

Speaking of the British - surfingdino
http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?z4596068789&z=1250248780

======
ErrantX
This is hilarious :) I honestly thought it was a joke... but now I am
uncertain.. he seems to _genuinely_ think that Britain is like this :S

The best bit is the wonderful caricature of Oxbridge interviews, as if the
modern world is left behind once you step foot in those hallowed halls :D One
guy at our school that went to Oxford worked like absolute hell to get his
grades, pass his entrance exam and pass the exhausting round of interviews (2
days, testing all sorts of aptitidue).

Sure; the colleges have a tradition of "sprawling on sofa's" while enjoying a
glass of the good stuff. But it is just tradition!

 _Aged 18, perhaps hungover, you read out your pitiful but elegant essay. The
tutor points out gaps in your knowledge. For an hour, you talk your way around
those gaps._

Hahahahahahahahaha. Ahem. All of the friends I have that went to a really top
flight university (Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, etc) were basically working flat
out for their exams from about January every year..

(I was the drunkard.. see "winging it" below)

 _Traditionally, elite Britons then leave education aged 21. Until recently
they rarely bothered with graduate school._

Meh, classic nonsense confusion regarding the British and American educations
systems.

 _Britain’s rulers still struggle to judge scientific arguments about nuclear
energy or climate change_

Very much struggling to see American, or indeed any other countries, "rulers"
doing any better.

 _It was the urge to amuse that recently prompted Cameron to riff on an old TV
ad and shout “Calm down, dear,” at a female Labour MP._

Failing to understand British humour, he only got it in the neck because at
that level of politics you have to work with international norms.

 _Admittedly, ignorance sometimes saves Britain’s rulers from error._

And here we really get to the crux of it. We are not talking about "winging
it", or an aptitude for rhetoric, but "ignorance". I'll be first to admit that
the UK political elite are, to some extent, "clueless" on technical topics.
But... how is that any different from any other politician in the world? Is
that not why they have advisors? Hmmmm.

Nah, this is just some sneer-y anti-British hit piece. A caricature of the
great and powerful of Britian as bumbling idiots who get by through a wing and
a prayer.

But.

Winging it very much is a British tradition. One I have always been
consistently proud of, because we tend to be fucking awesome at it. I winged
it through school, university, life, career. And it works, brilliantly.

So, ba shucks ;)

I could go to America and make a casual, 2 second, assessment that the masses
were pretty crass (seriously, the amount, scale and volume of advertising on
your TV is terrible!), thick people and that the ruling elite were basically a
bunch of manic argumentative idiots. Because they are the most vocal or
visible types of people. I could go to France and make a similar assessment of
the people there as rude and xenophobic. etc etc. But that would be a
disgustingly shallow view. Quid Pro Quo. This is just thinly disguised
xenophobia and the FT should be ashamed to print it.

~~~
jdminhbg
The author, Simon Kuper, is British and studied at Oxford
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Kuper>), so while he may be wrong, it's
not because he's unfamiliar with the country or the eduction system.

~~~
petesmithy
He has a British passport. He was born in Uganda of South African parents,
spent his childhood in the Netherlands, "also lived in Stanford, California,
Berlin and London", and studied at Oxford and Harvard. He currently lives in
France. He should stay there :)

------
corin_
This is a really horrible article, and it's clear that the author doesn't have
a great grasp of English culture by the bad generalisations he makes.

While I haven't bothered with University, I did go to an expensive private
school (a step below the likes of Eton) (fees paid by a scholarship), and I
have had some links to Oxford University which technically make me an alumnus
of an Oxford college and gave me the experience of the university without
having studied there (long story). So I'm pretty familiar with the people this
article is trying to talk about. For example I have been in the same class as
the son of Peter Hitchens, the brother of Christopher who is mentioned as an
example in the article, and also the same class as a boy from the Getty
family.

Overall, I would say that as a country we value talking and arguing highly as
skills, more so than many countries. It definitely becomes more noticeable the
higher you climb on the social ladder, but that is generally just because the
better educated you are, the more practise you get and the more you learn.
It's not that middle/upper class education teaches people these things, it's
just that, as with all subjects, private education tends to give people an
easier ride.

The idea that at OxBridge it's more about talking than knowing. This was much
more true before I was born, a few decades ago. It's certainly what many
people who went to those universities in the 50s-70s would say.

 _"Traditionally, elite Britons then leave education aged 21."_ That has
nothing to do with being "elite", simply that the majority of people who go to
university don't study past their BA.

 _"When Tony Blair hinted that Iraq’s 'weapons of mass destruction' could hit
London within 45 minutes, the establishment mostly believed him."_ Actually a
huge number of us didn't believe him, but we blamed it on lies rather than
mathematical difficulty. Many of us took to the streets in protest against
these lies.

 _"Educated Americans would often praise Blair for arguing the case better
than President Bush could."_ If you have to draw comparison with GWB to prove
that someone is good at arguing a case then you've lost the argument already.
I don't know a single working class person who doesn't manage to appear more
engaged when speaking than Bush.

 _"But in general, Britain’s ruling classes are funny speakers."_ Nonsense.
Britain as a whole tends to have a sense of humour, in my experience the upper
middle class has _less_ humour than lower classes.

 _"It was the urge to amuse that recently prompted Cameron to riff on an old
TV ad and..."_ It wasn't the urge to amuse, and anyone who tries to suggest
that Cameron, or frankly any of our leading politicians, has a sense of
humour, hasn't spent enough time listening to them talk. That was Cameron's
attempt to appear hip and youthful.

 _"Admittedly, ignorance sometimes saves Britain’s rulers from error."_ How
can such a claim be made without given a single example or a single piece of
logic to justify it. I don't know if it's a good or a bad point because,
without any context, I've no idea what he's even trying to say.

------
swombat
I went to Oxford. I studied Physics. Yes, I learned to "wing it". If you can
maneuver your way through a "tutorial" (2 students, one tutor) where the
person evaluating you is one of the smartest people in the world and an expert
with 40 years more experience than you, and you're hungover and didn't really
study the material properly, and still come out looking ok, you can deal with
almost any situation where you need to "wing it" in the future. It's solid
training.

That said, most of those students were very, very, very smart. To me, Oxford
was the place where I went from finding it fairly easy to get whatever grades
I wanted to struggling and working hard to get the minimum I found acceptable
(a 2:1, or Upper Second, result in the overall degree). That was because the
final grades were all relative, and there were a lot of very, very smart
students I was competing against.

And, as far as the subject studied is concerned, don't forget that in the UK
people rarely go on to work in the subject they studied. Sure, it's still
better to do hard sciences, but apart from lawyers and doctors, most people
end up doing something else after university.

Which is fine, imho - university is not and should not be training for a job,
but, instead, training for life. And as far as life is concerned, in the world
as it is today, winging it is certainly a more valuable skill than quantum
mechanics.

~~~
regomodo
Small case-study I know but I work with somebody who just came out of
Cambridge and did a CS-like degree.

He cannot program for shit and talks like he does but show him a bit of C(++),
PHP, javascript (even bash or Python) and his eyes just glaze over. I was
teamed with him but he was forever unable to get anything done. In the end I
was left with it all and made much better progress and he was left to book to
overheads.

I'm certain he's an edge case though, I've met a few others who went to
Oxbridge and they are definitely on the ball. However, I've found those who
went to Bristol, Imperial or Loughborough are people that are the smartest.

~~~
swombat
That's not a case study, just an anecdote. In my experience, there were almost
no people in Oxford that I wouldn't consider "very smart". Probably the only
place in the world where that's been true.

That said, I don't know how Cambridge's "CS-like" degree is/was, but Oxford's
was very bad at actually teaching programming.

Then again, are you really sure he went to Cambridge? Smart people have no
problem with learning to program when they need to. That guy doesn't sound so
smart...

~~~
regomodo
Yeah, anecdote is the correct term. He definitely went to Cambridge which is
why we questioned his choice of employer (the hirers decision). It doesn't
matter what language he's given a task in others are always curious as to why
he's taking so long or when it's ever going to be done. It's not like he's
making a cathedral of every task as ctrl+c & ctr+v are his key tools along
with a good smattering of ugly hacks(i get the feeling he has no grasp of OOP
or VCS).

He's comfortable in Access though.

------
pg
This phenomenon isn't limited to England. The one thing all Harvard undergrads
learn (probably as much from one another as from the professors) is how to
defend themselves in conversation. Some are smart, and some aren't, but by the
time they graduate they all know how to sound smart.

~~~
bane
A trait I've noticed when working with or arguing with the products of elite
universities is the incessant ability to respond to most challenges in the
form of a blank stare. Harvard grads in particular, but I've noticed it in
some military officers as well.

They won't get riled up, they won't back down, they won't...well...do anything
in particular.

While being incredibly infuriating, it also makes them nearly impossible to
read or assess. Are they smart? Are they dolts? No idea!

This enigma-like quality _can_ get one very far in certain contexts. The
ability to operate in elite positions, without becoming ruffled is a
tremendously valuable skill.

The downside of course is that if things really do go pear shaped, the normal
response is to show some kind of stress reaction and hopefully buckle down and
get to work. Not acting like there is anything in particular going on just
makes those around you wonder if the ol' gears are actually turning at all.
Are they out of touch? Do they care? It can be tremendously demotivating to
those around.

A company I worked for early in my carerr had to let two people with this
trait go (both top-tier uni graduates) because the management didn't think
they were taking a then current crisis seriously enough. We came to find that
with both of them, they were effectively doing no work at all as there was
almost no extra work that came out of their leaving.

When asked why they were kept around for so many years, promoted etc.,
management simply responded that they seemed well poised, like they knew what
was going on, attended tons of meetings, sent out lots of email...so it
_looked_ like they were burning furnaces of activity.

When the crisis struck, they kept plodding along this track, scheduling
meetings, refusing to let them run long, sending out dozens of emails a day,
long after the rest of the team had changed behavior patterns to deal with the
issue. It became such a nuisance, especially the content free, but tightly
scheduled meetings, that they were finally put under higher scrutiny.

It's a office-space-esque/dilbert-esque lesson I've kept with me through my
career and have run into this trait dozens of times.

I've personally found it so infuriating a trait to work with that I'm loath to
hire people from certain majors in certain universities under the assumption
there is some kind of communications coursework that teaches people to respond
with this blank stare.

I've coined the term "the management stare" for this phenomenon.

On the other hand, the people who I've found to be top performers were
consistently the dynamic, emotive people in an organization. They responded
rapidly and naturally to changing conditions, showed outward emotions and got
really emotionally involved in conversations, meetings and tasks. They brought
an energy to the company that drove the rest of their peers along with them.

~~~
nradov
I have consistently found the dynamic, emotive people to be disastrous in
crisis situations. They tend to act rashly without thinking through the
consequences and often make things worse. When faced with a technical problem
I prefer dispassionate experts who can apply a discipled, scientific approach
and never get flustered.

~~~
bane
I think I'm phrasing it wrong. I'm definitely not saying that people prone to
histrionics are good performers, just people who show that they are concerned
about the situation, have some leather in it, and want to fix it above all
else seem to be the people that actually get it done the best.

A rational approach to actually solving the problem is definitely best, I
agree.

A blank stare, followed by business as usual, is a non-starter in my opinion.

------
cstross
That article is a bizarre caricature, chock-full of misleading half-truths.
"You probably did school exams in just three subjects. At university, you only
study one" -- that's glaringly inaccurate. The underlying feature of the
British education system is that from age 16 if they're going to university
students tackle 3-4 subjects at "A" level, rather than a whole slew of them.
However, the depth of study for an "A" level qualification is supposed to be
(or was, in my day) roughly equivalent to finishing the first year of a degree
in that subject. The "at university you only study one" reflects the nature of
the British university system: rather than a hodge-podge of courses
culminating in a major, British students focus on a particular area from the
start -- other subjects are studied, but they don't rate separate examinations
or qualifications. It's a system based on specialization: narrow but deep
rather than broad but shallow.

Finally, anyone who went to Oxbridge having read that article and taking "nor
is workaholic study encouraged" at face value is going to be in for a very
nasty surprise ...

~~~
regularfry
This is really noticeable if you go through A levels, then end up in a
university course with a high foreign student intake. The first year is almost
_entirely_ catch-up, as those who didn't do A levels get the content pumped
into them so that the course proper can start in the second year.

------
tomsaffell
Some of this resonates, but this does not:

 _Oxbridge’s teaching methods reward good talk_

In my experience, Cambridge University Engineering Department rewards those
who can _at age 19_ show _on paper_ a sound grasp of all branches of
engineering, from vector calculus, to materials science, to the physics of a
transistor, to thermo dynamics.

Those who can do both that, and also speak well, are often 'poached' into
consulting and banking, whereas those who can only do the former tend to
pursue more technical fields. But to blame that on Oxbridge seems unfair.

On an unrelated note: I've worked with many Oxbridge graduates of Humanities,
Classics (Greek, Latin) and English Literature - all of whom (by selection of
my firm's hiring process) are very numerate. I.e. the two are not mutually
exclusive.

~~~
sabraham
That said, I'm American, went to Oxford and am now at Cambridge, and I can
assure you that most Humanities graduates are shockingly innumerate--I
seriously doubt most Arts students given the Math SAT would be able to do more
than shake a stick at it. The best evidence is probably in PPE; the only
people who stick with E(conomics) did Math/s at A-level. The system doesn't
encourage it. You do your 3-5 A-levels, and people tend to focus on the Arts
or the Sciences, with little to no overlap.

Also, I was never offered sherry at a tutorial, but I did have friends
studying English who were offered wine~

On a related note, this is a good summary of the differences between English
vs American values/elite educations:
[http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/apr/23/whats-
better-o...](http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/apr/23/whats-better-
oxfords-depth-or-yales-breadth/)

------
hugh3
There's a lot to be written on the subject of the British (or just the
English, the other parts of Britain being a whole different ballgame) and
speech. Certainly I don't know of anywhere else where a person's manner of
speech tells you nearly as much about their geographical and socioeconomic
origin. (But of course, I only speak one language so my attention is pretty
restricted).

In Australia they say there are three accents: broad, general and cultivated,
and which one you have is mostly about your socioeconomic level. In my
experience, though, it's more of a spectrum, and the "broad" accent goes in
several different directions depending on where you are -- I can usually pick
out a Queenslander, for instance.

The most interesting thing I've noticed about American accents is that you can
often tell someone's _political_ persuasion, at least on the radio, if not
from their accent then from their manner of speaking. Flip through the radio
dial in some unknown area and you can instantly tell whether you're listening
to a right-wing or left-wing show -- the right-wing voice is deeper and more
aggressive while the left-wing voice sounds higher-pitched and a bit naggy.

------
Qz
This writer writes well. Perhaps unaware of the gaps in his knowledge, he
simply writes around them.

~~~
tankenmate
Ahhh meta analysis; the funniest comment I have read on HN for weeks.

------
adamt
I studied CS at Cambridge having previously come from a below average state
school. Although the article is a cliche of half-truths there is in my
experience some truth there. I had 2 interviews to get in which lasted only 15
and 60 minutes. I only made it to about 25% of lectures and talked my way
through supervisions. Through good exam technique and my own independent
study, I walked away getting a first in each year. So contrary to most people
here I think there is actually a degree of reality to the article.

------
bluekeybox
As the old joke (fact?) goes, Sir Winston Churchill was giving a speech in the
House of Commons and someone nearby noticed that there was a handwritten
comment in the margin of his notes: "Weak argument: talk loudly."

~~~
ErrantX
Churchill was not the smartest (from a technical perspective) cookie in the
cookie jar, he was not a careful quiet thinker, he was a bit racist, from the
"old school" and rather stuffy. But he was very very very very good at two
things; patriotism and rhetoric.

Which, when you are in a war, is a good thing. The generals win the battles.
The politicians win hearts and minds.

Think of the "talk louder" (I have heard to story too, and I think it is true
IIRC) as simply a technical aspect of his ability, akin to the hacks, short
cuts and pieces of useful code we programmers have hanging around to get
things done faster :)

~~~
gruseom
Churchill was also a master of English prose - quintessentially English prose.
He is like Dickens in this respect.

------
gmantastic
I think the article misses a point - in order to speak well, particularly off-
the-cuff, one must first be able to think quickly and clearly. Looked at this
way, judging people on how well they speak is a useful short-cut to assess
their thinking skills (although not definitive).

------
tomelders
I'm british, but I have to say; this article is utter arse gravy of the
highest order.

~~~
MrScruff
I'm also English. Calling something 'utter arse gravy of the highest order'
isn't a particularly informative form of criticism.

~~~
corin_
It is a rather English insult, though.

------
lhnz
This article is complete bullshit:

> Nor is workaholic study encouraged. A South African relative of mine started
> his first “supervision” at Cambridge by confessing that he hadn’t read every
> single book on the reading list. “Good God,” said his supervisor, “nor have
> I. I put them down hoping that you’d look at a couple, and tell me what they
> said.”

That's just completely untrue. Just talk to some student from Oxford and
you'll find that many of them are massive workaholics and very intelligent.
It's not simply all 'talk'. You can't succeed in that environment simply by
being good at talking!?!!

~~~
rplacd
"I disagree with this article! Here's a hypothetical that proves it - I know
it's true because I disagree with this article."

I'm all for nuanced positions, though.

~~~
lhnz
Indeed. Well, I'm not going to be able to create a good argument because mine
is also based on the people at Oxford (and Cambridge) that I've met and how
they've acted, too. (It could just be that I only meet certain kinds of
people?) However, I suspect the author of this articles is speaking falsely
because it doesn't match with the reality I've seen/heard. You have some of
the brainiest people in the UK there and you expect me to believe that it
always comes down to talk?

For instance, my brother comes back from Oxford and I see the amount of work
he brings back with him. He reads and writes more in one term than many other
University's expect from their students in a few years... There are folders
and folders of notes proving the workload. The reading lists that he has been
provided have _not_ been finished. This is because they're pages long and it
is impossible to finish them in the time they are given. He often spends full
days revising or reading, and especially now that is exam time he gives
himself very few hours to relax. Of course there is a mix of people: some that
literally work from 8AM till midnight and others that somehow seem to mix this
with being a socialite (perhaps those people don't do any work and just buddy
up to the professors by telling them that they do no work!? To me, that sounds
bizarre.) Despite the different kinds of people that are there I think it is
disingenuous for somebody with a relative that goes there to argue that
workaholic study is not encouraged. I have seen the opposite; I have seen
people under way too much stress and pressure to succeed and work hard.

Okay, not very nuanced but maybe you see why I call it bullshit.

~~~
rplacd
I have admit - I have a cousin that's been through Cambridge (went through a
nanotechnology track, now taking a doctoral at Max Planck, will always feel
inferior to him) and I do agree with you: he's barely poked his head out and
reconnected with the extended family in ages. I'm interpreting this as
"complete devotion to work" because complete disconnection is rather unheard
of in the Asian family he comes from. So my observations line up with yours to
some extent. I can't prove the existence of lack of of the opposite,
annoyingly enough.

------
will_critchlow
Yep. This rings true even of technical graduates. Makes them really hard to
interview because they are so good at _interviewing_!

I think it's an under-rated skill outside oxbridge. I certainly think it's
helped me and I only have the very edges of this skill that I picked up at
Cambridge.

~~~
tomsaffell
>Makes them really hard to interview because they are so good at interviewing!

Hmm. In my experience interviewing Oxbridge grads, I didn't find that. Being
good at talking around gaps in knowledge works very well in free flowing
conversations, but if an interviewer ask a specific question, and the
interviewee cannot answer it, then the ability to talk round it does no good.
E.g. I used to ask a question relating to the amortization of a loan, and I
would ask the interviewee to draw a graph of _time vs. loan balance_. You
can't talk your way out of not being able to do that.

~~~
will_critchlow
You're right. I'm talking about the ones with the pre-requisite knowledge, not
the total blaggers. It's hard to address their answers to the questions that
don't have right or wrong answers because they answer so well.

------
pclark
Learning how to speak and articulate what I am saying has been the most
valuable skill I have ever learnt.

I am constantly blown away by how poorly grown adults converse.

------
TheBoff
As a current Cambridge undergraduate studying computer science, I find this
absolutely outrageous.

The article seems to imply that the scientific fields simply aren't studied
here.

The particular example of Lord Cherwell is particularly misleading, as his
results were mistrusted by other scientists of the day.

Also, the application process is completely misrepresented. I had two
interviews, with the people who would be supervising me. I didn't get offered
sherry, they were sat respectably in chairs, and they asked me maths and logic
questions.

My director of studies informs me that he then runs all our results
(interview, A levels, personal statement) through a number of statistical
tests to work out who are going to be the best candidates.

Also, it's strange, I didn't think that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had any
effect on the legislative direction of America...

And the point about "workaholic study is not encouraged" is absolutely untrue.
The full reading list probably consisted of about 3 pages of literature. The
workload here is high: it's certainly not unknown to have a fifty hour working
week here.

------
paulnelligan
as an Irishman, it's instinctive to have mixed feelings about the British, our
once brutal, now friendly neighbour.

In any case, they must be doing something right. They have some of the best
institutions on the planet - the NHS, the BBC, and yes their Education system.
And their police force is really the best in the world. I've never met a Bobby
who wasn't professional, friendly, and reasonable, despite a very difficult
job.

------
mattmanser
Odd that he mentions Margaret Thatcher without mentioning she was once a
research chemist and had a chemistry degree.

Doesn't fit with his content free story I guess.

p.s. the link is bad, it's not moreover.com it's from the ft.com.

~~~
srgseg
The moreover link helps avoid the FT paywall.

~~~
mattmanser
ah, fair enough then!

------
nagrom
So for those of us who didn't go to oxbridge and didn't acquire this valuable
skill, how do we acquire it as adults?

~~~
corin_
I'm pretty sure that if you put on an upper class accent (think Hugh Laurie)
that would be enough to make the author of this article assume that you have
the skill.

~~~
wyclif
You mean RP: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation>

~~~
corin_
I've never actually heard that term before, though I am familiar with it being
called the Queen's English, and BBC and Oxford English.

But commonly it would be considered "upper class" within England, and probably
considered "English" outside the UK.

~~~
wyclif
Yeah, I've heard it called that, but my Brit friends usually call it "posh."
Incidentally, we have our own version of RP in the States, it's called the
"Mid-Atlantic accent", many talking heads on news and radio are encouraged to
imitate it if they come from the South of the US or New England.

------
srgseg
"Anyway, running a country on eloquence alone hasn’t worked out disastrously –
or at least not yet"

Good grades are certainly not enough, but they are almost always required.
Oxbridge only invites the best students to interview, and even the top 5 most
academically competitive schools in the UK struggle to send more than a third
of their students to Oxford or Cambridge in a good year.

~~~
raffaelc
"Anyway, running a country on eloquence alone hasn’t worked out disastrously –
or at least not yet"

The largest empire the world has ever seen whittled down to its homeland, a
naval base in the med, and some godforsaken islands in the south atlantic. I'd
call that pretty disastrous.

It'll only get worse. In an increasingly technical world, the brits have the
wrong culture of Snow's two cutures running the show.

~~~
AlisdairO
> The largest empire the world has ever seen whittled down to its homeland, a
> naval base in the med, and some godforsaken islands in the south atlantic.
> I'd call that pretty disastrous.

Actually, I would count the graceful degradation of the British empire (i.e
without the entire country going to hell) as quite an achievement -
particularly considering it happened with a surprisingly low level of long-
term resentment incurred from the former colonies. Further, the claim that it
was due to poor management more than, for example, two ludicrously expensive
wars, is more than a touch disingenuous.

I suppose one could argue that the first of those wars was rather a waste, but
Britain was hardly the only country to be affected by that particular
insanity.

------
vixen99
There's a touch of truth in the article but for an ignorant elite they don't
do too badly. They are around 4th in line for Nobel Prizes in hard sciences
per inhabitant and well ahead in terms of large countries. The top 'winners'
are Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark all with populations under 10 million
(1999) though I am not suggesting that detracts in anyway from their
achievement.

------
petesmithy
This guy should stick to writing about sports.

Although I agree that the English value both 'winging it' on limited
knowledge, and banter / witty repartee. But that is regardless of background.

------
oceanician
Haha, the ending comments - yes, the lack of finance & maths knowledge really
has impacted. It's soo frustrating that those in the cabinet office here don't
even have basic maths knowledge.

I've no idea how this countries decline can be reversed. Knowledge based
economy? What a joke :(

I wonder if there's any page listing the qualifications of all those in power
in the UK. Have their grades deteriorated over time I wonder haha.

------
code_duck
Why is this a link on c.moreover.com and not ft.com? All the sharing links at
the bottom of the page use an ft.com URL.

~~~
kmfrk
It circumvents the paywall.

------
16s
Seems silly to suggest that articulate people are uneducated. If that's not an
oxymoron, what is?

------
epo
It's probably a humour piece.

The trouble is that many foreigners tend to take it at face value because it
panders to racist stereotypes they hold about the British.

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surfingdino
I tried to get into Cambridge. The first question I heard was "What make of
car does your father drive to work?" I told them and they politely rejected
me.

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patkai
By the way, does the FT have editors or something?

