Am I a pedant, or just in a huge minority? What I desire to know more than anything else is simply why the British are so full of themselves. What gives us this superiority complex which somehow grants us that unique madness one will always see overpriced postcards satirising in cringeworthy London souvenir shops? I mean, what is it?
‘Oh, but we Brits aren’t really an arrogant bunch of supremacists’, I hear you cry. I beg to differ. Walk around any supermarket, and listen to a pair of Mrs Mop style old age pensioners- in a Terry Jones ‘New Gas Cooker Sketch’ pastiche accent of course- proclaiming oh-so-loudly why they only buy British vegetables. Anti-globalisationists and greenies aside, why is British suddenly best? Why do food packets in our nation display their contents as ‘Best British’ with such alacrity?
The answer is this simple- we have never been invaded successfully since 1066. This is bound to have some effects upon the psyche of any nationality- the Japanese also retain numerous facets of this haughty, ‘them and us’ idea which sets them apart from the rest of Asia and us from the rest of Europe. But the Brits are of course worse.
One can even hear the British mention as a matter of course about ‘Britain and Europe’, when they mean ‘the UK and EU’. In the street, people talk of ‘continental breakfasts’, and ‘Europe’ as being some seperate entity with which Britain has only the most tenuous connections with. We’re seen as better than ‘Europeans’- for some reason or other- leading to the xenophobia which deep down characterises so many Brits. We now have Englishmen and Englishwomen with surnames like Friedmann, Spasky, and Merville for example slagging off Poles who come to our nation to do the jobs we haughty Brits wouldn’t touch with a yard pole. Oh, sorry. I’ve done it now. I meant metre pole, of course- in a nation which has been metric since 1971, why are we still measuring in feet and inches? There is_no_logical_reason_for_it. This needs to be made most abundantly clear to the next generation of Brits. I am quite proud to admit I am 191 centimetres tall- why should I talk in feet and inches? I’ll strike a deal with anyone who says otherwise- speak in feet and inches and I also expect to see you understand pounds, shillings and pence. And don’t go home crying when I ask you for change for ‘a tanner and twelve bob’.
For Brits, the very idea of ‘Europe’ is something political. Despite the inescapable geolographical and ethnolinguistic fact that we are a part of the European continent, a meagre 34 kilometres of English Channel somehow makes us so radically different that we deserve to be called ‘Britain and Europe’, rather than just another European nation.
Brits need to look back and realise that as a major player on the military and economic stage, we are not a superpower anymore. We could not and cannot bend the arms of smaller nations around for our own needs. We are not superior. We do not do things the best way.
Britain has one of the highest obesity and teenage pregnancy rates in Europe. We embezzle thousands of pounds’ worth of taxes from our government because of our little resorts on the Algarve and Costa Del Sol. We won’t even consider learning foreign languages and still cling on to our pathetic notion of empire. Britain owns Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Pitcairn, the British Indian Ocean Islands, St Helena and a few others of minor significance- the Commonwealth is not an Empire and still having a monarch does not make us one.
That is why, I am not wonderfully proud to be English. The French, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and Czechs all do things better than us- in efficiency, courtesy, and respect for other nations. That’s a respect British people should reciprocate but we’re all so incapable and stuck back in Waterloo and Trafalgar. As well as the pathetic notion that we won the war- I have no reason to insult the memories of all the brave men who died fighting the Nazis in the Second World War, but if we think we lost people, look at the Russians. 27 million people decimated and plenty more massacred by Stalin. That’s why I say Winston Churchill was a true great Brit- not Princess bloody Diana. Let’s adorn our banknotes with Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, John Stuart Mill, Isambard Brunel, Francis Drake, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Britten, Francis Bacon, Thomas Paine, Darwin, Babbage, rather than Elizabeth II. But that’s a different debate. For another evening. Now I shall stew in my own Republican sentiments and leave you this to chew on:
^The anarchist band Chumbawama performing their song Her Majesty, the melody lifted straight from the Beatles’ Abbey Road.
If that doesn’t work for you, just read the lyrics 
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl someday I’m gonna make her mine
Oh yeah, someday I’m gonna make her mine
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she never does a thing for me
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she keeps the worst company
All the lords and the ladies in waiting all crawling in the dirt like swine
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but I hope she’s the end of the line
Oh yeah, I hope she’s the end of the line
Her majesty’s living in a land of curtsies
A world of blue blood and Nazis, yeah
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but I think she ought to call it a day
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl without one good reason to stay
I’d like to take her for a whiskey or two, but I’ve got a lot of things to do
Her majesty’s a throwaway song just short of a chorus or two
Oh yeah, short of a chorus or two
A world of corgies and inbreeding
The royal corpse is barely breathing
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl with a circus for a family
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she’s stuck with the royal We
I’d like to show her around the center of town but I haven’t got a carpet for her feet
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she’s pretty much obsolete
Oh yeah, she’s pretty much obsolete
MehmetXII
My thoughts exactly, brother mine! Your example of Trafalgar and Waterloo can be extended by this – we had to hold out until Bulow’s Prussian IV corps and Ziethen’s I Prussian corps could relive us by drawing some of Napoleon’s “Armie Du Nord” forces away from Wellington’s centre. In fact, the Prussians had diverted so many of the French troops that in the end of the battle, Napoleon had to use his own Imperial guard for the attack! OH! HANG ON! I THOUGHT THAT THE GERMANS WERE OUR OLDEST ENEMY…It’s SLIGHTLY ironic that our most famous battle which Brits regard as the highest pinnicle of British martial and imperial achievement was actually won largely to the efforts of forces who were NOT British (there were even various detachments of Austrians and Germans the British army that had escaped Napoleon’s march through Europe and ended up in barracks on the Isle of Wright). Well, this just shows another point – if we Brits actually decide to study our history more rather than use Victorian romantic notions of history then we wouldn’t have these ridiculous misconceptions about many of these battles particularly the ones in the Napoleonic wars. Also, British children and adults on the whole know nothing about their country – the statement about about Waterloo shows how most people’s perceptions clash with the historical interpretations of what happened.
GREAT IDEA! Next time someone wants to use Imperial I shall use pre-1970s British currency and ask for some Gentleman’s relish and a shoe-tree. I’ll need to grow a dandy beard first though…
Anyway, happy new year and I like your blog
/Aster(brother yours)
Non subjects like your self have an option with regards to the Queen on bank note and european policy, and british traditions (feet,inches,pounds and ounces).
MOVE SOME WHERE YOUR HAPPY WITH.
AND HAVE RESPECT FOR A CULTURE AND NATION.
You are a bit of a retard, aren’t you?
As a ‘true Brit’, you should realise that we live in a democracy and that ‘people like me’ who may not like it here have as much right as you do to change the way things are run as taxpayers and British citizens. So no, I won’t move away and be a defeatist like you evidently would in my case. But since you seem to blindly swallow every bit of patriotic fervour your Daily Mail reading relatives stuff down your throat, you wouldn’t, would you?
Oh, and feet, inches, pounds and ounces can hardly be considered British tradition if in 1971 the elected Government (and therefore representatives of the British people) voted to abolish it. Mind you, if we went back to pounds, shillings, and pence as well, you’d probably find that difficult and blame it on the Jews or Irish or someone, as would be your want.
In fact, questioning my nation’s traditions and laws is one of the most respectful things I can do if I want this country to move forward, in contrast to boneheaded Conservatives like you.
Go and beat up a Somali Asylum Seeker or something, you jingoistic scum.
Tough to define an abstract concept like this. Although I am British I started to tavel world wide as early as 16. I couldn’t quiet put my finger on what was wrong at that time but I understood only too clearly thatBrits (including myself ) were out of synch with most others. By the time I reached my late twenties the “We’re British” attitude had becone almost a burden when travelling.
What turned on the light was the late Malcolm Mugaridge, then editor of Punch. It was encapsulated by a cartoon that showed two elderly ladies approaching Immigration in Calais and viewing the two signs directing folks to take the line for “Residents” or “Foreigners” One lady tells the other, well we can’t be foreigners.. becasue we’re British !
Beautiful