The English People - George Orwell

This lovely essay was published in 1947, with a bunch of interesting illustrations. As always, Orwell is clear-eyed, realistic and expresses himself beautifully. Here he is on how a foreign visitor is likely to view the natives:

Almost certainly he would find the salient characteristics of the English people to be artistic insensibility, gentleness, respect for legality, suspicion of foreigners, sentimentality about animals, hypocrisy, exaggerated class distinctions, and an obsession with sport.

There’s also a great pub argument factoid. Apparently “ain’t” is not a corruption of aren’t but the original form - “Queen Victoria would have said ain’t”.