I've always felt uncomfortable with the notion of patriotism. It's basically a way of saying your country is better than anywhere else in the world. Which is obviously bollocks, because most people (residents of war and famine-ridden places excepted)love where they were brought up simply because it's familiar.
But my attitude towards it changed when I lived abroad. I found myself constantly having to defend the British way of life. And my 'patriotism' towards London became even stronger when I lived 'oop North where people were constantly saying that Londoners are rude (an ironic statement, I always found...)
I'm feeling even more strongly aligned to London at the moment. Maybe it's the terror attacks, maybe it's the Olympics, I'm not sure. But I seem to be slowly edging towards the kind of flag-waving freak that I always tried so hard to avoid.
Give it a few more days and I'll be digging out the Charles and Di commemoration plates.
9 comments:
we are fucking rude though.
You never stop being a Londoner - even after many years in the rural wilderness. I couldn't live there now for more than a week or two, but there's no place like home... there's no place like home....
Slice my head off and it will read "Made in Great Britain" all the way to my boots. It's true. What upsets me is that the racists have hijacked the Union Flag and the flag of Saint George. For the information of all the mindless millions out there, En-ger-land is not just a soccer team. I'm proud to be British, in a watery eyed and completely un-ironic way.
My ability and readiness to declare my loyalty and love for the nation of my birth is one of the very few things I have in common with the majority of Americans and French!
That said, I'm also a proud Yourkshire man, but if I won the lottery I'd settle in SW1 as fast as my chauffeur could carry me.
" The greatest duty of a patriot is to criticise his country"
I cant remember who said that someone French I think, but its always stuck in my mind and i do agree with it....
what do they say, you can tell a Yorkshireman, but you can't tell him much!
Hello Val. where 'boutsish are you now then? I reckon you can stop being a londoner, but then you become a (Totte)Nham vet. When i'm out of london all the things i associate with london, the stress, the aching body, the slight taste of carbon monoxide at the back of the mouth, the temper, they all slide away. but then as soon as someone asks you where you're from and says "ooh, that must be nice to be near all the x/y/z" I come over all "You don't know! You weren't there!"
in glastonbury i feel patriotic. in london get a bad back from being permamantly braced for the next thing that's gonna piss me off.
It's also said that you should never ask a man if he's from Yorkshire. If he isn't, you wouldn't want to embarrass him. And if he is, he'll have told you already.
don't get me started on yorkies! terrorist scum...
Hi Over The Moon, I am in Darkest Dorset now. Passed the "understand the dialect test" a long time ago now, and carry my passport to go out of the county.
When I am in London, its the wall-to-wall people that I find difficult, so many in such a small space. And the fact that I cant look at the end of a street and know there is empty SPACE there. Miles and miles between the next pocket of people.
Glastonbury? Now THERE'S a place....
There's a place i am seriously planning to move to! Generally though we're heading in your general direction. my rents moved to Nr. Yeovil, and now I'm in love with the west country! Are you near cows? I want a view of cows if i don't live in Glastonbury. Pretty cows...
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