Proud of St George's Day

Kieran_Burns

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/st ... on-1847664

Today is one of those days where nice people don’t know what to do.

If you mention it’s St George’s Day there are some who’d call you jingoistic. There’d be a few who’d worry you’re one of those badly-spelled English Defence League morons. There’d be many who’d say it’s not worth bothering with.

Only the shouty types mark good old St George – the ones who want to score a point about political correctness or the modern world or voting UKIP, and the borderline-deranged ones who just want a scrap and think Brighton Pavilion is a mosque.

All of which is so depressing that most of us slink off and wish we’d never mentioned it.

But by disavowing the lunatics we disavow ourselves a day of national celebration for a bunch of stuff which is pretty brilliant, from Beatrix Potter to the wind-up radio by way of the Royal Society.

England and her people have done amazing stuff for thousands of years and it’s time we took St George back from the haters.

If nice people started shouting about Englishness too – if we all flew the flag, and marked the day with the national dishes of chicken tikka masala and sticky toffee pudding, washed down with real ale – then maybe we could drown the racists out.

We could shout about Queen Victoria and Richard the Lionheart, Good Queen Bess and having princes the whole world wants to go for a pint with.

We could talk about Charles Dickens writing the wrongs of slum London and William Makepeace Thackeray going to a hanging so he could tell the centuries how grim it was .

We could invoke ska, northern soul, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Beatles, buttered crumpets and Old Father Thames.

We’d shout about the fact Tower Bridge has gold widdly bits on the top, that we egg politicians, and of all the wonderful things we can do with custard.

We would list Winston Churchill, the Venerable Bede, Newton, Faraday, Babbage, Darwin, Turing, Wren, Hawking, Tim Berners-Lee and Edward Jenner whose smallpox vaccine has saved more lives than have died in every one of humanity’s wars.

We would go on about Gainsborough, Stubbs, Turner and Reynolds, Lucien Freud, Henry Moore and the genius that is Banksy.

Let’s shout about world-beaters Johnson, Marlowe, Spenser, Shakespeare, a different Jonson, Geoffrey Chaucer, Byron, Keats, both Shelleys, Blake, Wordsworth, Auden, Tony Harrison, Orwell, Woolf, Tolkien and Blyton not to mention Julia Donaldson and her Gruffalo.

And just think of the food: warm scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, brown sauce, Kendal mint cake, piccalilli, the mighty pasty, Branston pickle, gammon steak with pineapple on top, Yorkshire puddings served any one of a thousand ways, a full English breakfast, bangers and mash, fish and chips, coleslaw, and the dish I had for dinner every day of my childhood which was called Wait and See.

Lasagne’s ours too, and so are Scotch eggs.

Then there’s the drink! We’ve actually got good wine, these days, as well as champagne, warm beer, bitter, lager, mild, brown ale and stout.

We invented the Sopwith Camel and the Spitfire, the cat’s eye, steam engines, jet engines, tarmac, the rubber band, computers, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, the hovercraft, the seat belt, the atomic clock, the Spinning Jenny, the sewing machine, tin cans and the tin can telephone, the Mini (car and skirt), Christmas cards, shorthand, cinematography and the humble pencil.

Calculators, the ZX Spectrum, DNA fingerprints, the adjustable spanner, gas turbines, steel, the light switch, the pram, fire extinguishers, mousetraps and toasters – English, all.

Even the stuff that wasn’t ours, like nuclear submarines which the Yanks got first, we reinvented from scratch without their help.

My dad was on that project back in the 1960s, and while I’m crowing about my family I’ll point out Christmas trees are down to St Boniface and royalties are payable in chocolate money.

In the great race of human endeavour, the England team includes Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Emmeline Pankhurst, Beatrice Shilling, James Dyson, the entire Monty Python squad and the Monster Raving Loony Party, a good chunk of whose policies actually worked.

We came up with darts, bar billiards, bowls, rounders, hockey, snooker, rugby, cricket and the Beautiful Game . We have the Beano (just), pirate radio, Hovis, St Paul’s, Vera Lynn, Wembley, Big Ben, the Red Arrows and the Shepherd Neame brewery.

We had human rights before everyone else, thanks to the Magna Carta. Our system of law, justice, and parliament has been copied all over the world. We taught a third of the globe how to make a decent cup of tea, and as a result our language is the main lingua franca of the entire planet.

Our newspapers have been so successful that Fleet Street has its diaspora in almost every country. We had William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde.

We had the first schools on Earth and some of them are still going , we had the first railway system and most of that’s still with us too, and we were the first industrialised nation with, therefore, the first rise in the standard of living for the masses and thence the Chartists fighting for rights of the poor.

We beat Napoleon on land and on sea, we beat Hitler, we beat the Germans when it mattered and we’re never going to let the French forget Agincourt even though we like their cheese.

We’ve got Twiglets, Marmite, pork pies, Guy Fawkes , Betty Boothroyd, the Grand National, greyhound racing, Morris Men and the Morris Minor.

We know how to behave on escalators, there’s a lion on Westminster Bridge, Greenwich is the centre of the world’s time, we’ve got Meccano and Pimm's and Wimbledon and egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

In fact, all sandwiches; that was one of ours too.

We don’t cast a clout until May is out, there’s always a blanket in the car, and we have 100 different kinds of rain. We punt, we knit tea cosies, we shove ha’penny and we brought about the end of slavery.

We stopped Julius Caesar invading us twice before Claudius managed it, and then we threw Boudicca at him and she burned his capital to the ground.

We’ve got the hoard of Sutton Hoo, the Crown Jewels which we nicked from everyone else, we singed the king of Spain’s beard, we beat the Armada, chopped off the head of a king then decided we’d have kings back so long as they did as they were told.

We’ve got the Cotswolds, north Cornwall, the red-brick streets of Lowry’s Manchester, Stonehenge, Spaghetti Junction and the White Cliffs of Dover.

Accrington Stanley, Scalextric, Dinky toys, the boat race, Coleman’s mustard, the suffragettes, Chumbawumba, irony, the Dulux dog, the Britain in Bloom contest, the Ski Sunday theme tune, Hob-Nobs, the V-sign, spirograph, crossword puzzles, Plasticine, linoleum, Robin Hood, King Arthur and his entire Round Table – ALL OURS.

The Blitz was supposed to soften us up but instead it toughened our resolve. We welcome immigrants, especially if they have interesting food or are a saint who can slay dragons.

We help people in trouble, and after 64 years we still have, and love, the oldest, biggest and best national health service in the world .

We are many things, as a nation. We can be lazy and dumb and outraged at the drop of a hat, we drink too much and we don’t tan well. We take all of this stuff for granted and don’t even notice when the BNP and EDL drape themselves in our flag and say they speak for us when they don’t.

We are not perfect, as a nation, but for more than a thousand years we have left a mark upon the world and its culture that is much larger than a tiny country like ours could expect to leave, and by and large we have done good.

But better than anything else: we invented the corkscrew and the electric kettle. Those two things alone are worth a party.

Whatever you do today, raise a toast to our immigrant St George in honour of everything that’s great about England - and flick a V-sign in the general direction of the racists who want to steal it from you.

That’s what Boudicca would do.

What a great article

veronese68

TLDR. I should be working. My local has a beer festival this week to celebrate and there are Morris dancers tonight. I shall take the kids along to watch, well take my daughter as teenage son is probably too grumpy, whilst I sample some of the beers.

notsoblue

I really like being English. I think part of that identity is to not make a big fuss of it though.

I'm just glad that that the attitude to national institutions like our monarchy aren't anything like this.

rubertoe

English people are too conservative (small c) to celeberate being English.

That is a great read though and I am sure the SUN will be fully patriotic today.

MrSweary

Sounds like the sort of thing those crass 'continentals' would do. 8)

Koncordski

MrSweary wrote:

Sounds like the sort of thing those crass 'continentals' would do. 8)

The really great thing about being English is that we don't make a big fuss about it, we just get on with life. As stated above, I class making a day of celebration a bit of a fuss. So i'm not bothered TBH, carry on. Otherwise we'll end up like those ghastly Americans. :roll:

MrSweary

Koncordski wrote:

Otherwise we'll end up like those ghastly Americans. :roll:

Quite. Nobody wants that.

rjsterry

Veronese68 wrote:

TLDR. I should be working. My local has a beer festival this week to celebrate and there are Morris dancers tonight. I shall take the kids along to watch, well take my daughter as teenage son is probably too grumpy, whilst I sample some of the beers.

The littl'uns are a bit young for that, but I may stick on this and pogo around the living room with them.

stu-bim

Koncordski wrote:

The really great thing about being English is that we don't make a big fuss about it, we just get on with life. As stated above, I class making a day of celebration a bit of a fuss.

I'm Irish and lived in London for a couple of years and always found it odd that Paddy's Day was more of a 'celebration' than St George's. I always felt that if I was English I would celebrate it and steal it back from the right wing idiots. Celebrating your nationality should not be seen as incorrect. It is nationality at the end of the day not race.

Sewinman

Its not really true that the English don't make a big fuss about being English is it...they just don't do it today.

PedalPedant

Chumbawumba, irony,

I sincerely hope that was deliberate ;-)

PP

Daz555

Getting too carried away with St George's day just isn't English.

I hope it remains that way.

Sewinman

Every British national celebration is effectively a celebration of England. The English love making a big deal about themselves. Just look at any England sporting event, the Olympics ceremony, any royal event....they are all massive English mutual w*nk fests.

All this 'oh we are far too reserved to celebrate and isn't that such a superior and good thing, (that inferior people from other countries don't have or really would never be able to get)' is actually part of the whole celebration of England i.e quietly over-joyed statements about national traits that no longer/never existed.

BelgianBeerGeek

Sewinman wrote:

Every British national celebration is effectively a celebration of England. The English love making a big deal about themselves. Just look at any England sporting event, the Olympics ceremony, any royal event....they are all massive English mutual w*nk fests.

All this 'oh we are far too reserved to celebrate and isn't that such a superior and good thing, (that inferior people from other countries don't have or really would never be able to get)' is actually part of the whole celebration of England i.e quietly over-joyed statements about national traits that no longer/never existed.

Steady on, old chap. Stiff upper lip, eh?

Koncordski

BelgianBeerGeek wrote:

Sewinman wrote:

Every British national celebration is effectively a celebration of England. The English love making a big deal about themselves. Just look at any England sporting event, the Olympics ceremony, any royal event....they are all massive English mutual w*nk fests.

All this 'oh we are far too reserved to celebrate and isn't that such a superior and good thing, (that inferior people from other countries don't have or really would never be able to get)' is actually part of the whole celebration of England i.e quietly over-joyed statements about national traits that no longer/never existed.

Steady on, old chap. Stiff upper lip, eh?

Rather. A bit strong what.

rick_chasey

stu-bim wrote:

Koncordski wrote:

The really great thing about being English is that we don't make a big fuss about it, we just get on with life. As stated above, I class making a day of celebration a bit of a fuss.

I'm Irish and lived in London for a couple of years and always found it odd that Paddy's Day was more of a 'celebration' than St George's.

Entirely related to very successful Guinness efforts and marketing.

MrSweary

Sewinman wrote:

Every British national celebration is effectively a celebration of England. The English love making a big deal about themselves. Just look at any England sporting event, the Olympics ceremony, any royal event....they are all massive English mutual w*nk fests.

All this 'oh we are far too reserved to celebrate and isn't that such a superior and good thing, (that inferior people from other countries don't have or really would never be able to get)' is actually part of the whole celebration of England i.e quietly over-joyed statements about national traits that no longer/never existed.

As far as I can see one of the few decent reasons for noisily celebrating Englishness is to wind up bitter Scots.

veronese68

Sewinman wrote:

Every British national celebration is effectively a celebration of England. The English love making a big deal about themselves. Just look at any England sporting event, the Olympics ceremony, any royal event....they are all massive English mutual w*nk fests.

All this 'oh we are far too reserved to celebrate and isn't that such a superior and good thing, (that inferior people from other countries don't have or really would never be able to get)' is actually part of the whole celebration of England i.e quietly over-joyed statements about national traits that no longer/never existed.

There's a reason for that.

Sewinman

veronese68

I'm sure I'll find a better beer than that, but otherwise spot on. Well done for resisting the obvious trolling on my part. Cheers

gabriel959

I always find it funny how they are happy to mention the Armada but they never mention the Battle of Cartagena de Indias and how Blas de Lezo and his tiny army annihilated the largest ever British navy assembled by Admiral Vernon.

I do love living here, and the beers though!

EKE_38BPM

I know nothing about the battle mentioned, but where was this battle fought? It looks like it was army Vs a navy. If it was on land, no wonder the British lost.

Anyway, that was a British Navy, not an English Navy. As far as I know, England has never had a navy.
Army: yes. Navy: no.