Hooray for the English!! Yay!!!!

Indeed!

Happy St George's day.

A very happy St Georges Day. It is not only England's day but my old Regiments formation day (The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers).

Budgies! :-)

To quote the most wonderful writer who ever lived,whose birthday and death anniversary today also is:


This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

I can't remember who said that being English is not a nationality but an attitude of mind. One characteristic for which the English are famous is the ability to laugh at themselves, which is of course true as long as the foreign chappies realise that hidden in that laughter somewhere is an intrinsic awareness that being a self-deprecating English person is so much better than not being one. I'll let you think about that while you listen to two great Englishmen* singing their great song of England: A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

*Two archetypal Englishmen... one of whom, Donald Swann was Welsh. Although his father was raised in England. Oh wait, his father's family was Russian. Well, they were and they weren't - they were Russian but were actually descended from English emigrés who worked for the Muscovy Company. And his mother was from what is now Turkmenistan. If that doesn't make him English nothing will.

They certainly were The Flower of the English! Loved it Thanks