Welcome to Everytown [Hardcover]

Having family originate from the same postal area as everytown (and one member live on the same road 'Flash Lane'), I bought the book with interest if not slight reluctance - half expecting some patronising exposition on working class life. However, I found every page was a genuine delight. Informative, interesting, witty and accurate. Sure, it is from the 'outsider' perspective, but what else did you expect? Baggini to effect a 'Rovram' accent and attempt to be a cross between Sean Bean and Wittgenstein?

The reivews of the book surprised me - flawed by straw men and ad hominems. As one who has also 'escaped' the area through university, I found this book gave me a fresh perspective on how dangerous it is to criticise mass culture - the section on the Da Vinci Code says more about middle class snobbery than you would expect. Buy this and enjoy.

I was looking forward to this book which put itself forward as a study of the philosophy of life of the typical Englishman, his fears, his aspirations and his ethical beliefs; all of this garnered from a 6-month stay in England's most average postcode. Unfortunately, amusing as it is in parts, it never really lives up to its set ambition. What is worse, there are parts that read just like an exploration of the mythical North/South divide.

Some problems are evident from the beginning. Baggini focuses on an aspect of English life and then, with the admittedly dubious aid of opinion polls, the tabloid press and conversations with locals in the boozer, constructs a set of extremely general truths about English society and the practices of the common man. What are often presented as original insights into the English mind are, I'm afraid, platitudes which apply to almost any modern nation in the Western world. For example, with much fanfare and preparation, we are told that we are obsessed by status, tolerant but wary of other cultures and prefer familiarity and convenience to that which is alien or challenging. There is nothing distinctly English about this.

One reason why the results of Baggini's investigations are disappointing may lie within the author himself. He comes across as extremely ingenuous, a sort of Hugh Grant of the writing world, jumping into everyday pursuits with a sort of trepidation which can only come from living a very withdrawn life. He is shocked by cinema food / snack prices and openly admits he has never betted before. In certain cases, an outsider's view can lend a degree of objectivity to a cultural history but Baggini's lack of participation in the English way of life previous to his trip up North ultimately acts as an obstacle to revealing its key characteristics.

At one point in the book, there is a jab at two other writers, Paxman and Scruton, who are chided for having ignored the average man and concentrated on literary figures and historic events to define the English. One gets the distinct feeling that Baggini might have been more comfortable with this approach.

Yes, Biaggini is a bit of a snob, but his observations are quite sound and make a lot of sense. Living in Holland, close to the German border, I can also ensure that his observations are true of those western European countries as well. I am convinced that it takes someone with a detached view to notice the characteristics and peculiarities of other social groups and ultimately Biaggini proves to be sympathetic towards his working class friends from S66. I can't understand all those reviewers who say this is a better or worse book than Paxman's and/or Fox's. I find the three books to be complementary and as such they broaden ones understanding of the mindset of the English (and, for a large part, Western Europeans, because we ultimately have more in common perhaps than most people would be comfortable with admitting).