Today's column is addressed to all those of you who may have to take a Britishness test in the near future, to see how British you are.
Well, one of the special things the British like doing in advance of exams is getting crib sheets or pass notes to get them through without too much hard work, so today I am bringing you some crucial cheat notes on How To Be British. After each test question you will find advice on the right answer.

1. Do you know the words to the British National Anthem?
ANSWER. No. Nobody does. There is, in addition, no such thing as a British National Anthem. The English mumble the dirge known as God Save The Queen, the Welsh roar their own songs such as Sospan Fach in Welsh, and the Scots have their own songs, albeit all in English. The Northern Irish have their own songs, which vary dangerously from street to street, but nobody outside Northern Ireland knows or cares what they are.

2. What do the British think about Northern Ireland?
ANSWER. They never think about Northern Ireland.

3. Which side of the road do you drive on in Britain?
ANSWER. In the middle. You have to, because there are cars parked down either side. On a motorway it is customary to keep to the middle lane even if you are the only driver in sight.

4. Do you like a little drink now and then?
ANSWER. No, you like a lot of drink now and then. To be British, you must get the hang of binge drinking, which involves having a good time by ingesting and quickly ejecting a lot of alcohol, and being unable to remember afterwards what a good time you had

5. If you are British, do you complain a lot?
ANSWER. No, the British are very bad at complaining, and don't enjoy it. What they like doing best is grumbling and moaning. For instance, if the British are served a badly cooked meal in a restaurant, they will not point this out to the waiter or complain to the management - they will only whinge about it afterwards and say, 'Well, I'm not going THERE again'.

6. Do the British like cooking?
ANSWER. The British love reading about cooking and they like watching cooking on the TV. They then like going out to buy a ready cooked meal and putting it in the microwave. There are some British people who like cooking, but most prefer the alternative art of catering.

7. How do the British political institutions, which govern, us work?
ANSWER. Never you mind.

8. Do you enjoy golf as a game?
ANSWER. Golf is a not a game. It is a social rite. It is a badge of business acceptability. It is a chance to get out of the house. It is a way of getting away from habitations without even noticing the presence of nature. It is a handy method of meeting three complete strangers, spending three hours in their company and afterwards knowing no more about them than you did before. The one thing golf is not is a game. If it were a game, the British would take it seriously and be good at it.

9. In the sports field, would you support British teams?
ANSWER. Another trick question. There are no British teams. The only time sportsmen ever compete under a British flag is in athletics, and athletes do not form teams, only bunches of loners. It is vital to remember that no true Briton has ever been heard shouting, 'Come on, Britain!' only 'Come on, Wales', 'Come on you Scots', 'For God's sake, England, wake your bloody ideas up!' etc, etc.

10. What is the national religion of Britain?
ANSWER. The national religion of the British is putting "C of E" in answer to any religious question.

11. What is the greatest ambition of most British people?
ANSWER. To spend their lives in Britain making enough money to be able to buy a house abroad and go and live there.

12. Do the British like being abroad?
ANSWER. No. But they like being in a cheap place, in the sun.

13. Are the British interested in languages?
ANSWER Yes. They are passionately committed to getting everyone to speak English.

14. Are the British proud to be British?
ANSWER Most British people don't even think of themselves as British. Look at the average hotel register, under "Nationality". The British are all signed in as English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, even as Geordie.

15. Yes, but don't the British think Britain is the best place in the world?
ANSWER. Yes. At the same time, most British take an amazing pleasure in running themselves down and pretending that everyone does everything better. The shocking note of self-denigration running through these cheat notes offers a good example.

16. What does a British person do on the last day of their holidays abroad?
ANSWER. Start sending postcards home.

17. When does a British person complain about food in a restaurant? When it is a) undercooked b) overcooked c) not what they ordered d) full of germs e) still alive?
ANSWER. None of those. The correct answer is: when it is not very hot.

18. What will you find on British local radio?
ANSWER. Music pre-recorded locally in Nashville, New York or California.

19. What does the phrase "live music" mean to a British
person?
ANSWER. Music pre-recorded in front of an audience.

20. What does the word "intellectual" mean to the British?
ANSWER. An intellectual in Britain is someone who says something clever, and doesn't smile when he is saying it. That is why Stephen Fry, who would be recognised as an intellectual in any other country, is thought to be an entertainer here, but Jeremy Paxman is considered an intellectual.

21. To what station does a British workman tune his radio?
ANSWER. Nobody knows, as it is always just off-station.

22. What form does politics take in Britain?
ANSWER. There is no such thing as politics in Britain, at least, not in the traditional sense of arguing about principle. What we have instead is party politics, which is quite different and is merely arguing about who should be blamed, fired, replaced and re-promoted.

23. Who do people vote for in a British election?
ANSWER. Nobody votes FOR anyone at British elections. They merely vote against someone else, because they have decided they are to blame for the situation.

24. What happens when people can't decide who to blame for any mishap?
ANSWER. They start an inquiry immediately and say, 'It would not be appropriate for me to comment while the inquiry is still sitting'.

25. What is an inquiry?
ANSWER. It is a thorough investigation into a major mishap which interviews everyone concerned and reveals its findings so much later, that by then we are on to the next major mishap and nobody cares any more about the last one.

26. What does the word "appropriate" mean?
ANSWER It is a meaningless word which has come to replace "right, moral, profitable, ethical" etc. There is a trend at the moment for perfectly useful words to be replaced by useless words.

27. Such as?
ANSWER Yes.

28. How do you mean?
ANSWER. Sorry. The word "yes" has recently been replaced.

29. By what other word?
ANSWER. "Absolutely".

30. Why do the British get married?
ANSWER. To have something to watch on video.

31. Is that the only thing they video?
ANSWER. No. They monitor all their children's activities on video, in case something goes badly wrong and they can make money by sending it up to a TV programme.

32. Are the British law-abiding?
ANSWER. The British have an immense respect for the law as a whole, and an intense contempt for each individual law. They could never produce a champion of the small man as the French have in Jose Bove.

33.Why not?
ANSWER. Because Jose Bove, as a maker of an individual French cheese like Roquefort, has seen the rights of his product eroded by American commercial and political pressure. That is why he was driven to bulldoze a MacDonalds restaurant.

34.And why could the British never do that?
ANSWER. Because they see nothing wrong in buying Irish or Canadian Cheddar. Because they see nothing wrong in eating at MacDonalds.

35. What is wrong with eating at MacDonalds?
ANSWER I am far too British to risk telling you in print.

Well, how British do you feel now? More home truths soon!!

The Independent 4th&11th September 2003