Notes from a small island - Bill Bryson

Reli há pouco tempo o livro de 1995 do Bill Bryson sobre a Grã Bretanha. Aqui ficam algumas passagens:

p. 29 There are certain idiosyncratic notions that you quietly come to accept when you live for a long time in Britain. ... The third is the idea that Britain is a big place.
p. 32 The fact that the British have a totally private sense of distance. This is most visibly seen in the shared pretence that Britain is a lonely island in the middle of an empty green sea.
p. 33 I can remember, after I had been living about a year in Bournemouth and bought my first car, fiddling with the car radio and being astounded at how many of the stations it picked up were in French, then looking at a map and being even more astounded to realize that I was closer to Cherbourg than I was to London. I mentioned this at work the next day and most of my colleagues refused to believe it.

Lembro-me uma vez me terem contado que há muitos anos atrás houve um nevoeiro intenso sobre o Canal que parou todas as ligações a França e foi noticiado nos jornais "O Continente está isolado"!! Ai, estes ingleses e a Europa. Como diria o Sir Humphrey do Yes Minister, Inglaterra só entrou na UE para poder atrapalhar o processo, pois nunca será europeia!