Newspapers and Question Time. Life on Earth. Life on Mars.
The BBC. And ITV.
London. Liverpool. Cornwall. Norfolk.
Libraries. Monuments. Statues. Benches.
Eccentrics. Mavericks. Inventors. Authors. Risk takers. Piss takers.
Tony Benn, Martin Johnson, Maggie Thatcher, Ricky Tomlinson,
Michael Vaughan, Michael Owen, Freddie Flintoff, Mrs Flintoff.
Stevie G. Jamie C, The new Wembley.
Sebastian Coe, 2012, trendy docksides, shops in quaysides.
James Dyson, Trevor Baylis, Alan Sugar, Tim Berners Lee.
The Blitz. Some tea?
The Beatles, the Stones, Radiohead’s ‘Bones’, and You'll never walk alone.
Tom Mcrae, Brian May, The Libertines, maybe even Coldplay.
Giving up your seat, refusing to be beat, refusing to say ‘neat’, licking the bowl as a treat.
The local village shop. Warm beer from the hop. Standing on the Kop.
Quiet cobbled streets. Villages and Hamlets. Cricket on the green, support your local team, strawberries and cream.
Suburban tension, sex you never mention, anal retention.
David Brent, Stephen Fry, Chris Morris, the London Eye.
Morris dancing, worm catching, summer fayres and dodgems.
The NHS. The common good. Meritocracy replaces aristocracy.
Conquering becomes...conkering?
Embarrassment. Stiff upper lips, live and let live, getting called a ‘div’.
Getting pissed, getting hitched, going the races, forgetting names to faces – 'all right mate'!
Children with undone laces. Funny names for funny places.
Regional accents, sorry-no-it’s-my-fault-accidents. Periodic excellence.
War heroes. Standing alone. Remembrance Sunday. Pomp. Circumstance.
Tolerance.
These are the things that make us great, still.
Happy St George’s Day, one and all.
2 comments:
yum. scones. haven't had a good scone since the Czech Republic, where an Australian colleague of mine taught us how to make them ourselves. too bad i lost the recipe and totally forgot.
did you know we call 'dodgems' 'bumper cars' here in the US?
my list for England would include:
are you being served? keeping up appearances. alan titchmarsh. black adder. eddie izzard.
blur. pulp. orlando bloom. colin firth.
tea with milk (& sweetener). fish n chips. cadbury flake (dipped). sarsons. monty python.
dr. who (david tennant years). the words 'bugger', 'knackered', 'wonky', and 'bob's your uncle'.
sliding doors. pride and prejudice (the BBC series one with colin firth and jennifer ehles NOT keira 'i'm an anorexic blow up doll' knightley).
thatched cottages. cobblestone streets. chester. white cliffs of dover. history. hovercraft.
rugby. jane austen. love actually. the holiday. europe.
Excellent list, thank you.
Can you get anorexic blow up dolls now? Tsk, the market eh?
Strangely, the phrase 'silly buggers' was on my list but I didn't think anyone would know what I meant. Was going to rhyme with Alan Sugar.
I know, I'm fired.
Post a Comment