My answer was a "Fail"
www.channel4.com/programmes/make-bradford-british/articles/channel-4-citizenship-test
Hope I get deported to somewhere solvent and warm with good biking roads...packing my case.
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I failed too with 42% so it looks like I shall be coming with you!
Pat
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Fail ! Spectacularly!
Does Scotland have the same number of Bank Holidays as England? The question just asked for UK.
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Same here Pat 42% I keep my Dutch passport..:) Fail.
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Yup, I'm not one of us either.
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Clearly a test designed by a committee of civil servants who do not know how to frame questions that involve inaccurate and/or changing statistical data.
The sad thing is that the foreigners who have to take the test end up paying good money to "colleges" where they are taught to memorise these "facts".
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Oops - 33%, thought I'd done well too
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I'm off to pack. Where's available? Would prefer sunny.
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58%, fail. Timed out on the bank holidays while counting on my fingers.
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Did No-one pass?
good lord.
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It would seem not. Not even those who otherwise appear to know everything...
:-)
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>> It would seem not. Not even those who otherwise appear to know everything...
>>
>> :-)
Indeed! I shall never be able to look at you in the same light again.
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54% fail too.
Strange questions to ascertain Britishness.
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Bye y'all, I'm going back to Tenerife (46%)
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I only failed because i`m an English citizen not a British one! - Bah what Humbug dreamed those ambiguos questions up!
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63% - fail - I'll stay in Scotland....
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Friend of mine was doing her "citizenship" thing last Thursday - I'll be seeing her later this week I'll ask her how she got on.
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>> Bye y'all, I'm going back to Tenerife
And there was me thinking you lived in Kenilworth
;)
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58% rejected.
Guess it's an exam and you have to study for it.
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Yeah but this is the questions for the science paper and we have been studying English literature. .
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33%. Gulp. I actually thought I'd done well.
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Erm, 75%. Wipe your feet on the way out, the rest of you.
}:---)
Fatuous questions intended to test how much attention you paid on your course. There's a citizenship centre I pass on my lunchtime walk; I must have picked up snippets through open windows.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Mon 5 Mar 12 at 21:11
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Turn the lights of WDB when we've left..
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Well clearly this indicates that WdB is not, well, ummm, you know, British!
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Nice one! - had to think about it though :)
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Just shows what a lot of bow licks this sort of thing is.
A more decent set of peculiar and individual sticks you'd struggle to find in a cross section of society anywhere, we wouldn't pass our own citizenship test.
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Passed. 88% - but I cheated. Just to make it more realistic:)
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Passed with flying colours.
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You would need coaching, at least two answers they give are not 'quite' accurate.
There are six Bank Holidays (plus one extra this year for the Jubilee) and two Public Holidays (Christmas Day and Good Friday) in England and Wales. There are seven Bank Holidays in Scotland plus the two Public Holidays. They say there are four.
The British Board of Film Classification says a U is Suitable for All, although it does qualify that in the small print as being suitable for the over 4's as you cannot predict how individual children may react - how many of us read that small print? The classification IS suitable for all.
Adjust your percentages accordingly in the true style of British fair play!
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33% - Rejected.
8 out of 24.
Which airport / seaport do I go to for deportation?
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Hmm.
14/24
Who is going to turn the lights off?
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58%, with a lot of guessing.
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It seems I may not be very British after all, good job I've already moved away then. somewhere warm and solvent but rubbish for cycling unfortunately.
On a more serious note, many of the questions seemed more relevant to people coming into the country such as the issuance of work permits and the right to vote neither of which apply to natives I'd suggest ?
On a completely spurious note, it seems that as an expat when my photo ID driving licence expires next month I cannot have it renewed until I return to Blighty to live. seems I'll have to get a Hong Kong one then, I wonder if this means I can speed with impunity when in the UK ? Hmm, there's a thought.....
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46%. It all started to go wrong at the initial "how old are you" question, where if you are 50 you need to tick two boxes. Great attention to detail.
And the one about bank holidays is just wrong as far as I can see.
Must try harder is my verdict. A better British question might be:
You are invited to dinner by a neighbour. Do you
a) Go
b) Nobody expects decent people to take up a dinner invitation. It's downright rudery.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 08:24
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>> 46%. It all started to go wrong at the initial "how old are you" question,
>> where if you are 50 you need to tick two boxes. Great attention to detail.
>>
>> And the one about bank holidays is just wrong as far as I can see.
>>
>>
and to answer my own question (higher up the thread) Scotland appears to have a different number. perhaps devolution is a done deal :)
projectbritain.com/bankholidays.html if that is correct!
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67%.
It's an inverse test. Those who score highly are non-British swotting up on the answers hoping to be allowed in.
True British don't need to bother learning this rubbish.
I only achieved my score by using my patent random answer system.
In a typical multiple choice test, there will be 4 answers:
1) stupid
2) very sensible so probably implausible
3) sounds reasonable - but higher than you would think
4) sounds reasonable, but lower than you would think.
The answers are not necessarily in that order. So what you do is eliminate 1) and 2), and then make random guesses at 3) or 4), but veering towards the perceived intention of the quiz.
Often they make it easy for you by always putting the reasonable answers in the middle.
I know my method marginally failed on this occasion, but that's because this test is unusual in requiring a very high pass mark. Most tests are designed to pass nearly everyone.
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>> Which airport / seaport do I go to for deportation?
>>
Join the queue here:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106126
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According to the DirectGov website there are NINE bank holidays this year, including the special Jubilee one.
tinyurl.com/3cd9qex
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...According to the DirectGov website there are NINE bank holidays this year, including the special Jubilee one...
This cropped up with my return to work and holiday entitlement.
My lot think there are nine Bank Holidays this year, and eight the next.
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The link actually says there are six bank holidays (plus one more for jubilee) and two public holidays. The latter are apparently holidays by 'custom & practice'.
Four may be the answer for those taken throughout the UK on the same days - New Year, Early May, Late May and Boxing Day. Others followed in E&W are subject to local variation in Scotland and or Northern Ireland.
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I failed the test with 42%. I don't accept that it means I'm not British. It just means I didn't know enough correct answers.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 08:22
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67% - FAIL, but as I said I'm not "British" but English - a big, big difference!
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I appeared in the actual test for settlement.
Although they give 45 minutes for 24 questions (18 needs to answered correctly to pass) I just took 3 minutes to complete the exam!
If you read the study material for test and at least revise with few mock exams, it is too easy to pass :-)
Although I don't understand how many of the questions are relevant to judge Britishness.
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>> Although I don't understand how many of the questions are relevant to judge Britishness.
Suggestions for a proper Britishness test...?
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Q1. Which side of the road should you drive on
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Q2. Do you hate foreigners?
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Q3 Should you purchase winter tyres?
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Q4. Explain/define what Roger means when he says he is English.
Q5. Explain/define what Roger means when he says although he is English, he is not British.
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>> Suggestions for a proper Britishness test...?
For a start...
How not to claim benefits
How to live within your means
Why death penalty should be re-introduced
How to smack your children if they are naughty
How ayslum seekers should be deported promptly
Why councils and MPs should work for public and not other way round
Why engineering and manufacturing are important for a nation rather than economy supported on financial bubbles.
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English are the white natives of this Island Roger..>;)
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Q6 - Imagine that you are of English descent since 1066, born in Scotland, living in Wales.
Are you:
a) Welsh
b) Scottish
c) English
d) British
e) All of these
Write a short book explaining your answer.
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English are the white natives of this Island Roger..>;)
Probably not Dutchie - the British pre-dated the English who are comparatively "Johnny come latelys"
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 11:39
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> the British pre-dated the English who are comparatively "Johnny come latelys"
>>
Quite right. The "Welsh" were here first.
The Welsh are the original "British". The Anglo-Saxons drove the "Welsh" out of what we now call England.
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But someone pre-dated the Celts as well, cos they only ended up here after failing citizen tests elsewhere...!
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>> But someone pre-dated the Celts as well, cos they only ended up here after failing
>> citizen tests elsewhere...!
>>
Basques.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/10/mythsofbritishancestry/
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/06/mythsofbritishancestryrevisited/
Last edited by: John H on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 12:10
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The southern English are related to Belgians.Didn't know that Manneke Pis.>:)
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>> The Anglo-Saxons drove the "Welsh" out of what we
>> now call England.
We AS's like to call it pest control.
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>> > the British pre-dated the English who are comparatively "Johnny come latelys"
>> >>
>>
>> Quite right. The "Welsh" were here first.
>>
>> The Welsh are the original "British". The Anglo-Saxons drove the "Welsh" out of what we
>> now call England.
The Celtic races were "Britons" (also, cf Brittany or "little" Britain as opposed to Great Britain) and indeed were dispossessed by the Angles, Saxons, Scandinavian/Nordics/Vikings, Norman -1066 and all that - (Northmen!).
A British passport does not mean one is British, or even English, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish et al.
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>> one is British, or even English, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish et al. >>
You haven't told us how do you define them, precisely, exactly. Is it perhaps because you don't know or can't?
genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/globe.html
genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html
Have you had one of these done?
genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/participate.html
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>> Have you had one of these done?
>> genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/participate.html
>>
At £71.94, I shall just carry on wondering.
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>> At £71.94, I shall just carry on wondering. >>
Good. It proves you are not xenophobic genophobic. (deliberate spelling!).
Last edited by: John H on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 10:53
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The Celts (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Gaels etc.) were immigrants, just like the rest of us.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts
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I'm going to be pedantic and state we're all immigrants of a sort from the moment we learned to walk upright and walked out of the African continent and colonised the rest of the World. All courtesy of a handful of common ancestors.
See Dr Alice Roberts' BBC2 TV series The Incredible Human Journey or get the book from Amazon (It is available at other good bookshops too)
;-)
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ok let put the question another way.
What does it mean to be British ?
what with the loss of Britishness, I bet that's a hard question to answer.
Do you like mushy peas and Yorkshire puds or a curry ?
your call.
Last edited by: diddy1234 on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 15:34
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>> walked out of the African continent
>>
So European "colonisation" of Africa was simply a return to our ancient homelands, a bit like Jews returning to Palestine?
I think there has to come a point when the original occupants are said to have lost their rights to a region, but I am not sure what the period should be;
10,000 years, 1,000 years, 100 years, 10 years ?
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Couldn't agree more Roger...
:-)
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Tue 6 Mar 12 at 17:10
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I proudly posted up my score on Facebook, only to learn of two friends who have taken the real thing and passed it...
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This thread is very funny. Like Zero I am inclined to suspect the few who 'passed' of being, er, not British. Like the WW1 German spy whose discourse sounded convincing but who gave himself away by ordering coffee in a pub at opening time.
Almost everyone in the world is a mongrel. That's not very interesting. Even the (largely discredited) notion of separate origin with convergent evolution - were the Neanderthals from a different line? Did Sapiens interbreed with them or just wipe them out? - isn't very interesting.
What is interesting is the moment - quite a long moment one assumes - at which a pre-human creature becomes definably human: long after the opposed thumb of course, probably some time after the development of monkey-like cries into something more like language. Perhaps with th invention (by women it is thought) of arable cultivation, freeing the species from the insecurity of hunter-gatherer economy... writing, then printing, were important evolutionary steps.
Are we exactly the same species that we were in Geoffrey Chaucer's or even Shakespeare's day? More or less naturally. But I am inclined to think: not quite, not absolutely.
Bit of thread drift to perk things up.
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"Are we exactly the same species that we were in Geoffrey Chaucer's or even Shakespeare's day? More or less naturally. But I am inclined to think: not quite, not absolutely."
Taller, heavier, perhaps with larger brains....
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This should be a thread by itself.I just can't see us coming from monkees.Nor do I believe in the Adam and Eve story.Are we all one species or seperate on this planete?Have we had civilizations before ours.I wouldn't be surprised if we had.Fascination subject.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lJsc5bB5xQ&feature=related
Interesting view of our history.Also Sacharia Sitchin to listen to.
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Dawkins's Climbing Mount Improbable is a chewy but brilliant read on this subject, Dutchie. He puts his popular science persona aside and concentrates on showing that the 'irreducible complexity' argument beloved of the ID fruitcakes holds no water at all; there has been both the time and the mechanism for all the complex structures of higher life forms to have evolved several times over.
Once you get that, imagining the evolution of a long-tailed quadripedal primate with a medium-sized brain into a bipedal primate with a large brain and no tail is simplicity itself.
Ask me nicely one day and I'll get off the fence.
};---)
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>> This should be a thread by itself.I just can't see us coming from monkees.
Hey Hey We're The Monkees!
;-)
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>>.I just can't see us coming from monkees<<
We're all descended from worms apparently:
www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4174164/Humans-evolved-from-a-two-inch-worm.html
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>>Taller, heavier, perhaps with larger brains....
True with respect to medieval periods, especially in cities with poor nutrition & hygiene, overcrowding, etc.
Interestingly humans from before around 1000AD were around the same height/brain size as we are today with our improved sanitation and lack of 'popular' diseases.
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Everyone is talking about environmental effects on the human individual (squaddies from industrial cities in the first world war were small, unhealthy and scrawny compared to officers owing to their poverty, hard lives, bad habits, industrial pollution and lousy diet).
I'm talking about something else: actual evolution. The way the brain and body are wired so to speak.
I said that writing and printing were both stages in evolution. But they are very recent against our history as a species. However we are now in the process of yet another of these 'paradigm shifts'. Look at that thing in front of you.
There must come a moment when these technical changes become so internalized that they enter the evolutionary process. As language itself once did.
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There must come a moment when these technical changes become so internalized that they enter the evolutionary process. As language itself once did.
Only if your computer finds a way to rewrite your DNA, AC. Until that happens there's nothing for natural selection to act on. What you're describing sounds like the Lamarckian idea that giraffes stretched their necks by reaching for high branches, then somehow made this change heritable. Lamarck's idea was appealing but wrong.
Language is much more universal than you might think. Babies born of English-speaking parents can distinguish between the pronunciational nuances of, say, Chinese. But if they're not taught to speak Chinese, the ability rapidly disappears and they retain only the neural connections useful in the language they do speak. You could argue that the selection of useful neural pathways is analogous to evolution, but language itself is learned, not evolved.
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>> You could argue that the selection of useful neural pathways is analogous to evolution, but language itself is learned, not evolved.
I suppose you mean that we don't each have to evolve or invent language for ourselves. But it was once evolved or 'invented', quite rapidly perhaps compared to the evolution of (say) limbs, but nevertheless evolved, developed out of something else. And its appearance was an evolutionary 'leap forward'. Damn all to do with DNA...
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I'll just throw in that there are instances in recent times of languages being invented, virtually overnight.
There are I think examples where a nation found that their inherited language was proving unsuitable for modern circumstances, and a committee of learned men got together and either cobbled together a better language from the odds and ends of regional variations already existing, or else simply took and developed a neighbour's language that they thought would better suit their purposes.
Japanese I think had no written form until they decided to adapt the chinese notation in the 19th century.
Modern Italian was invented after unification.
Modern Hebrew was invented in the decades prior to the foundation of Israel.
Turkish ditched their old written form in the 1920s.
These must have been quite difficult for ordinary people to get used to, but their brains presumably managed to adapt.
Then there are examples where a language proves to be of limited use in the modern world, but the people hang on to it for everyday use but adopt another more sophisticated language to express more complicated concepts.
An expert in Scandinavian languages once told me that Norwegian is a rather limited language, hence the widespread use of Danish by the educated classes.
I recently heard a programme about the slow extinction of Swedish in academic life, replaced by English.
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>> Damn all to do with DNA...
As so often, we are ahead of the game Wildebeest.
There was a piece on this evening's BBC 6 o'clock news on gorillas, the way their DNA is 98% the same as ours, and the evolutionary DNA mutation that enabled us to invent language and go on from that to abstract thought, world wars and reality TV, snigger.
What is clear is that the DNA mutation precedes, by an unknown but perhaps lengthy period, the evolutionary steps of proper language, abstract thought, writing, philosophy, printing, science and technology and now IT with its global reach and ramifications and knock-on effects. These changing paradigms are the small print, the magnified closeup, of evolution in action.
Or so it seems to me. Probably a load of rubbish though. What do I know?
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>> What is clear is that the DNA mutation precedes, by an unknown but perhaps lengthy period, the evolutionary steps of proper language, abstract thought, writing, philosophy, printing, science and technology and now IT with its global reach and ramifications and knock-on effects.
If we took some of our kids and sent them to live, from birth, with some aboriginals... I don't think they'd be much difference to those who brought them up - what difference you could discern could well show genetic characteristics that were chosen as superior for that area/lifestyle.
eg. sickle cell disease is usually bad - so why is it common in Africa? Because carrying the sickle gene gives a degree of immunity to malaria, endemic in the region. Thus more people survive to pass on this gene - when they come to areas without malaria the pressure to pass on this gene becomes negative as some people with the gene will die an early death because of it.
DNA mutation happens all the time - it's only when a mutation confers a survival/breeding advantage that it starts to thrive and becomes more common in a population.
You've just got to drive down any High Street on a Friday night to see the mutations at work ;-)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 21:21
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>>You've just got to drive down any High Street on a Friday night to see the mutations at work ;-)
You have that right. What's more, they're there looking for other ones to breed with in the main. There's a certain street in a certain town not so far from here that is like a case study in inbreeding at chucking out time on Fridays and Saturdays. Loads of short bald males with sticky out ears and completely spherical females. It's as if they've been cloned.
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I think I had a glass of that at someone's wedding once.
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Trust me you haven't - I can tell. Almost worth driving the 7 miles to Waitrose - trust me on that as well !
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>> Asda Llangefni.
>>
Twinned with Tesco Telford?
surreal
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Did they find writing on stones in mexico over 4000 years ago.If you look at the Roman history Greek or Persians they seem to be more advanced.Than what we where in the Middle Ages.This planet must be more than a million years old what was found by carbon dating.The human species problaby a a couple of hundred thousand years old give or take a few years.If we class ourself as a intelligent species it would be nice that we have a paradigm shift,to stop making wars.We have a long way to go yet.>;)
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"humans from before around 1000AD were around the same height/brain size"
Fascinating Lygonos. I'm not a neurologist of course but I'm convinced that different humans have different size and shaped brains.
The British have a long, slim, elongated brain at the back - like Giger's alien. The Polish have a short, flat brain - like Shrek. You easily recognise your heritage just by glancing at people.
In fact, I would imagine that the British brain has certain traits and mannerisms contained in the large, rear area of the head - for example driving: Skill, Anticipation, Control, Craft, Attention, Anticipation, Parking, Reversing, Advanced and Understanding.
Whereas the Polish have no brain meat at all contained in the rear of the head. Clearly bereft of all aforementioned characteristics concerning driving. And probably no mannerisms concerning retail service either.
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A worm very interesting Dog with little legs and cute ears.>)
There are that many theories about our excistence on this planet it boggles the mind.We've come a long way I suppose as a species.I have a open mind what will be will be.
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"Nicolas Sarkozy says France has too many foreigners" - www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17280647 .
Not sure this thread is the place for it but I couldn't let it pass us by... :-)
link now corrected
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 10:23
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>> >> www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17280647.
>>
>> All I got was 404 - Page Not found.
You just need to remove the full stop from the end:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17280647
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>> "Nicolas Sarkozy says France has too many foreigners" - www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17280647.
>>
>> Not sure this thread is the place for it but I couldn't let it pass
>> us by... :-)
For once the obnoxious little twerp is right!
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>> For once the obnoxious little twerp is right!
That's no way to talk about a mod.
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>>That's no way to talk about a mod<<
Hehe! - I thought it, and you said it :)
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>>A worm very interesting Dog with little legs and cute ears.>)<<
As your link says Dutchie - there are many lifeforms on this planet that haave been here far longer than homo saps, but they haven't acquired our intelligence, so I am more inclined to 'take on board' the GM by the Annunaki theory than the evolved from worms idea.
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Received by email today, from a friend of ours:
England my England. (St George Forever)
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 !!!!
If you are English, pass it on please.
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Three addenda:
(1) Shaw was Irish!
(2) Union FLAG, not jack - but the latter rhymes!
(3) The English flag is red & white - no blue!
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Legend has it that the Welsh Archers were partly responsible for the victory at Agincourt.
Arnhem Order of Battle included Scottish and Irish Regiments from the UK, the Dutch,Polish and large contributions in air transport were courtesy of the USA.
Mons had a similar UK mix including two Welsh regiments.
Mythology has it that St George was a Roman trooper from Syria.
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Roger has got a point.
The Welsh and the Scottish are proud of their heritage (and why not, I would if I were them) and often express that proudness by calling themselves Welsh or Scottish before they would call themsleves British.
Yet if you are English and try that, you are labelled as a right wing extremist?
I know there ARE some right wing extremists who have tried to high jack Englishness
...but..that still shouldn't mean the rest of us have to pretend we are not or have to declare we are British first.
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I agree Westpig - The cross of St George has been well and truly hi-jacked. The point I'm making is that the battles mentioned in the poem were either British endeavors or multinational ones.
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Westpig, go on then, give us your definition of
a. Welsh
b. Scottish
c. English
d. British
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John H, you seem to be very insecure about your nationality.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 17:15
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Go on then, Old Navy, let us have your definition.
Do you agree with BNP's definition of British, or EDL's definition of English, or what?
If not, how do you differ from those definitions?
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There is nothing wrong with being proud of your English (or Scottish/Irish/French/martian) roots and heritage.
I am proud to be Scottish, but go back 2-3 generations and there's English, Scots and Irish ancestry.
Where there is a problem is when it is used as a badge of superiority or elitism - then it takes on a more malevolent reek.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 17:28
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I found out I had Irish ancestry quite recently.....I reckon that's a plus point and explains a few things..!
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...when it is used as a badge of superiority or elitism...
As an Englishman, who needs a badge?
One simply knows.
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>> I am proud to be Scottish >>
What is your definition of Scottish?
How would you choose who is Scottish when it comes to choosing, say, the Scottish Rugby team or stopping someone who is "Scottish" playing in the British Olympic Football team (assuming the Scots FA boycott such a team) or the English team?
Last edited by: John H on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 17:46
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My definition of nationality? Whatever the individual chooses - it matter not a jot to the rest of us. No qualification required.
With respect to sports then obviously these require contracts and for that reason some form of black-and-white mumbo-jumbo is required.
There will be legal issues where rights or responsibilities are confered due to 'national identity' - that's up to governments to sort out.
Lennox Lewis, Greg Rusedski and Zola Budd are obviously British ;-)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 17:54
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>> My definition of nationality? Whatever the individual chooses - it matter not a jot to the rest of us. No qualification required. >>
No qualification required.
At last! It has taken 115 posts to get someone to answer the question posed in the subject line.
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I was only posting it lightheartedly !
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I feel culturally Scottish I suppose and I know I'm also British but in the end I'm not fanatical about either identitiy or any really. I'm just a bloke trying to get myself and mine through it in relative comfort in the context of my environment like most people in the world. Nationality is mostly a figment of the joint conciousness.
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>>Westpig, go on then, give us your definition of
>> a. Welsh
>> b. Scottish
>> c. English
>> d. British
>>
a, Someone born in Wales
b, ditto Scotland
c, ditto England
d, all of the above
Last edited by: Westpig on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 18:41
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50% for me. Yippee, sunnier climes, here we come!!
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Not quite as simple as birth; home is where the heart is.
Personally not that focussed on whether I'm English or British but proud to be a Yorkshireman!!
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 19:10
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Toasted teacake Yorkshire pudding and out for nout Brompt.Spoken by a Clogman.>:)
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Hear all see all say nowt
Eat all drink all pay nowt
And if ever tha does owt for nowt then always do it for thisen.
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Tha can allus tell a Yorkshireman.
But tha can't tell 'im much.
Some say - obviously I disagree - that a Yorkshireman is like a Scotsman, but with the generosity removed.
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We British aren't in my opinion very conscious of our national identity compared with the continentals. I think that's because we take it for granted - we can all see where Britain starts and ends, there's a sea round it.
I had a startling insight into this while doing business in Hungary about 12 years ago. My Hungarian friend told me at one point that he had been born in Ukraine. I said "So you're Ukrainian then?". He looked puzzled. No, he was Hungarian because his parents and grandparents were Hungarian. In fact his grandfather had lived in three different countries without moving house, the point being that when the arbitrary borders are a movable feast, they mean a lot less - and your ethinicity means more.
We went a few miles out from Budapest to a town called Budaors. There were bilingual signs, the German being Wudersch IIRC. These Germans had been there for generations, but they were still German, not Hungarian, and spoke both languages.
Think of that when we expect virtually instant Britishness from our immigrants.
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Although the French are just as capable of understanding our local particularities as we are of understanding theirs, they tend to refer to all British people as les Anglais, the English.
About thirty years ago, on the day of the Notting Hill carnival, I sent a piece on the carnival to the French paper I then worked for. Among other things it said - in French of course - that the carnival and its spectacle were a free gift from the 'black English' to their compatriots. I got some flak from a Trinidadian, carnival-contributing friend who said he would prefer to be called 'black British'.
It's a goddam minefield out there.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 20:50
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I always used to think of myself as British to be honest...the English bit came second.
My love of motor sport changed it, when I noticed the Scottish racing drivers displaying the saltire on their helmets instead of the Union Flag.
The Welsh are similar...so it focussed my mind....along the lines of 'why aren't I as proud of my part of Britain as they are'?
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>> >>Westpig, go on then, give us your definition of
>>
>> >> a. Welsh
>> >> b. Scottish
>> >> c. English
>> >> d. British
>> >>
>> a, Someone born in Wales
>> b, ditto Scotland
>> c, ditto England
>> d, all of the above
>>
If I recall correctly from another thread. R.P. has a cousin born in Germany - does that make him German?
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I suppose I'm Scottish but my wife is English of possible Irish extraction, our son was born in Scotland but has been brought up in England and my wife is certain he was conceived in Greece. My dad's family have Norwegian roots but were intermingled with Scots and my mother's lot are part Cumbrian and part Spanish with a bit of Yorkshire but they reckon there's a lot of Viking in their line.
I don't really give a stuff what I am come to think of it.
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In the end we're all the same.....
... wormfood!
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It would be fascinating to trace where our constituent atoms have been.
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>It would be fascinating to trace where our constituent atoms have been.
We were given a homework question by our Chemistry teacher.
"How many molecules of Nelson's last breath do you inhale every time you breathe?"
Assuming that none had been absorbed or destroyed, the answer was approx 5. Courtesy of Avogadro I think.
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Im not British, im English, though I got my 63% so if it was an A Level if prob get an A*.
I know quite accurately where my bloodlines go, atleast 250 years back, but the result of that is that I come from nowhere in particular or nearly everywhere depending on how you define it.
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>>The Welsh are similar...so it focussed my mind....along the lines of 'why aren't I as proud of my part of Britain as they are'
I think it's to do with relativity (not Einstein's...) - An Englishman perhaps feels more English when dealing with Europe or the rest of the world. When in England everyone's the same so it's not an issue.
Similarly Scots and Welsh perhaps feel more Scottish/Welsh in a GB arena, as the smaller partners but when in their respective countries it's not something they think much about.
If someone is particularly jingoistic or nationalistic when they are in their own country, there's always the possibility that they see their own country as containing part of the outside world eg. incomers or foreigners.
There's something quite sad about seeing Scots ranting about being Scottish amongst a group of Scots, and equally so watching Englishmen doing the same.
There's a point when 'them and us' mentality is couterproductive and leads to inbreeding!
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>> Similarly Scots and Welsh perhaps feel more Scottish/Welsh in a GB arena, as the smaller
>> partners but when in their respective countries it's not something they think much about.
>>
>> If someone is particularly jingoistic or nationalistic when they are in their own country, there's
>> always the possibility that they see their own country as containing part of the outside
>> world eg. incomers or foreigners.
You're probably right, although when you go up to Scotland, you often see the saltire proudly displayed...sometimes with flags in people's gardens.
If you go to the States...the stars and stripes is proudly displayed everywhere..and I think that's a good thing.
It's just that the English are expected to be British first..
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>> >It would be fascinating to trace where our constituent atoms have been.
>>
Which long ago exploded star are we the dust of?
Life's not long enough.
www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=52
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>> Which long ago exploded star are we the dust of?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAh6fk0KD1c&ob=av2e
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>>Mythology has it that St George was a Roman trooper from Syria.
And that is probably why St George`s day isn`t celebrated as much by the English as other "British" patron Saints.
Last edited by: devonite on Thu 8 Mar 12 at 00:41
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My Rhodesian (Zimbabwe) Ridgeback was born in Cornwall, but ee's not Cornish.
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How British are you ? - Pat
