker sing an original song (anything that isn’t Oasis or Knocking on Heaven’s Door), or if they spot a busker sporting a good haircut.

When they aren’t having dinner parties, white Brits invite their friends over for murder mystery nights. They may, however, combine the two and play the murder mystery over a three-course dinner instead of the more usual cocktail party. Décor, music and refreshments will have to be carefully selected to achieve a realistic atmosphere: this allows the white Brit to display their house, cooking skills and general savoir faire to their guests.

Like a real-life version of Cluedo, guests are given identities before arriving that they will assume for the night. It is good etiquette for guests to arrive in fancy dress and already in character. They will then have to figure out which of the other guests is the murderer.

The entire evening is often based around a theme (the aristocracy, the Wild West, gangsters, spies, vampires), a nationality (often Russian or French), and a time, usually the 1920′s or 1960′s. The choice of theme is an important task for the white Brit and must not be misjudged. The murder mystery party involves fancy dress, bluffing, and putting on foreign and/or posh accents, all things that a white Brit enjoys immensely.

White Brits love literature. They also love festivals. Whether because of disillusionment with modern music, the birth of a child, or a wish to appear more intelligent, there comes a time in the white Brit’s life when music festivals are not an appropriate place to be. Thankfully, help is at hand in the form of literary festivals such as Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh. The constant influx of white Brits who work in the media, or who wish to work in the media, ensures that these are a success year after year.

Speakers at such festivals will include writers and poets of varying quality, several of which will have some sort of connection with the Booker Prize. Festival-goers wander around hoping to spot figures such as Zadie Smith, Melvyn Bragg, Martin Amis and Kazuo Ishiguro. This is also a good place for politicians hoping to curry favour among white British voters. The Guardian Hay Festival is renowned for its spot-the-Miliband competition, and one of the speakers this year was Nick Clegg.

A good first step towards literary festivals is Latitude. It hovers on the edge of music and literature festivals: in addition to live bands, it has tents for poetry, literature and comedy. This is, however, seen as a soft option by advanced white Brits.

One excuse for white Brits to read the tabloids is their shared love for puns of all kinds. Puns can be both highbrow and lowbrow, from Joyce and Nabokov to The Sun, and are a never-ending source of amusement. At their best, they will include some sort of innuendo (‘the penis, mightier than the sword’).

Drop puns into conversation at least once a day for failsafe approval from your white British friends. This will both show your adroitness with words, ability to think outside the box, and an appreciation of ‘low’ humour, all of which are pleasing to the white British mind.

Puns may be topical, such as calling a hangover ‘wine flu’, intelligent (‘atheism is a non-prophet institution’), or bawdy, such as Shakespeare’s various uses of the word ‘ring’ or ‘country matters’. When a pun is particularly funny, it may be referred to as ‘punny’. And remember: ‘a pun is a reword in itself.’

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s winning mix of rusticity and sophistication have made him white Britons’ favourite TV chef. While white Brits do love good food, it is River Cottage‘s inspirational lifestyle that gives the show such sway.

The simple pleasure of a home-cooked meal made with ingredients from your own garden is immensely appealing to the urban white Brit, suggesting an almost religious transcendence that can be achieved by working closely with Nature. There is also something about Fearnley-Whittingstall’s reliance on his own and local labour that approaches the mentality of a commune, which, given the white Brit’s natural inclination towards socialism, is something to be aspired to.

The fascination of the show, however, is largely based on its essentially escapist function. The River Cottage lifestyle is best left to the illusory world of television rather than something to be actually emulated, as the white Brit would quickly be driven to distraction by the lack of diversity, intellectual stimulation and cocktail parties in the countryside.

As fabrics go, the advantages that tweed offers give it a place of honour in white British wardrobes. A mid-point between a leather jacket and a pinstripe suit, tweed achieves a geek-chic look that is appealing to the white Brit. It will give them a distinctive air, reminiscent of an old and eccentric literature professor, something that all white Brits have at one point aspired to be.

It will also make them look like they have just stepped out of bohemian Paris in the 1890s, a place and time in which all white Brits wish they had lived, far away from an era of pedestrian Lycra and cotton clothes. Lastly, the contrast between the generally young age of the tweed-wearer and the old-fashioned nature of the tweed will create a desirable ‘young fogey’ look, which the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith, has embraced wholeheartedly.

Tweed can be worn either as a whole-body look, as an unobtrusive jacket, or as a simple waistcoat. Paisley, silk cravats and brown leather shoes may be used to complement the tweed-based outfit.

Making and mending your own clothes was once seen as something poor people do; now, it is white British women’s favourite pastime. The fact that the ICA sells knitted brooches in the shape of flowers, butterflies and peapods is a sure sign that knitted garments are in demand among white Brits. Buying these, however, is a feeble alternative to knitting them yourself. White Brits love crafts and ‘doing things with their hands,’ and knitting is something else to add to their lists of artistic activities.

Starting with scarves, they will work their way up to jumpers and hats, and eventually to a whole array of accessories and objects for the house. Once a high level of knitting ability is achieved, the white Brit will express their creativity by knitting madcap objects such as cakes, sandwiches, fruit bowls, small animals, or asparagus-shaped table decorations for dinner parties. The home-made nature of the item will ensure that no one else will have the same thing, which is a great comfort to the white person. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that your guest will not own the same knitting and crochet book.