How do you define British culture?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Richard Attenborough

Lawrence Olivier

Alec Guinness

John Gielgud

David Attenborough

Eton/Harrow/Roedean/Charterhouse

Country Pubs

Love of Dogs

South Downs/North Downs/Cotswolds/Mendips/Chilterns/Yorkshire Moors and Dales/Peak and Lake Districts/Scottish Highlands/ Snowdonia/Brecon Beacons..

Castles

Finest Football League and Clubs in the WORLD

Lords

Grand National/Derby

Oxford/Cambridge Universities

Finest Theatres in the World (probably!)

Ralph Fiennes

Richard Branson

Explorers

Inventors

The list goes on and on.....probably the greatest Nation on Earth with probably the highest number of self-loathingPeople who absolutely ADORE anything more Cosmopolitan:)

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Insularity.

[Mikecg]

I think you left a couple out guys what about,

The British Legion

Darby and Joan

The Sunday Roast.

[Mikecg]

Oh! and Guy Fawkes.

The Industrial Revolution.

[brum]

I'd be interested to see a list compiled by someone not of these shores....Brendan? How would you define British culture? Try not to offend our fragile egoes too much!

[Mikecg]

Don't mention the war or our colonial past or the fact that we taught the World.

Oh I forgot Charles Darwin in my earlier post.

[Huguenot]

I love that squealy nasal noise that comes out of the regions when it comes to being British. Like or not, the Scottish or the Welsh can only really define themselves by not being English.

Whether it's Irvine Welsh, Rabbie Burns or Mel Gibson, the Scottish are biscuit tin cameos, not cultural leviathans. The glens have no greater identity than the shires. The Welsh are witty enough to get the joke, the Scots nationalists hide like weasels behind Sean Connery as if being a filmstar makes you clever. How pathetic.

Felicity "I'm not going to answer that question" Normal, how I do hope you're not British. But you probably are. There's always someone who lets the side down. It's spectacularly British that strangers will rub your back and pander to your inadequacies whilst you wee on their shoes.

You probably misconstrue being picked early for the netball team as a reflection of your quality. It's not, it's because everyone else can't stand having you ruin their fun by whinging, wailing and puking in the corner about being picked last - another British trait.

This forum is your nation, your peers, your colleagues, the people who metalled your roads and wired your broadband. Without your nation you'd be crying at your reflection in a broken mirror.

Like Kevin and Perry, the small-minded snort and dribble and demand attention because they have nothing to give.

Stand up, be nice, be generous, it's a sign of strength.

JL and HB, I raise a glass. TLS your list was so 1974. Either way these are the ideas that stride the world, and I'm so pleased to have them.

Brenda, it's over there.. there... behind you.

[macroban]

> JL and HB, I raise a glass. TLS your list was so 1974.

What a very odd comment.

Three lists (with extensions).

All I can infer from the lists is that Tony is a few years older than the other two.

I would also stretch the inference to say that Hugenot is the youngest of the four.

Making lists does not define a culture, except perhaps to suggest that part of British Culture is making lists.

[HonaloochieB]

macroban Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> > JL and HB, I raise a glass. TLS your list was so

> 1974.

>

> What a very odd comment.

>

> Three lists (with extensions).

>

> All I can infer from the lists is that Tony is a

> few years older than the other two.

>

> I would also stretch the inference to say that

> Hugenot is the youngest of the four.

>

> Making lists does not define a culture, except

> perhaps to suggest that part of British Culture is

> making lists.

Top Of The Pops.

The Charts.

School league tables.

Top 100s.

Top 10s.

Precisely Mac.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

British TV Formats

British Nature Programmes

Morecambe and Wise

Bob Monkhouse

Freedom to Mock The Week and The Establishment

The Monarchy

London Royal Parks

Edinburgh Festival

BBC

Stephen Fry

Pauk Merson

Paul Merton

Boris Johnson

Trevor Philips

Home Ownership

Weather discussions

Elgar/Benjamin Brittain/Henry Wood/Malcolm Sargent

Proms Season

The Four Seasons

Bluebells/Primroses/Daffodils

Green Countryside

Richard Branson/Virgin Brand

Ellen McCarthy

Liverpool Kop/Jungle at Celtic Park

James Bond

Noel Coward

[Tony.London Suburbs]

How could I forget???

Self-Depreciation : The confidence and inner strength to mock yourself and the intelligence to sometimes do it to take "the wind out of the sails" of potential protagionists.

[Huguenot]

MacRoban, I fear you are too rigid in your perspective. A cultural trait of your own perhaps?

A culture is as difficult to define as Plato's very own table. It is a mark of the wit and creativity of our contributors that they have chose to define our culture by its manifest creations.

In much the same way, another national culture might be defined by the parsimony of their intellectual charity?

Not sure what age has to do with the price of fish though?

[????]

It srtrikes me that the lists are definitely "English"...and I always say I'm english.....britishness, whatever that was, is on the decline (I think it existed as part of the 'empire' and pulling together in the war etc) in general - but I also believe that black and british is more commonly used than black and english, say.

Gordon and the Labour party are of course petrified of the rise of Englishness as the Scots and Welsh have way kicked above their weight in terms of politicians and PMs inspite of the fact that whatever goes wrong in Wales and Scotland seems to get blamed on 'english politicians'...I'd happily have an independent England...

[Tony.London Suburbs]

???? Wrote:

..and I always say I'm english...

Moi aussi Quids....

I also believe that black and british is more commonly used than black and english, say.

There is no comparison. The ratio is Thousands-to-One! That is, in great part, to the fact that many Black people feel that there are not perceived as "English" by the indigenous population.

Gordon and the Labour party are of course petrified of the rise of Englishness ....

Not just them either!

Vive Le Revolucion! (just joking) "just"B)

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Huguenot Wrote:

Not sure what age has to do with the price of fish though?

No, that does make sense H. as my perceptions and experiences as a 54-year-old who has witnessed an enormous Cultural change in London and England and, indeed, Britain must be different from, say, a 24-year-old.

Accordingly, many in my list will be from my formative and impressionable early years in The 1960's/1970's which many here will not have experienced.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

In the 1960's it was widely accepted that England, Londonium in particular, was the nucleus of The World Music, Fashion. Photographic and Arts industries and made it an incredibly vibrant and colourful place, accordingly.

So add Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood to that list.:)

[red devil]

Tolerance...

[LegalEagle-ish]

Boy (and girl) racers

happy hour

bull breed dogs

tattoos & piercings

raves in fields

borrowing sugar from neighbours

punch-ups with your drunk friends

sex in cars/alley ways/car parks

recreational drugs

decking

cult of shopping

Eastenders

hedonsim

living for today

tracksuits & trainers

bling

tolerance

fatalisim

[Moos]

LegalEagle's list was the only one for me that wasn't mired in the 60s. Sorry chaps.

[Cassius]

I was going to say cricket; the love of a game that can last for 5 days and end in a draw, where you can have almost as much fun sitting under an umbrella during a rain break having a drink as you can watching the actual game, and actually wanting the best team, not necessarily your team to win; but maybe that's English and not British.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Cassius for Mayor.

[Crona]

No one, so far, mentioned the art of queuing (because it is art) and the polite gesture of saying sorry if someone steps on you?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Crona Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> No one, so far, mentioned the art of queuing

> (because it is art) and the polite gesture of

> saying sorry if someone steps on you?

I, belatedly, thought of queueing.

As for the second: I was (probably with good reasonB)) informed that my list was so "yesterday"-Bloody Beatles again...but while "saying sorry if someone steps on you?" WAS so 1960's/1970's the opposite is true in some parts of London now1

If one does not apologise quicktime for stepping ON someones shoes, in the wrong Club, then it is seen as a sign of disrespect, with certain, occassional, consequences(td)

[Brendan]

Cassius Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I was going to say cricket; the love of a game

> that can last for 5 days and end in a draw, where

> you can have almost as much fun sitting under an

> umbrella during a rain break having a drink as you

> can watching the actual game, and actually wanting

> the best team, not necessarily your team to win;

> but maybe that's English and not British.

Or Australian, South African, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, West Indian, Kiwi, Bangladeshi, Zimbabwean, Kenyan?

Which brings me to answer Brum?s request to give a list of how an ?outsider? perceives British culture. Although for someone who comes from one of the old colonies it is difficult to separate your culture from that of Britain because the bulk of your history and therefore culture is shared. It is only a brief period of less then 200 years that they have been diverging. Even over this time the cultures of Britain and the rest of the English speaking world have been very interdependent and influential upon each other. So for a true outsider, say a fellow from the Mongolian Steppes, they would seem almost indistinguishable.

Anyway reflection aside, I would say I could only define it by its exports, some old some new, which are both positive and negative and sometimes polar opposites,

- Eloquence

- Fair play (some people would call this tolerance but I prefer not to because the term implies a whole bunch of ideological yet unworkable ideas rather than just giving your fellow man a fair go)

- Humour

- Superficiality (This refers to pop culture, celebries, material obsession etc.)

- Entrenched privilege/exploitation

- Self absorbed neurosis

[Ted Max]

I love that squealy nasal noise that comes out of the regions when it comes to being British. Like or not, the Scottish or the Welsh can only really define themselves by not being English.

This is a very stupid post from a very intelligent contributor. I'm going to put it down to a touch of malarial fever. Have more tonic with the gin, old chap.

Whether it's Irvine Welsh, Rabbie Burns or Mel Gibson, the Scottish are biscuit tin cameos, not cultural leviathans. The glens have no greater identity than the shires. The Welsh are witty enough to get the joke, the Scots nationalists hide like weasels behind Sean Connery as if being a filmstar makes you clever. How pathetic.]

Man of straw. Puff puff.