Looking up from the yellowing pages of Salman Rushdie's boisterous Bombay novel 'Midnight's Children,' I can't help being a little struck by just how otherwordly England is. How aggressively pleasant. A slanting ray of sunshine here, a fastidiously well-maintained lawn there, really nice ice cream, ducks and daffodils...An obstinate, resolute, all-pervasive pleasantness.