It is a land of warm beer, cricket and unrestricted capitalism -- and a place where people take the monarchy dreadfully seriously.
There are plenty of eccentrics in this strange country, but no extremists. It is also a place where the showers don't work properly.
We are talking, of course, about Britain. Not Britain as seen by the British, but viewed through the eyes of a German foreign correspondent, Christian Schubert, whose book, Great Britain -- Island Between the Worlds, is published this week in Germany.
Schubert, an award-winning journalist for the leading German paper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has made a valiant attempt to explain Britain to a baffled German public.
Subtitled The Britons -- Europe's Eternal Outsiders, his book suggests that the UK has more in common with the rest of Europe than it likes to admit. In an entertaining romp through British history, he points out that the land bridge linking England to the rest of Europe only sank into the sea about 8,000 years ago.
His discussion of English history takes in the first New Testament in English (printed in the German city of Worms) and the present queen, who he judges not very British at all, being directly related to the royal houses of the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Spain and Monaco.
"I always had difficulties in understanding Britain's resistance to European integration. Now after writing the book I understand it better," said Schubert, who has lived in London since 1997.
In one of the book's highlights, Schubert describes a day in the life of the typical British family -- Mr. and Mrs. Jones.
In the morning, Mr. Jones has a shower. He doesn't have a proper, powerful shower like you get in Germany, though, but stands under a miserable trickle of water. Britain's failure to guarantee vigorous water pressure, Schubert laments, is a result of a more general British failing: we don't invest in our own infrastructure.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, is described as a "half European," who can't make up his mind whether he prefers Europe or the US. Despite a promising start, he has failed to make good on his pledge to lead Britain "to the heart of Europe."
"British people don't care very much what foreigners think of them. I think they should care more," Schubert said.
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