# The Christmas shutdown just makes us drunker, fatter, lazier and lonelier By Ian Jack



## Meanderer (Dec 20, 2014)

One of the great paradoxes of British life is our behaviour in the Christmas season. We are the least Christian country in Europe – quite possibly the least Christian of any country in the world that has a substantial Christian population – and yet we observe the anniversary of Christ’s birth with the kind of rigour last seen in the Hebridean Sabbaths of the 1950s. 

No public transport moves. To get from A to Z without a private car or an overpriced taxi is impossible. The rest of the world carries on much as it always does: trains carry Catholics from Paris to Frankfurt and Calvinists from Geneva to Milan; Lutherans sail on Baltic ferries; airliners fly Baptists across oceans and continents. But when these aircraft touch down at, say, Heathrow, their passengers find themselves marooned; the country beyond the airport is impenetrable unless they can afford its inflated cab fares. It lies there hushed and immobile, smelling faintly of roasts, quite unlike anywhere else.

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...tmas-transport-makes-us-drunker-fatter-lazier


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## SifuPhil (Dec 20, 2014)

That's quite interesting - of course, I don't live there, but I just _cannot_ envision any great city in Britain being without public transport on ANY day of the year. I've always thought of London, for example, as New York City with fish and chips - no other differences. 

No surprise that it's a relatively recent phenomena, though ...


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