Britishness

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That's the place where that pub orgy was filmed wasn't it?

Last edited by Tequila on 20 Jun 2010, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The famine's over, you know.

The national pastimes of: Alcohol consumption, mastur*ation and celibacy (in no particular order)

Doesn't that stuff happen in pretty much every country?

When I first came to London, I was only sixteen... ^^

Still got a navy. It's the thing with the ships. On the sea. The RN is one of very few blue-water navies. Though they really ought to put weapons on the Darings. ^^

The British empire was (as empires go, which isn't saying much) very nice. Without going into too much detail:
1) There were two phases of the empire. The revolt of the American colonies ended the first British empire.
2) America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand were primarily European colonies, rather than the more traditional conquer-the-shit-out-of-the-natives-and-install-a-puppet empire style.
3) The British did not set out directly to conquer India (and didn't and couldn't have done so, ffs, India - with Pakistan and Bangladesh attached of course - is friggin' huge and stupidly diverse) - British presence in India was driven by evil capitalist pigs *ahem* the EIC and the British government found themselves progressively drawn in (and taking advantage of the situation, to be sure) and doing the "advisor to the local rulers" style of empire.
4) The British abroad were worst in Africa (firstly the slave trade, later other forms of inhumane greed), Ireland (Cromwell, Jamie I and VI's ethnic cleansing of the Borders; but that's pre-Empire), China (opium), and the Middle East (Zionism, Sykes-Picot, all that crap.)
5) British (and of course world) racism came and went in different places and different times. The 20th century was more a peak than a trough. Imperial racism latterly followed a somewhat twisted "obviously we can run things better than they can, so we have a duty to do so and have them work for us" line of reasoning. Britain, of course, has always included plenty of people who were not anglo-saxon, and for that matter the extent to which the English are anglo-saxon and not celtic is a matter of great dispute (but AIUI the general opinion is "not half so much as you'd think.")
6) Most of the empire was, ultimately, given away. In many cases by necessity, but not directly lost by revolution or conquest. Which is why the Commonwealth is a fairly cordial society. The US is eligible for membership, incidentally.


Shakespeare (and all the rest of that literature crap)
The Industrial Revolution (and all the rest of that science and invention crap, including the computer and the world wide web you're reading this on)
The Beatles (and all the rest of that musical crap)

T'ain't mediocre.

Influencing the world.

There... that was positive.