Received the following from an old shipmate of mine. Poignant and well crafted. A man after my own heart:
"How exceedingly clever it was of the Romans to cease
being Romans and become Italians. I can
picture a ceremony in which emperors, legions and cohorts exchange crowns for
fedoras , chariots for fiats and armour for Armani . The most empirical nation
in the history of mankind was able to
rebrand itself into the rather dotty but much loved cousin who always turns up
at weddings and funerals, impeccably dressed but you just know that inside
those hand crafted shoes there are a plethora of holes in his socks.
Italy is
able to amble along with their barking
politicians and fabulous nosh without being constantly compared on the world
stage with their illustrious forefathers, all because of a name change.
Likewise, Turkey has evolved without censure from the glory days of the Ottoman
Empire and reinvent itself with the aid of rebranding.
Had we had the foresight to sally forth as
the London Empire for example during our relatively recent crack at world
domination, it would be so much easier to be British today. We could probably
have avoided all those expensive apologies to Kenya, India, Australia etc and
not have had to shimmy around the afore
mentioned world stage in clothes several sizes too big, perched on top of our little
pile of ageing nuclear ' deterrents'.
We could have taken comments like the one
made last week in St Petersburg by a Putin aide about Britain being somewhat
inconsequential in todays Great Game on the chin, pulled another pint, doffed a
kiss me quick hat and skipped into the wings. Instead, we had to listen to
Cameron trying to join up cherry picked dots between our former role as Masters
of the Universe and the rather scruffy hobbit like country that we are today.
I
for one, am comfortable with the hobbit look and can think of nothing worse
than having to get up in the morning and don a suit of full armour. As hobbits
we can shuffle contentedly along the byways and when we do find the odd truffle
in the undergrowth it will taste all the better. Sadly though we are condemned
to being Great British."
1 comment:
Lovely
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