Portuguese academic says British are 'filthy, violent and drunk'

A top physics don, João Magueijo, has written a book decrying British hygiene as well as what he describes as a violent, drunken culture.

"I have never met such a group of animals. English culture is pathologically violent" (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

In a book describing his experiences of living in the UK a Portuguese academic based at Imperial College London has some strong words about British culture, the Daily Telegraph has reported. In the book he describes English culture as “pathologically violent” and criticises British boozing and uncleanliness.

"When you visit English homes, or the toilets at schools or in student lodgings, they are all so disgusting that even my grandmother's poultry cage is cleaner," Magueijo writes.

Magueijo’s book is called “Bifes Mal Passados” which means “uncooked beef” and it has so far sold 20,000 copies in Portugal. There are no plans as yet to translate it from Portuguese in to English. The cover of the book shows a picture of man wearing a bowler hat standing in front of Big Ben.

As well as having poor standards of hygiene, Magueijo says the English are “always fighting."

"I have never met such a group of animals. English culture is pathologically violent” he writes.

He is also alarmed by the amount that the British drink – telling an anecdote from his time as an academic at the University of Cambridge where he saw a female student vomit at a dinner and then carry on “as if nothing had happened.”

"It is not unusual to drink 12 pints, or two huge buckets of beer, per person," he writes. "Even a horse would get drunk with this but in England it is standard practice.”

Magueijo, who is a cosmologist and professor in theoretical physics at Imperial, has told the Sunday Times that his book will not cause too much offense saying: “I do not fear any backlash. I trust the British sense of humour.”