Why is Britain so great?

During medieval times if you said you were Great British you got arrested and thrown in the tower.

 

This is from the first episode of the 'Newsroom', Jeff Daniels on why the US is Not the greatest country in the world.
Jeff Daniels - America is NOT the greatest country anymore - YouTube

 

If only leaders were able to talk with such candour and truth.

 

It plays well on TV to us liberals. But it doesn’t play so well in real life.

Intelligent Democrats are seen as sneery and self important by blue collar ‘ordinary’ Americans, we have the same disease here, where Cummings et-al declared war on the Islington media elite, and the proletariat suck it up.

In case this does need pointing out, Cummings lives in Islington, worked most of his life in media and his grandad was a peer. It wouldn’t be possible for him to be more elite if he tried.

 

On the positive side of the ledger we started the industrial revolution, which for good or bad transformed humanity. We also “invented” the internet, contributed to some of the greatest scientific inventions and discoveries since the enlightenment, have been home to many persecuted minorities and been a beacon of democracy and progressive views like abolished slavery before anyone else.

 

Changeable weather with seasons
Pork pies (and mushy peas)
Real ale
BFC
Curry - one of the few positives from having an imperialist past.
Dialects (although in decline)

 

Morris dancing for Southern softies... Longsword dancing is more the thing 'up North'. particularly in Yorkshire . More 'manly'!!!

Remember Barnsley Longsword..They use spring steel longswords with handles at both ends for one particular dance. the also use thcik steel swords for another as well as wooden staffs. A teenager wasstood at the front taking the p*ss .. One of the Longsword dancers, as he went past bounced his staff right onto toes of said teenager without breaking his step. Lad was hopping around swearing like a trooper whilst the rest of us watching were pissing ourselves laughing. They could really 'shift their ale' could that team I remember.

 

I'm in London so its hard to tell if dialects are declining. Sad if they are. Mind when I started working you're hear all kinds of accents and dialects. Now everyone seems to have the same bland voice with no hint of where they're from.

 

In fairness the 'internet' the infrastructure was, I believe the American military's creation. I may be wrong but Tim Berners Lee was man credited as being responsible for the World Wide Web...

 

hows that work being a Barnsley fan, if you’re proud of your team you are surely taking pride in the work of others?

 

We didn't invent the Internet. It already existed before Tim Berners-Lee and his team at CERN invented HTTP and HTML - although it was mainly education sites connected to JANET and equivalent networks. HTML descends from SGML, which itself comes from IBMs GML which dates back to the 60s. My first connection was late 91 - 2 years before the release of HTML to the public (in fact my first attempt to load a web page was to try to use Telnet to connect to it!)

The work of Berners-Lee was based on earlier work on hypertext at CERN by Robert Cailliau (Belgian) and much of the development was these two working together - and a chunk of the browser development work was a placement project by Nicola Pellow (English).

We also didn't abolish slavery first - both France and Denmark did - although France brought it back after the revolution (Viva la Revolution!) and much of the Northern USA had banned the import of slaves before we banned the Transatlantic slave trade. Slavery was finally abolished throughout the British Empire in 1928 in Sierra Leone.

 

Denmark didn't abolish slavery until 1847....but the point you've made about Sierra Leone is really interesting ( shocking might be a better word).

 

Norway-Denmark abolished the slave trade in 1792 - although it took until 1803 before it took affect. But yes, slavery in Danish colonies was still in place until 1847/8 - just after slavery in the East India company was abolished in 1843.

More shockingly, Sierra Leone still had some (illegal) domestic slavery into the 70s (and it was a country founded by freed slaves!). Slavery was only made illegal in all countries into this century - and it is still practiced under other names. Utah and Nebraska only removed slavery as a punishment for criminal offences in the November election this year.

 

Brexiteers still think we are.

 

We are

 

you’ve been conned me old. You’ll not like it or admit it either. Cheers.

 

What’s not to admit I voted out and will live with it

 

It's no good. It's a cult. If Johnson said the only way to get Brexit done was to poison themselves, some would gladly do it.

 

Again, you’ve been conned.

It’s like cutting your own foot off, and then shrugging your shoulders and saying ah well I’ll just live with it. You might not want to cut your foot off in the first place.

Enjoy it. Whatever it is.

 

Hop it