My Country 'Tis of Tea

Posted 18:42 (GMT) 25th April 2008

As you may have guessed from the comic, it was St. George's day this week. Why should you care? Well, since most of my readers are American there really is no reason to care but since you make so much fucking fuss over St Patrick's day and you don't even speak Gaelic I think it's only fair that you acknowledge the patron saints of countries like England and Germany too. But really if you're not from England then there's no reason why you'd care. In fact, there's no reason why you'd care even if you are. Unlike St Patrick's day, there's no parade, no special drinks or songs when April 23rd rolls around because people largely don't care.

I have mixed feelings about that. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing. On the one hand, it's important to know who you are and where you're from because those two things are linked. And if a nation suffers from an identity crisis all it takes is for someone to come along and tell you what it means to belong to that nation and fill in the blanks, as it were, with whatever hateful shit they like. On the other hand, a strong sense of national identity can all too easily spill over into nationalism and xenophobia. It's like confidence. Some people are really confident but actually beneath the surface they're the most insecure and they're desperately over-compensating. Other people seem shy and lacking in confidence, but they're just self-aware and deep down they have the most confidence because they don't feel the need to swagger around like the seemingly-confident arrogant pricks. Why am I talking about Nazis? Never mind.

The point is you should be proud of who you are - but don't be a dick. Because of the dick factor everyone gets so edgy when you talk about what makes people different - but Gandhi said civilization is the celebration of our differences. So I'm going to take this opportunity to lay down why I think it's so cool being English. It's not the greatest country in the world, we're not better than everyone else, we're just different in our own special way. Here's why:

1. It rains a lot

It rains most of the time in this country, especially up North. Now, most people might think that's a bad thing but I love the rain. It instills a special kind of resilience in people whilst at the same time taking them down a few pegs. The rain falls on everyone equally - it's hard to think you're better than everyone else when the clouds are pissing on you. At the same time, you learn to like the rain or lump it - you either steadfastly ignore the rain as you walk home or you develop stockholm syndrome and embrace it. Either way, you endure. The archetypal English stiff upper lip would never have come about if it weren't for the constant rain. I know people who will sit on a beach in the pouring rain insisting that it will brighten up in a minute.

Plus, it breeds perpetual expectation of disappointment, a sort of low-grade pessimism. People always expect their picnics to be ruined. There's nothing the English love more than being disappointed. We're extremely cynical. This actually has an effect on our politics. When they said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq my knee-jerk reaction was "Pfft." I just don't trust authority. I'm not very gullible. I'm very sarcastic. I put that down to the weather.

2. We're very polite

The English are very polite on the whole. At least, compared to some other countries. I understand Canadians are very polite, too. Belgians are the most polite. Anyway, politeness has a thousand uses but the main use is to subtly insinuate your hatred of someone without ever explicitly telling them. That's why we're always cast as villains in movies. It's because under that reserved, gentlemanly exterior you never know what our true motives are. Bwahahahahahaha!

3. We drink a lot of tea

In a world where religious leaders, advertisers, pharmaceutical companies and politicians are all promising to solve all your problems don't you just wish you lived in a country where any problem can be solved with a cup of tea? Seriously, there's nothing tea can't do. It's magic or something. That's awesome. That's another thing-

4. We believed in dragons

For the longest time, and St. George is a testament to this fact, the people of this country believed in dragons. Actually for real believed in them. That's ass. Screw Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin - our national heritage includes fucking dragons. That's got to be worth celebrating every April.

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