The friendliness is an aspect of English culture, without which you are seen as a curmudgeonly outsider. But beware, it often hides extremely self-seeking attitudes.

very continental judgment! as half brit half italiano, i have to say i agree.

not that self-seeking attitudes are foreign to the other euro counties either, it's just gone further in that direction in England. what used be a victorian frosty politeness is now covered with a sauce of 'mateyness', but its ability to truly warm the heart is rare.

i put it down to centuries of satanic mills.

industrialism lifted many out of rural penury, but then ground them under its heel eventually anyway, now the chinese get their turn at despoilers-in-chief, what can stop them?

certainly not our moralising about anything. this is what dooms capitalism-as-we-know-it, its the old model that's rotting under our feet but we can't seem to let go of it and move on without blood spilled, so over the falls (into the streets) we 'must' go... you can try and squeeze humans into being machine cogs only so long before enough get indignant enough to claim their lives back.

resistance may well be futile, simply allowing the status quo to hold its sorry course is worse. ya takes ya pick.

(and shovel).

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty