My brother has a Yuletide tradition of playing It's a Wonderful Life over and over throughout the Christmas season, so I went to never having seen it before to being quite the expert on the whole thing. If you haven't seen it (and really, you should), it's the ultimate American Christmas movie. It's a kind-of retelling of the ultimate British Christmas story A Christmas Carol, in that they both plot the course of one man's life through the eyes of a supernatural being, which then gives the man an opportunity to redeem himself and change his ways.
While being very similar stories, however, they are thematically opposed to each other because where at the end of A Christmas Carol Scrooge realizes he leads an awful life and has to change his ways, at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey realizes that his life is actually really great, and he doesn't need to change anything at all- just be grateful for what he has (which is why, if you didn't get the joke at the time, it seems to rerun on Truman Burbank's TV schedule every time he feels like leaving his little studio-town).
I thought this was a neat little precis of British vs. American ideologies. The British Christmas theme is: "You suck." The American Christmas theme is: "You're totally awesome."
I was pondering this very thought as I dealt with a surly concierge last week. He handed me my keys as though he was doing me the biggest favour in the world, and no amount of apologizing would ever make up to him the immense effort of getting a key off the board and handing it to me. I've had surly customer service before, of course, but a short spell in America, where I had literally five different service-people practically fall over themselves in an attempt to make sure my shopping experience was a good one, I must have been somewhat resensitized to the service experience.
"Are you okay?" I asked him, once I had my keys and there wasn't anything else he could withhold from me if I pissed him off.
"What do you mean?" he said suspiciously.
"I'm just asking if you've had a bad day or something, y'know?"
"Uhm ... no, my day's been okay."
"Oh, okay. I just thought you seemed a bit pissed off." I said and wandered away, wondering if everyone in London was miserable? I mean, I'm not miserable, am I missing something?
I wondered how right I was- maybe people just seem miserable and are secretly happy, or at least okay-ish, and I just don't see it because of the particular surface grimelayer I interact with most strangers on. I was pondering how to establish the truth of the matter when I stumbled across a poll in the Metro saying that 80% of Londoners have experienced stress 'at some point in the last year'.
80%
Who the fuck are this other 20%? I don't know anyone who has not experienced stress in the last year. And I hang out with laid-back people (generally, Sevitz). Surely a little stress is just a natural consequence of existence?
So instead of finding out who is happy and who is not, my new mission is to find out where these one-in-fivers who never experience stress are, and stomp on their toes with my heel.
This is a 
By "generally, Sevitz" do you mean you generally hang around with me, and if so, how am I laid back? I'm a pain in the arse and always stressed.
Or do you mean "Before you argue with me, Sevitz, yes, most people I hang out with actually are laid back"?
There is no one who is not stressed at some point. People are just idiots when they answer surveys and generally lie a lot.
Ahem - I'd prefer to think that the British theme is that it's never too late to achieve redemption, whilst the American one is never to question the status quo...
Just kidding, I love It's a Wonderful Life.(Watched it a lot over Christmas, as it was the only thing on Spanish telly not dubbed). The library line made me laugh a lot. "Is she an alcoholic... is she a hooker - no, she's a LIBRARIAN!" Horrors!
Re the stress poll - the 20% were too stressed to answer the survey.
I meant: "Before you say that you're not laid back, Sevitz, let me say that I am speaking generally. You are the exception to the laid-back rule."
Can't argue with that.
I'm miserable and so's my wife.
Actually, she's not. I am but that's only because I have to suffer the public every day.