George Mikes says, 'the English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. ' But they do have a sense of humour - they provide it by buying over three hundred thousand copies of a book that took them quietly and completely apart, a book that really took the Mikes out of them. George Mikes says, ''the English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. '' But they do have a sense of humour - they provide it by buying over three hundred thousand copies of a book that took them quietly and completely apart, a book that really took the Mikes out of them.