STIFF upper lip is what we Brits are famous for, right? Calm under pressure, stoic and unflappable, keeping our heads when all around are losing theirs. It’s what made the country great – or so we like to think.

Some new research might set our chins a-trembling, though: because it looks likely that good manners and restraint cost British passengers their lives when the Titanic went down.

Apparently, experts have proven that the well-behaved Brits had ten per cent less chance of surviving the disaster than the other nationalities on board the ill-fated ship.

And according to the statistical review of survivors, which nationality had a significantly better chance of making it? Step forward, you pushy Americans... oh, you’re already there. Yes, US passengers were 12 per cent more likely to land a spot in a lifeboat.

They may not have been exactly practical, but I was still feeling sentimentally proud of my selfless fellow countrymen for losing their lives because they kept their standards up – until I read the comments about this story on the Swiss website where I spotted it.

The first post came from a chap in the United States. “It makes me proud to be American,” he said, “that we were scrappy enough to fend for ourselves.”

Then an Afghan commented that the Americans would probably have made a better fist of organising the lifeboats than the “highly-mannered-but-otherwise-useless skinny rich Brits”.

Ouch.

On reflection, however, was it really courage, calmness and courtesy that cost so many Britons their lives? Don’t we just love a good queue – and the chance to hang back and moan about all the pushers-in?

Because if there’s anything we love more than a queue, it’s a moan. Take this week’s White Hell: a rich source of belly-aching for the man on any omnibus brave enough to launch itself into the tundra.

First comes the national sense of dread as we are warned that a spot of winter could be on the way in Britain, in early February; then follows the collective tantrum because ‘They’ cannot wave a wand and magic the snow and ice away.

And who can find the energy to get out of the house and work with neighbours to clear the street of snow after the exhausting business of complaining about the failure of council gritters to do the job?

I wish I’d seen the following myself, just to relish the moment. I am reliably informed that one ‘snowbound’ interviewee told a TV reporter on Monday that she couldn’t go to work because the paths were too treacherous for her to get to the railway station.

This remark was made as she prepared to hurl herself down a hillside in a toboggan. It is not clear how she managed to convey herself to the hillside in question.

There is, however, something that gets our backs up even more than the reluctance of the Powers That Be to fork out billions on specialist equipment for an event that happens once a blue moon.

It is the irritating tendency for weather experts not to have perfect 20/20 foresight. I have some sympathy with those who chunter about this – weatherman are, after all, paid professionals who should know what they are talking about – but people do exhibit a touching faith that forces of Nature will always be consistent and predictable.

People believe more readily in experts these days than they do in God.