Springfield

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....I know, me too, I hated Charles Dickens, although I think I came upon his work at the wrong time. I can't blame reading him at school, I loved the process of literary analysis, those brilliant women who taught us didn't ruin books for me, they made them great.

Digression.

I have friends and family here who are the best of people, but then there are the people of Springfield.

Now I'm not saying the people of Springfield don't exist back in Blighty, far from it. I believe it was the residents of Leigh Park who turned up with the pitchforks when they learnt there was a Paediatrician living amongst them. I'm not making it up.
The thing is, back home, they are easily recognisable.

The people of Springfield here are not plain-speakers, they don't respond well to criticism, hell, they don't respond at all, they go all tight-lipped, neither acknowledging nor challenging, they are spiteful and back-biting, they skulk and they sulk. They understand neither irony nor wit, nor sarcasm, nor long words. And they are passive-aggressive.
There are people who recognise passive aggression, claiming it to be a national trait, but mostly, those who label themselves in this way, are only so in a normal way, to the extent that any human is.
Others wear it like a poncho.

Just saying is all.