British or English

Do I want to be associated with being British at this time? Not at the moment. The British people have just voted for brexit and another 5 years of Tory government. Absolutely nothing to be proud of there.

English? Nah!! It has connotations of London, the home counties, fox hunting, EDF and greedy grasping lives totally alien to me.

Yorkshire? Leeds.... Enough said.

South Yorkshire? Sheffield arrrghh!!

Barnsley? Apart from the football club, it's run down and full of smack heads

Our street? I don't like her at no. 24 with her blue curtains and AUDI TT, that her husband polishes every Sunday morning.

Our house? The missus gets on my wires occasionally.

What then? Personally I see myself as an individual not determined by political lines on maps. Having said that, I'm grateful to have been born on a piece of land where I've been able to live fairly happily and securely, but this country could be oh so much better than it is.

 

south yorkshireman

 

Tarn and then English if pushed for a nationality - the rest dont make sense

 

People get het up about this. Feel whatever you want there’s no right or wrong answer. We are insignificant specs in time and space. We don’t matter and it doesn’t matter. I felt more ‘ foreign’ living in Tunbridge Wells than I did in Sydney more separate living in Hastings or Brighton than living in Calcutta. I feel Northern British. I’m more like the Scottish or Northumbrian’s than someone from the Home Counties. I feel part of Europe and proud of the advancements that Europe has given the world. I feel more akin to those in Southern Italy than I do to the Thatcherites of Deal. Identity is made up of many things. Birthplace is just one of them.

 

Thought I’d answered that in my previous post. Err Europe is also in the Northern hemisphere and Canada is not a neighbour.

 

If you don't feel superior to other people because of it or feel like hitting your Sheffield mates who support different clubs then I'm obviously not on about you. I'm talking about people who DO do those things - those are the people I don't understand.

 

My next door neighbours are Terry and Yvonne Canada.

 

Neither. I’m a man of the world. **** Britain.

 

There was a time I was patriotic, proud to be British. Owen at ‘98, bags of cans, chicken tikka bhuna. But then you meet people from other countries, you move abroad, you realise it was all mangled and distorted, you don’t love the country at all. It’s memories, nostalgia, a sense of belonging - but when you get far enough away from that I realised how little I like about Britain. It’s foooking shiite.

 

That’s the key point. Identity and birthplace are not the same thing. Anyone who thinks they are is just, well, wrong. I’m sure individuals like a Terry Butcher and Cliff Richard would be horrified to be described as anything but English, even though they weren’t born here. And fair play to them. But it works the other way as well. Being born in England does not mean you identify as ‘English’ and that’s fine as well. No need to feel offronted by it.

 

Curiously Anthony Joshua was called "the pride of all England" yesterday, rather than the pride of Britian/United Kingdom, and the event took place in Wales. I don't know, it just stood out to me.

 

I'm human, first and foremost. The rest is just a quirk of luck. I feel more European than British, but home is where I live and currently that is in the Dearne Valley. That might well change next year depending on how much the government mess up the negotiations. Worst case, they could even make my job illegal!

 

English. Bout time the nationality was recognised again in this country.

 

Genuine question: why?

 

If you're Scottish or Welsh or Irish you can ponce around on your special days waving leeks, clover or bottles of whisky in the air shouting how wonderful you all are, but if you're English you have to keep your head down otherwise you'd be accused of being racist, and all the minorities emerge with enormous chips on their shoulders.
I'm English but rarely get the opportunity to say as much, on forms I'm told I'm British, or "other".

 

Is considering oneself english a nationalistc thing? Does it have to have a jingoistic element attached to it? It possibly does for a very small section of our society but is it not more to do with our national psyche, how we are as people? Orwell addressed this issue and concluded that being english was about having a nice cup of tea, very ordinary quintessential things. Is it more about being reserved and politely queueing? I'd say it's much more about the ordinary things than chest thumping nationalistic superiority.

 

Try telling the folk to the right of politics that.

 

If you mean those to the right of the right then yes that's the small element of society i was referring to. Look at the EDL and other such pathetically inept groups. They can only muster a couple of hundred droogs on their marches: think this speaks volumes.

 

English/England acknowledging St. George’s Day is not a widespread thing and never has been. The Irish for example have always made a big thing of St. Patrick’s Day. Is it a Bank holiday over there? The only way I would acknowledge/celebrate is if it became a paid day off work, and then I’d be celebrating the fact that I have paid leave and not about St. George.

 

I do, unfortunately they do hijack St. George’s Day, and even if I did feel moved to acknowledge/celebrate it, for this reason I’d be out.