England, Oh England!

I apologize for not posting for a while - I suffered writers' blo(g)ck. Now, it's like buses in London, you wait ages for one and then three or four come together!

I know I extol the virtues of living in the USA, and am very proud to do so. But I am English (at least for the moment). I've always been proud of my heritage, but there are crazy goings on in the "Sceptred Isle" (yes, I do know that technically England's not an island, but even Willy Shakes got that wrong). Did you know that there is no English Parliament? The Irish and the Welsh have their assemblies, the Scottish have their own Parliament, but does England? No, it has to share the Palace of Westminster.

Don't misunderstand me, I have nothing against the Scots, Irish or Welsh. I have friends of all these countries, but I have to agree with the following, from the website of the Queen's Royal Lancers:

Goodbye to my England, So long my old friend
Your days are numbered, being brought to an end
To be Scottish, Irish or Welsh, that's fine
But don't say you're English, that's way out of line.

The French and the Germans may call themselves such
So may Norwegians, the Swedes and the Dutch
You can say you are Russian or maybe a Dane
But don't say you're English ever again.

At Broadcasting House the word is taboo
In Brussels it's scrapped, in Parliament too
Even schools are affected, staff do as they're told
They must not teach children about England of old.

Writers like Shakespeare, Milton and Shaw
The pupils don't learn about them anymore
How about Agincourt, Hastings, Arnhem or Mons?
When England lost hosts of her very brave sons.

We are not Europeans, how can we be?
Europe is miles away over the sea
We're the English from England, let's all be proud
Stand up and be counted - Shout it out loud!

Let's tell our government and Brussels too
We're proud of our heritage and the Red, White and Blue
Fly the flag of Saint George or the Union Jack
Let the world know - WE WANT OUR ENGLAND BACK!

Despite a couple of glaring inaccuracies, I subscribe to the general theme. As we all know (or should do) the Union FLAG (not Jack) is the flag NOT of England but the Union - I have no problem with that. And Shaw English? That proves how low education has sunk. The man was born in Dublin for heaven's sake!

Oh! I do feel better for that - I'm sure my American friends will understand my frustrations.

So, so different

I’m currently reading “The Anglo Files” by Sarah Lyall. Its sub-titled “A Field Guide to the British” and I must admit its great fun to be reminded of the differences we English and Americans either don’t realize or have forgotten. The author grew up in New York and is a London correspondent for the New York Times.

As a WWII baby, I was brought up on ration books (many people forget that there were severe food shortages for quite a few years after the war was over, into the early fifties in fact), so I’ve always tried to be thrifty, kept a well-stocked pantry and realized that my mother was right about the differences between “need” and “want”. Even my mother-in-law, with whom I disagreed with just about everything, was wise enough to quote the old adage “there is no such thing as a bargain if you have no need for it”.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s annual budget speeches as Chancellor of the Exchequer were well punctuated with the wonderful word “prudent”. He was often mocked for the number of times he used this word when spelling out the nation’s economic situation. I think prudent is how many of us, on both sides of the Atlantic, will become before the current recession is over. I was amazed at Sarah’s revelation (to me anyway) that a nation that used to be well known for being thrifty had become “awash in debt, about £1.35 trillion of it by 2007 – giving it the highest ratio of debt to personal income in the developed world”! That’s about $2.1 trillion by today’s exchange rate. Staggering!

Okay, so the English have that in common with our American friends, but Sarah points out the huge differences between our two countries. You notice that when I refer to Great Britain I use “nation”, when referring to England I use “country” (most of my friends here are aware of my dislike of being called a “Brit”). She has really reminded me of these differences. It’s not just differences in vocabulary, or the so-called “politeness”. It goes much deeper than that and thank goodness it does.

Upon reading her comments on the Englishness of not turning on a lamp until we can hardly see to find the switch, had me laughing out loud – we still do it here and it often amuses us to see neighbors having lights on all day.

I can thoroughly recommend this book. Americans will be amazed at some of the author’s experiences and observations, the English may be horrified, but will ultimately recognize themselves and like me laugh about it. That’s another subject for a blog posting – our different senses of humor.

Photos by Ian Britton, freefoto.com