I hope you won't mind if I add two observations from foreigners.
The English have a remarkably uniform set of assumptions about themselves - almost all of which are false They think they love animals but they impose quarantine.They proclaim fair play but inhabit perfidious Albion.They say they are reserved when they are repressed; they claim they are uncomplaining when they are uncommunicative. Before the world they affect sang-froid but at home they honour Men Behaving Badly. They call indiscipline individualism and bloody-mindedness common sense.They espouse a mythic past and mistake it for a progressive story of peaceful change and democratic climacteric. They name themselves the Bulldog breed but their bark is worse than their bite.They inhabit clouded hills and think they are in Jerusalem. Good for them, I love their magnificent irrationality.
and: What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farley Wallop, or a game like cricket which goes on for three days and never seems to start/ Who else would think it not the least bit odd to make their judges wear little mops on their heads, compel the Lord Chancellor to sit on something called the Woolsack, or take pride in a naval hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow called Hardy (Please, Hardy,full on the lips, with just a bit of tongue.) What other nation in the world could have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners Question Time, and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None, of course. Happy Easter to you all. Meabh>
