The great British holidaymaker never ceases to amaze me. Seeing them complain on the news last night, either they're the bravest souls on Earth for actually wanting to risk travelling back from Sharm el-Sheikh in a plane that may have a bomb planted within it, or just a bunch of whining idiots who don't appreciate that cancelling flights until what is essentially 3rd world security is beefed up is in their own best interests. Can't help thinking the latter is more likely these days.
What happened to the famous British stoicism, the Dunkirk Spirit? - which really means lurching from one disaster to another with no appreciable loss of enthusiasm. There again, what exactly is it to be British? Merely trying to define Britishness is unBritish in itself, especially when the English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scots are all so different to begin with.
Take buying a round in the pub. For the English, anyone who doesn't buy a round when in a group drinking situation is treated as if he or she were a child molester. Not so in Scotland, where it's (allegedly) a source of national pride for a Scotsman to be parsimonious.
Take Europe. The English, despite all geographic evidence to the contrary, view it as a totally different continent, whereas the Scots seem to embrace it wholeheartedly and invariably in collaboration with the French against the English.
Even within England there are differences. A northerner will talk to anyone and be totally at ease, whereas if you talk to someone on a London tube you're obviously deranged and fit to be sectioned.
One curious thing about the British is that we must be the only people on Earth who view the ostentatious display of our flag (royal and sporting events excluded) with a deep and uneasy suspicion reserved usually for displays of the Nazi flag.
My definition of the British - four nations that vehemently hated each other, who were thrust together in a mutually antagonistic and fraught political relationship that has been breaking up almost since its inception, many of whom think, illogically and against all evidence to the contrary, that it will miraculously work on a pan-European scale.
One curious thing about the British is that we must be the only people on Earth who view the ostentatious display of our flag (royal and sporting events excluded) with a deep and uneasy suspicion reserved usually for displays of the Nazi flag.
My definition of the British - four nations that vehemently hated each other, who were thrust together in a mutually antagonistic and fraught political relationship that has been breaking up almost since its inception, many of whom think, illogically and against all evidence to the contrary, that it will miraculously work on a pan-European scale.
A Scotsman, an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman went into...... Oh, never mind....
2 comments:
It surprises me as to why they cannot get themselves to the coast and get a boat to Europe ???? ;-)
Very good, Mel, very good! I'll have to use that one, if you don't mind.
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