Has alcohol sapped the British spirit?
Ages ago someone suggested I might compare my experience of the Isle of Wight with life in the US and I resisted the temptation (could only lead to trouble) but to the discussion on this site about why some Brits like America and are so optimistic about it, raises (in a few of the links) one of the principal issues I would have raised myself had I addressed the US/US topic with total honesty: everyone in the UK is drunk!
Well, not everyone. But public drunkenness - people shouting in the street drunkenness - is simply much less common in comparable areas of the US.
And I agree as well that Americans take themselves more seriously. Sometimes too seriously for my tastes.
But this seriousness gives individuals an inner strength - a dependability - that some Brits lack.
Again, these are generalisations that cry out to be contradicted by individual examples (drunken American college students, or Gordon Brown's seriousness) but in general I think they ring true.
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