I remember that in my first-year classes in sociology at Leicester University the lecturer was at pains to attack the concept of “national character”. Since then I have been sceptical about its value, until today. All kinds of rubbish is talked about British national character. You know the usual nonsense about “stiff upper lips” and so on. I have to confess that I have been rather surprised to find myself thinking about the subject in relation to the current panic about the spreading viral infection.
The news media have been carrying repeated stories about queues at supermarkets buying up stocks of toilet paper. This has puzzled me, because there are no reports from medical authorities about the virus having any effect at all on the digestive system of sufferers, resulting in the greater incidence of diarrhoea. It was only when I was cruising through my facebook page tonight that the true explanation of the problem came to me.
The concern that motivates panic purchasers of toilet rolls is that they might have to self-isolate, and during the required fourteen days they might run out of toilet tissue. Isn’t it curious that the first thing to enter the head of anybody might be the risks of running out of roll? They are not stocking up on beer, or potatoes, or tea-bags, or bread, or any of the things that might be thought to be part of the staple diet of the average Briton. Their first and dominant thought is that there will be no toilet paper! What a peculiar subject for an obsession! Sigmund Freud would certainly have had something to say about that!
Sadly, I can rethink of no way in which I can use this insight as the subject of a painting, although I think it could be a gift to any political cartoonist. I put it out to the universe in a spirit of generosity.