News that young people are adopting American cutlery habits and using their forks as shovels should alarm all right-thinking Britons.
“It’s worse than hearing that someone is committing adultery. We simply can’t help being shocked by it. The flouting of table manners triggers an immediate feeling of horror, like finding half a cockroach in the risotto.”
“So the news that a third of people under 30 are using their eating-irons as Americans do is no trivial item. Of course, it is not actually a crime, even under proposed anti-extremism legislation, to spear your meat with a fork held vertically in clenched fist and cut it into little bits before swapping hands and scooping up mouthfuls with a fork held like a shrimping net. It’s not a crime, it’s worse than a crime. It’s an insult.”