On Picky Bits and National Decline

'Picky Bits' may seem like a harmless phrase, but the mentality behind it explains a lot about the position we find ourselves in.

I’ve been quiet here while finishing the book (more soon). I promised myself that only a topic of grave national importance would pull me out of the bunker, and that moment finally arrived this week, in the form of Marks and Spencer’s ‘National Picky Bits Day’, the inevitable consequence of a society that thinks ‘Boaty McBoatFace’ is a funny name for a boat.

Like the FT’s Stephen Bush, “I simply do not understand what was wrong with any or all of ‘picnic food’ ‘delicatessen’ ‘spread’ or ‘mezze’, all well-known terms that do not evoke some kind of dermatological complaint.” Or as Twlldun mentioned in the replies, “It is snacks. Just say snacks.”

Marks and Spencer, a supermarket that sells exclusively to people who pretend they shop at Aldi, made the choice because they deeply understand their customers. The unique pathology of the British Middle Class is that they are obsessed with status and money but view any attempt to gain either as a form of grasping immorality, and are therefore forced to exist in a sort of impenetrable world of coded language and behaviour.

‘Picky bits’ is a perfect example of that code. They can’t “just say snacks” because ‘snacks’ is an oikish, working class term and they must - at all costs - distinguish themselves from the great unwashed masses; but they can’t use ‘posh’ terms like ‘mezze’ or ‘canapés’ or ‘tapas’ because that would seem like trying too hard, and being seen to try is the most embarrassing predicament a member of the British middle class can find themselves in.

The only way around is this to wrap everything in deep layers of irony until any glimmer of sincerity is entombed, and the way we do this in Britain is to hide behind a sort of twee infantilism that makes anyone who questions is (i.e. me) look crabby, dull and ill-tempered which… okay, guilty.

And so normal household chores like ‘cleaning up’ or ‘paying the bills’ become ‘adulting’. We invite people over for ‘picky bits’. A ship following in the frozen footsteps of legendary exploration vessels like Discovery and Endurance becomes (almost) ‘Boaty McBoatFace’ and then ends up named after a cuddly TV uncle as a sort of grudging admission that okay, maybe this time we went too far, but still.

Pets become fur babies, we go on hollibobs for Chrimbo, celebrate the Platty Joobs, and all the while we reduce our language to a sort of cringing mush, as if being an adult and talking seriously were somehow embarrassing, as if it raised the stakes too high. God no, I wouldn’t buy myself expensive things, but sometimes I’ll be a bit spenny.

Photo by Evangelina Silina on Unsplash

Why does this matter? Well honestly it doesn't really, but you’re reading this bad-tempered heat-stroke inspired ramble so more fool you. Yet I can’t help remembering something John Oxley wrote last year about the British attitude to management.

Britain has a culture of valuing amateurish endeavour, and this is apparent in our approach to management. Industry surveys suggest up to 4/5ths of UK bosses are so-called accidental managers, who have ended up running teams by dint of a promotion for excelling in a non-management role. Few are offered additional training, and when it does come, it is often short and perfunctory. Only around a third say they are offered ongoing assistance in leading other people or managing their workloads. That this is a cultural bias is reinforced by the evidence that foreign-owned companies tend to have better management practices than home-grown ones.

People who refuse to even admit that they’re adults are hardly likely to rise to the demands of management, and inevitably the quality of Britain’s management trails most other advanced economies. This should come as no surprise in a professional culture where it’s considered socially acceptable - even desirable - to say you’re bad at maths.

There’s a sense underpinning all of this that by refusing to embrace sincerity, seriousness, or just being an actual adult in charge of things, people can somehow avoid dealing with any real stakes. But problems don’t go away because you talk and act like a child or pretend to struggle with basic skills. An ‘accidental manager’ has exactly the same responsibilities as one that isn’t hiding behind caveats.

It also leads us to undervalue adulthood and management in others. Step forward Boris Johnson, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of British politics, a sort of bloated monstrosity conjured from the darkest recess of our own national mindset and its rigid, centuries-long belief that a bumbling jovial amateur who doesn’t take things too seriously is the best person to lead an advanced nation with a complex economy in a rapidly-changing world.

Sure, the grey-suited managerialism of Keir Starmer has hardly been a success, but the truth is that our political system is so out-of-touch with any semblance of what effective management looks like in the modern world that in their minds basically any dull man in a suit will do, and indeed did. After a decade of failure upon failure upon failure to produce a stable government, none of the mainstream parties show even the slightest curiosity or interest in why their hiring processes consistently produce the wrong candidate. That would be managerialism - don’t you know we fought the Germans to stop that kind of thing?

Per Oxley again:

We wonder perpetually at our stagnation and lack of productivity. Our companies struggle to extract the same value from the same hours as our competitors. Politicians struggle with the delivery of almost anything. Major infrastructure projects and military procurement flounder into delays and cost overruns. Various bits of our state are struggling with even the basic duties of keeping people safe.

Look, even I’m not unhinged enough to think the widespread use of ‘picky bits’ by Britain’s most irritatingly-twee supermarket brand (where I shop multiple times per week) is even a minor cause of our national malaise. But I think people who resist the infantilisation of our culture, our allergy to sincerity, our growing inability to have direct conversations unfiltered by irony, have something of a point. Yes adulting is hard and saying things can have consequences, but at some point we do all have to grow up, and that starts with talking sincerely. Don’t worry, you’ll get over the embarrassment with enough practice.

Now I’m back off to write my booky-woo… oh Christ no.