La Vie Brittanique

"English women hate me", said Cylene the Goth, brushing red hair away from mascara-ed eyes and adjusting her layers and layers of taffeta and lace. She's a girl from the States, over here to marry her English fiancé, if the officials she refers to as 'the Mysterious Council of Monocles' allow her to stay. "The old ladies think I'm great because I'm a throwback and sit on the bus knitting. The young ones just look daggers at me. I think it's because they somehow know I've stolen one of their men."

I said she was being too sensitive, and so did her husband-to-be, originally; within a week or two of her arrival here he apparently changed his mind. Then I spent this afternoon with her drinking coffee and poking round charity shops. At the counter in Boots the Chemists' the old lady complimented Cylene on her hair, took an interest in her purchase of nail varnish and mentioned her own forthcoming holiday in Florida which she was looking forward to. Moments later we passed a young woman on the high street who, to my complete astonishment, maintained a level and contemptuous glare at my friend all the way past - until I stared vengefully at her and she looked hurriedly away. What's going on here? Is it my friend's voice ("I sound like a duck"), or her appearance (we British do tend to despise anyone who seems to take themselves seriously enough to dress properly) - or, as she argues, a subtle and manic form of sexual competition?