There seems to be quite a lot of pessimism regarding the future of that sceptered isle from this side of th pond. I hope your view gives cause for optimism. We really would hate to lose the free Brits from the western world.
Yes the POTUS the US Federal Government and by extension the collective US psyche is now haunted by a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian who is a pathological liar and a life-long professional grifter/shyster.by a very toxic clown.
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah: Wrong. He is undoing the destruction that you and your team have wrought.
Try to get over your aesthetic concerns about the man and comprehend the reemergence of national interests and the critique of globalism as a demonstrably failed model: a lie that is fully exposed.
As an outsider who has lived in England and Scotland for most of my life, I still find it astonishing the cr*p that non-elite English people have put up with in the last couple of decades. The prime examples which always come back to me are :
1)Gordon Brown being caught on-mic climbing back into his limousine after an elderly prole woman in a northern town (God, it might have been Rochdale or Rotherham) had simply asked him a question regarding large amounts of immigrants making her community disappear. He described her simply as "a bigoted woman", before being whisked back to his world of unaffected comfort.
2)Emily Thornbury tweeting contemptuously about a working class street with the despised flag of St George flying from several windows. Just a flag, no anti-immigrant slogans. Just the national flag.
We saw the direction of travel with the above, but I can't imagine many could have predicted where it would get to within a few years.
The political elites really are ashamed of ordinary English people who persist in having a national identity and even worse proclaiming it.
Thoughtful and depressing. I suspect a deep-seated moral and spiritual malaise that goes back several decades. WW2 was our last heroic act, after which we (if we are still a 'we') could put up our feet and expect progress and technology to solve all our problems. Motorways, Spagehetti Junction, towerblocks, sprawling suburbs, warehouse shopping centres where we buy stuff we don't need on perpetual credit are all we have left. It is easier to look enviously at every other culture than fix our own.
Lovely writing. I have to admit some of the meaning was a bit beyond me, that type of ironic, sardonic, inferential, mean the opposite writing style is kind of lost me. This is a matter of both personal taste and my middling capabilities.
For instance I think the author was saying that the lower middle-class remained sensible because they did not go to secondary school, the Academy, so did not adopt the inane luxury beliefs of the elite Etonian twits. I chuckled at that one but some of the other witticisms were a bit unclear: was he praising or lambasting and which bit was which.
In Canada it is an often repeated refrain (everyone I’ve spoken to) and in my experience a truism in that the English are pompous assholes.
As the old saw goes : an American laughs at a sucker, a Frenchman laughs at a cuckold, and an Englishman laughs at a foreigner.
I am a 1963 baby: same vintage as our author I suspect.
Thank you DB for this. I guess you would have had to have lived your whole long life in England to get all the subtleties in this piece. (I am 1950 vintage by the way.) If you could let me know (via a brief quote) which witticisms you didn't get, I would be more than happy to explain them.
You got it right that, overall, the piece swings back and forth between knocking the English in some ways and singing their praises in others.
As for pompous assholes I would just say that such people form a significant minority of the human race in all nations on this Earth...the English ones neither more nor less than anywhere else.
A little more, more than a little more, I think to English are sui generis. But that’s just my perspective from the other side of the pond. How do you guys think of Canadians? Feckless. Milk-toast?
I too have thoroughly enjoy your writing, your insights into the current status of the country that once dominated the world. And while there are moments when I too can't easily discern the meaning of a few of your comments, I certainly believe that they are more than worth the effort to reread them several times if necessary. Likewise your commentary on the state of affairs of the former empire, its narcissistic pseudo intellectuals, the class based snobbery, the anti-english english, and the entire bureaucratic colossus is always a delight to read. Thanks for providing your readers with much needed on-point satire.
I like the bit about cities and with some exceptions I think you’ve nailed it. French suburbs and peripheries are almost Universal eyesores. Muswell Hill on the other hand . . .
Regarding fractiousness among the countries in the British Isles, I have often wondered - speaking as an American and disinterested foreigner - whether England might not be better off going it alone. Let England, a more productive and grounded country historically, declare its independence from Britain. Why hold onto the resentful fringes?
Very good point. I suspect many English people feel like this when they've had a bellyful of the Scottish National Party's endless English-taxpayer-funded whingefest or the spiteful behaviour of some North Wales local councils towards their English residents. What gives us pause?....I suppose it is that we are - at the end of the day - like a family. A fractious family but a family nevertheless.
"And in their post colonial phase they are arguably, on the whole, the most peaceable, law-abiding, non-rioting, tax-paying and tolerant citizens that humanity has known at any time in its history."
Sounds like you've identified the source of your political problems at least.
Its very sad what is happening to the English (British) people. My great grandparents from both mother and fathers side were from British decent including the Irish.
I said recently to another English person living in Thailand.
Unfortunately the British people trusted Government and thought they would act in the interest of the citizens.
I quote:
"Human history, especially that of the civilized world, reveals that the vast majority of people have always exhibited a strong tendency to readily rely on the ruling or formal authorities (or bodies of authority) for guidance and entities to place their trust into, despite that this trust has consistently and reliably been undermined by the reigning authorities –and thus, has largely been unjustified– throughout the ages."- Taken from Rolf Hefti. This was written about by psychologist Arthur Janov in 2015.
"Contrary to that know-all class’ party political pycho-drama endlessly fed to the British public, real political agency in Britain – whichever political party is supposedly ‘in power’ – is massively and disproportionately in the hands of its huge high caste of lefty lawyers."
Real power is not so much in the hands of lawyers so much as it is in the hands of the Professional Managerial Class, because these people have the most direct control over the means of production.
Anyway, many Americans are fawning anglophiles. Those of a more conserative bent get weepy over Winston Churchill, Stiff Upper Lip, Knowing One's Station, Standards Of Excellence, Pubs, and Male Buggery.
More left Americans get a thrill up their leg, thinking of Punk Rock, Class Consciousness, English Lit., Socialism, and Male Buggery.
The fashionable anti-patriotism will last until the Vikings come and start razing the land.
There seems to be quite a lot of pessimism regarding the future of that sceptered isle from this side of th pond. I hope your view gives cause for optimism. We really would hate to lose the free Brits from the western world.
Jason T: it might be an evitable.
As an American, this reads accurate enough, especially since a lot of it is happening here.
There is a little used saying, "We need more high wire acts. We already have too many clowns."
That applies to our congress and your parliament.
Yes the POTUS the US Federal Government and by extension the collective US psyche is now haunted by a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian who is a pathological liar and a life-long professional grifter/shyster.by a very toxic clown.
Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah: Wrong. He is undoing the destruction that you and your team have wrought.
Try to get over your aesthetic concerns about the man and comprehend the reemergence of national interests and the critique of globalism as a demonstrably failed model: a lie that is fully exposed.
I'm glad you answered him. I debated if I should, but just like compro, you can't debate a fanatic, a TDS fanatic at that.
I know I’m always afraid to get in one of those Internet fights as well. I’m by inclination surly so there’s no point stoking the fire.
Yawn
I've forgotten the English novelist's name who wrote the following:
"I too am British" she said, as if it were a grief they shared."
Wonderfully accurate Graham.
Thanks LSO.... good to hear from you.
Hey Graham!
As an outsider who has lived in England and Scotland for most of my life, I still find it astonishing the cr*p that non-elite English people have put up with in the last couple of decades. The prime examples which always come back to me are :
1)Gordon Brown being caught on-mic climbing back into his limousine after an elderly prole woman in a northern town (God, it might have been Rochdale or Rotherham) had simply asked him a question regarding large amounts of immigrants making her community disappear. He described her simply as "a bigoted woman", before being whisked back to his world of unaffected comfort.
2)Emily Thornbury tweeting contemptuously about a working class street with the despised flag of St George flying from several windows. Just a flag, no anti-immigrant slogans. Just the national flag.
We saw the direction of travel with the above, but I can't imagine many could have predicted where it would get to within a few years.
The political elites really are ashamed of ordinary English people who persist in having a national identity and even worse proclaiming it.
Thoughtful and depressing. I suspect a deep-seated moral and spiritual malaise that goes back several decades. WW2 was our last heroic act, after which we (if we are still a 'we') could put up our feet and expect progress and technology to solve all our problems. Motorways, Spagehetti Junction, towerblocks, sprawling suburbs, warehouse shopping centres where we buy stuff we don't need on perpetual credit are all we have left. It is easier to look enviously at every other culture than fix our own.
Lovely writing. I have to admit some of the meaning was a bit beyond me, that type of ironic, sardonic, inferential, mean the opposite writing style is kind of lost me. This is a matter of both personal taste and my middling capabilities.
For instance I think the author was saying that the lower middle-class remained sensible because they did not go to secondary school, the Academy, so did not adopt the inane luxury beliefs of the elite Etonian twits. I chuckled at that one but some of the other witticisms were a bit unclear: was he praising or lambasting and which bit was which.
In Canada it is an often repeated refrain (everyone I’ve spoken to) and in my experience a truism in that the English are pompous assholes.
As the old saw goes : an American laughs at a sucker, a Frenchman laughs at a cuckold, and an Englishman laughs at a foreigner.
I am a 1963 baby: same vintage as our author I suspect.
Thank you DB for this. I guess you would have had to have lived your whole long life in England to get all the subtleties in this piece. (I am 1950 vintage by the way.) If you could let me know (via a brief quote) which witticisms you didn't get, I would be more than happy to explain them.
You got it right that, overall, the piece swings back and forth between knocking the English in some ways and singing their praises in others.
As for pompous assholes I would just say that such people form a significant minority of the human race in all nations on this Earth...the English ones neither more nor less than anywhere else.
A little more, more than a little more, I think to English are sui generis. But that’s just my perspective from the other side of the pond. How do you guys think of Canadians? Feckless. Milk-toast?
I too have thoroughly enjoy your writing, your insights into the current status of the country that once dominated the world. And while there are moments when I too can't easily discern the meaning of a few of your comments, I certainly believe that they are more than worth the effort to reread them several times if necessary. Likewise your commentary on the state of affairs of the former empire, its narcissistic pseudo intellectuals, the class based snobbery, the anti-english english, and the entire bureaucratic colossus is always a delight to read. Thanks for providing your readers with much needed on-point satire.
Thank you Ralph...comments like this make it all worthwhile.
Very British. Now if only the English could speak as beautifully as the write!
I like the bit about cities and with some exceptions I think you’ve nailed it. French suburbs and peripheries are almost Universal eyesores. Muswell Hill on the other hand . . .
Regarding fractiousness among the countries in the British Isles, I have often wondered - speaking as an American and disinterested foreigner - whether England might not be better off going it alone. Let England, a more productive and grounded country historically, declare its independence from Britain. Why hold onto the resentful fringes?
Very good point. I suspect many English people feel like this when they've had a bellyful of the Scottish National Party's endless English-taxpayer-funded whingefest or the spiteful behaviour of some North Wales local councils towards their English residents. What gives us pause?....I suppose it is that we are - at the end of the day - like a family. A fractious family but a family nevertheless.
"And in their post colonial phase they are arguably, on the whole, the most peaceable, law-abiding, non-rioting, tax-paying and tolerant citizens that humanity has known at any time in its history."
Sounds like you've identified the source of your political problems at least.
Its very sad what is happening to the English (British) people. My great grandparents from both mother and fathers side were from British decent including the Irish.
I said recently to another English person living in Thailand.
Unfortunately the British people trusted Government and thought they would act in the interest of the citizens.
I quote:
"Human history, especially that of the civilized world, reveals that the vast majority of people have always exhibited a strong tendency to readily rely on the ruling or formal authorities (or bodies of authority) for guidance and entities to place their trust into, despite that this trust has consistently and reliably been undermined by the reigning authorities –and thus, has largely been unjustified– throughout the ages."- Taken from Rolf Hefti. This was written about by psychologist Arthur Janov in 2015.
It has been their downfall trusting Government.
"Contrary to that know-all class’ party political pycho-drama endlessly fed to the British public, real political agency in Britain – whichever political party is supposedly ‘in power’ – is massively and disproportionately in the hands of its huge high caste of lefty lawyers."
Real power is not so much in the hands of lawyers so much as it is in the hands of the Professional Managerial Class, because these people have the most direct control over the means of production.
Anyway, many Americans are fawning anglophiles. Those of a more conserative bent get weepy over Winston Churchill, Stiff Upper Lip, Knowing One's Station, Standards Of Excellence, Pubs, and Male Buggery.
More left Americans get a thrill up their leg, thinking of Punk Rock, Class Consciousness, English Lit., Socialism, and Male Buggery.