Best of British........but don't brag about it!

The British have always made a virtue of self-deprecation; we were brought up to despise boasters, blow-hards, show-offs, swankers and bull-shitters of every stripe. Secretly, of course, we believed that we ‘had won God’s lottery’ as Rhodes put it. But over the last 30 or 40 years we have begun to regard ourselves as natural losers. The sports headline that was never taken down was ‘England collapse’.

Now here’s funny thing.

We are actually rather good at a lot of things – better than most.

In the field of sport, we keep winning at cricket, produce gold medals galore at everything from athletics to swimming; we have the world’s richest soccer team in Man United (actually I think it is the world’s richest anything-team, ahead of the Yankee behemoths); we are always up-front in F1 motor racing and the industry itself is virtually an English monopoly. A member of the Royal Family is one of the world’s top equestrians and married to an international rugger player. She will represent England in the upcoming Olympics.

BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year was a Manxman; he is the world champion cyclist and winner of the Tour de France.

We have more world class symphony orchestras, musicians, artists, writers, et al than you can shake a stick at.

Two of the world’s top 3 universities are English.

We have one of the only two armed forces in Europe that is functional.

We produce more motor vehicles than we did during the heyday of the 50’s and 60’s. Rolls Royce has just had a record year (30% up in UK also). Jaguar is expanding rapidly and creating lots of new jobs. A component made in Cambridge is fitted to every mobile phone in the world.

And we have the world’s greatest brand; the Royal Family. Imagine if you had a brand that could rake in 2 TV billion viewers like the nuptials of Flight Lieutenant Wales RAF and Kate Middleton. It is said that the quickest way to make a fortune right now is for Kate to buy a dress designed by you.

But of course we won’t brag about it, will we?

Eggstrordinary

The last British battery hen has been released from captivity. The poultry industry has invested £400 million to comply with EU regulations banning battery cages. Guess who hasn’t spent one Euro yet? No prizes.

Here is some cheery news. The Economist’s ‘misery index’ shows that the top 3 most miserable countries are Macedonia, Venezuela, and Iran. UK only comes in at 47 and US at 50.