My strange hobby: a life in search of death

As George Orwell astutely observed, England is a nation of hobbyists – and their sometimes eccentric private pursuits are one of the reasons that this country did not follow the rest of Europe into totalitarian dictatorship during the 20th century. A people bent on taking a fishing rod to stream or canal every weekend, or hanging around railway platforms to note the numbers of passing trains, or laboriously sticking stamps into albums, are unlikely to have the time or temptation to fall for political extremes.

The English devoted their leisure time to hobbies, though it should also be noted that such peaceable pastimes are mostly the preserve of men. Women are generally far too practical and don’t have the spare time to practice an interest that has no material reward beyond the satisfaction of merely accomplishing it.

The male propensity for hobbies often goes together with an acquisitive drive to collect: many hobbies such as stamp collecting or beer mat assembling are associated with the simple desire to go one better than your neighbour in building a collection of objects that no one else in their right minds would want to own.