Civilized

The British have a way of using words that implies final, irreversible and incontestable judgment, as they say “brooking no argument”. One of these is civilized. After all, civilizing has been Britain’s gift to a very large part of the world. If a place (a country, resort, a restaurant, whatever) is civilized it means it has passed the test of intense and refined scrutiny and has been deemed fit for British consumption. Most importantly, it should contain no surprises.


For example, a Sunday pub lunch consisting of overcooked roast beef accompanied by Yorkshire pudding and half a dozen steamed vegetables (none of this with a hint of seasoning, mind you), washed down with copious amounts of warm beer, and followed by a slab of treacle tart, would be considered civilized. A Greek lunch of salad with a slab of feta cheese on top, a platter each of crisp fried sardines, grilled lamb chops reeking of garlic and rosemary, and fried potatoes, washed down with a cheap dry red wine, and followed by a two-hour siesta, would not. Discussion is civilized only when it stays within the bounds of the accepted topics, does not in any way challenge old ideas, and does not attempt to introduce new ones.

Anything that does not merit the civilized great seal of approval, complete with lion and unicorn rampant (ladies, please stay well clear of the rampant unicorn) is doomed to lie forever on the rubbish heap of the uncivilized, non-civilized, or not quite civilized somewhere around the Eighth Circle of Hades.