Anorak Britain

Today I was looking at slang and ended up getting sidetracked by the word 'anorak'. In Britain, an anorak can mean someone who is obsessed by a subject, usually something that is considered very dull. This is probably because many of these very dull hobbies are carried out by men who wear anoraks. Trainspotting is the prime example.
What struck me was that this is a piece of slang which could only have come from Britain. The anorak means something here. Actually, I think it means a lot of things. It means you are a boring person, because boring people wear them. Hence the slang usage. In Glasgow (my hometown) wearing one on a hot day, tied round your waste with a bottle of Buckfast in the pocket, shows that you are a chav. Particularly if it is a Berghaus anorak. Odd but true. Only in Glasgow would anorak's be gangster. On a larger level, the anorak is a symbol of Britain because it is so uniquely British (or so we think). It is the perfect coat for our changeable weather and it has none of the suspicious 'fashionableness' that hangs over some of the things they wear abroad. So when we call someone an anorak, we are at once insulting them personally and admitting that our whole culture is a little bit sad. It's as if we're resigned to the fact that men who spend their weekends in the rain watching trains arriving are an inevitable bi-product of the British identity. I own an anorak and really like it. It's just so practical. There's plenty of room for a big book of trains to fit in one pocket and a flask of coffee in the other.
As a footnote, the word anorak comes from the Inuktitut ánorâq. So there you go. What started out as an intrepid use of sealskin to fend off icy blasts has become a layer of plastic fibres used to fight off drizzle. Another way in which the anorak personifies Britain's ability to suck the romance out of life.