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What does it mean to you to be English?

England is a very complex soup. It's almost impossible to define the taste of a soup with a hundred ingredients so 'English' to me now means a whole lot of confusion. We don't know who we are because we are everything and therefore are nothing definable. Wales Scotland and Ireland also are complex but far less so and have a stronger base identitity. The English, since WW1 especially have always been a bit embarrassed to shout 'here i am'. And went down into soup still wondering if they should have tried a bit harder to swim to the top.
Losing identity was aided by losing all the things we were famous for. Rolls Royce going to Germany for example was just one small example.
Who are we?
We are you and me and them and them and probably them too.
 
I was surprised to learn that Kellog's, Tide and Palmolive were not British. Can remember British TV celebs (ladies) lathering their hands with Palmolive and passing them over their faces with a dreamy, slightly orgasmic look in their eyes.
 
Mick P said:
Very well said, if anyone dislikes this country, they have the total freedom to emigrate. Of course, they nearly all stay put and squawk
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Mick,

1) Rather less freedom than we used to have a few years ago.

2) "If you don't like it then piss off" isn't really the basis for an inclusive society.

3) Would that have been your response to women 'moaning' about wanting the vote a hundred years ago?

4) How come no one tells the GB News gobshites moaning about woke tofu eaters to piss off out of it?
 
paulfromcamden said:
Mick,

1) Rather less freedom than we used to have a few years ago.

2) "If you don't like it then piss off" isn't really the basis for an inclusive society.

3) Would that have been your response to women 'moaning' about wanting the vote a hundred years ago?

4) How come no one tells the GB News gobshites moaning about woke tofu eaters to piss off out of it?
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Paul

I said to myself this morning, I would spend less time here, but the best plans of mice and men etc.

To answer your questions.

1. If you mean Brexit, then less opportunities, but if someone really hates GB, there are plenty of places who will welcome them.

2. I was really referring to the constant moaners who really hate it here. They would be much happier somewhere else.

3. I would have supported it, women are much more logical than men.

4. Can't answer that, have never viewed a single episode of the programme.
 
PaulMB said:
I was surprised to learn that Kellog's, Tide and Palmolive were not British. Can remember British TV celebs (ladies) lathering their hands with Palmolive and passing them over their faces with a dreamy, slightly orgasmic look in their eyes.
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Nobody mention the flake advert !
 
PaulMB said:
I was surprised to learn that Kellog's, Tide and Palmolive were not British. Can remember British TV celebs (ladies) lathering their hands with Palmolive and passing them over their faces with a dreamy, slightly orgasmic look in their eyes.
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The Kelloggs were an odd lot. John Harvey Kellogg ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and seemed to think that most people's problems were caused by the evils of masturbation. He seemed to be opposed to sexual pleasure of any form. The cereal company was started by his younger brother William Keith Kellogg, who was also a piece of work.
 
Mick P said:
Very well said, if anyone dislikes this country, they have the total freedom to emigrate.
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It’s very hard to emigrate. Not something you can “just leave”. As someone whose gone through this process, it’s expensive, precluding a great many people. Brexit added complexity & difficulty by restricting freedom of movement out of the UK — effectively keeping people locked-in. Both major political parties (this week?) opposed proposed EU offers to under 30s to enjoy freedom of movement.

My hope is the EU will start granting asylum to those wishing to leave on the grounds of sustained attacks & increasingly febrile & hyperbolic rhetoric — so at least some barriers are removed. Asylum is not a magic bullet either — as your government illustrates.
 
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If you can play on fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust
Water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise
There ain't no need for ya
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
Wanna join in a chorus of the Amerasian blues
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say, papa papa papa papa papa-san, take me home
See me, got photo, photo, photograph of you
And mama, mama, mama-san
Of you and mama mama mama-san
Let me tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo, kid
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boy
Oh, papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home
So mama-san says
"You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime USA?
In Parkland International, hah, Junkiedom USA
Where Procaine proves the purest rock man groove and rat poison"
The volatile Molatov says
"Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh
Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, straight to hell"
Can you cough it up, loud and strong?
The immigrants, they wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere, most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land
There ain't no asylum here
King Solomon, he never lived 'round here
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
Oh, papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home now
 
The English people I admire have fun and inform without harming anyone, in fact they make people feel better about themselves and leave them better equipped to live and support other people. Too many people who claim to be English and patriots are imposing misery and suffering by actively promoting conflict and ignorance as a distraction to the large scale looting of the country to the benefit of themselves.
 
Yank said:
The Kelloggs were an odd lot. John Harvey Kellogg ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and seemed to think that most people's problems were caused by the evils of masturbation. He seemed to be opposed to sexual pleasure of any form. The cereal company was started by his younger brother William Keith Kellogg, who was also a piece of work.
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"Sanitarium" was Kellogg's invented word for what is more usually called a sanatorium. It was run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. John never quite forgave Will for putting sugar in the original cornflakes to make them more commercial.

Sanitarium is also the name of an Australian food company, started by a baker from Kellogg's original sanitarium and wholly owned by the SDA Church:

Home

Sanitarium believes passionately in the health and wellbeing of every Australian, the potential to be healthy: physically, mentally and emotionally, the potential to be happy, the potential to live life with purpose.
www.sanitarium.com www.sanitarium.com

Needless to say, given its dedication to healthy foods, Kellogg's products are not to be found on its shelves.
 
Spraggons Den said:
If you can play on fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust
Water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise
There ain't no need for ya
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
Wanna join in a chorus of the Amerasian blues
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say, papa papa papa papa papa-san, take me home
See me, got photo, photo, photograph of you
And mama, mama, mama-san
Of you and mama mama mama-san
Let me tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo, kid
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boy
Oh, papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home
So mama-san says
"You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime USA?
In Parkland International, hah, Junkiedom USA
Where Procaine proves the purest rock man groove and rat poison"
The volatile Molatov says
"Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh
Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, straight to hell"
Can you cough it up, loud and strong?
The immigrants, they wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere, most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land
There ain't no asylum here
King Solomon, he never lived 'round here
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
Oh, papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home now
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"Something About England" from 44 years ago...

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses
If England were for Englishmen again

I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time could not erode
The night was snapped by sirens
Those blue lights circled fast
The dance hall called for an ambulance
The bars all closed up fast

My silence gazing at the ceiling
While roaming the single room
I thought the old man could help me
If he could explain the gloom
You really think it's all new
You really think about it too
The old man scoffed as he spoke to me
"I'll tell you a thing or two"

I missed the fourteen-eighteen war
But not the sorrow afterwards
With my father dead, my mother ran off
My brothers took the pay of hoods
The twenties turned, the north was dead
The hunger strike came marching south
At the garden party not a word was said
The ladies lifted cake to their mouths

The next war began and my ship sailed
With battle orders writ in red
In five long years of bullets and shells
We left ten million dead
The few returned to old Piccadilly
We limped around Leicester Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care

But how could we know when I was young
All the changes that were to come?
All the photos in the wallets on the battlefield
And now the terror of the scientific sun
There was masters and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
Through strikes and famine and war and peace
England never closed this gap

So leave me now the moon is up
Remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell

(It's a long way to Tipperary)
(It's a long way to go)

(Goodbye, Piccadilly)
(Farewell, Leicester Square)

The streets were by now deserted
The gangs had trudged off home
The lights clicked out in the bedsits
Old England was all alone
 
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