God bless Britain :-)
Cheers.
Here's hoping the Brits are on the right track for rekindling national pride.
bttt
I always admired the Britain of bygone days,the Britain that was proud of itself,even its insularity. The present Britain(at least as presented to the world by its leftist media)is either a weak imitation of what it thinks America is(again as presented by our own largely liberal/leftist media,at least until recently), or a wanna-be "cosmopolitan"(in the worst sense of the word)nation. I know that the Britain of "Mrs Miniver" was perhaps somewhat a caricature,but isn't a caricature kind of a distillation of the truth? Anyway,that's the Britain that I admired and respected,the one with those values and that faith in itself and that dignified self-respect.
I take a back seat to no one in my admiration of, and affection for, England, Mr. Browne, but.
The pocket calculater was not invented by Sir Clive. One could plausably argue that the inexpensive scientific calculator (transcendental functions, scientific notation, cost less than $100) was invented by him. I know; I had one. Got it in about 1975. It had six decimal places of precision and was painfully slow. Came out way after the HP-35, which was the real first scientific calculator, and cost almost $300 when first introduced. At that time, $300 would get you almost 1000 gallons of gasoline.
Laid eyes on a pocket calculator for the first time in 1971. It had six-segment (not a misprint) vacuum-florescent display tubes.
(steely)
We in the good ol' USA could learn from this. If others think you are week or self-loating they will fight you to knock you down. If thye percieve that you can not be knocked down they will scrape and grovel to be like you or at least your friend. We do nothing but get people in the 3rd world killed by not being strong and proud.
Why is Jeff Goldbloom burning that flag?
In most recent times the United States has become in a sense, the free worlds Britain Squared or Britain Super Sized. Obviously during WWII the free world learned the importance of developing safe havens within the United States and Great Britain.
The Brits invented Light Bulbs?
bump for later
A good sentiment, but full of inaccuracies.
For instance:
The internet was created in America, Berners-Lee only invented html.
James Watson (of DNA fame) was American and hence can hardly be held up as a British hero.
And the TV show Big Brother was a Dutch invention.
Informative article. Thanks for posting.
Excellent piece.
One shouldn't take Mr Browne too seriously in my opinion. He is the son of immigrants. His politics are informed by an immigrant's sensibility, which means a willingness to accept plenty more off-comers if 'necessary' (how could he object?). Furthermore his book on immigration is only discussed at all in mainstream circles because his arguments are in fact not very radical at all. The author boasts of having had many black girl-friends, urges the rest of us to adopt a similarly welcoming attitude to newcomers, and openly yearns for the day when national border controls will be a thing of the past and we can get on with the important business of having sex with Japanese people.
Mr Browne distinguishes between 'British' and 'Scottish' in his latest offering. This too is fairly typical. According to a broad rule of thumb operating in the 'British' press one can say quite a lot so long as it does nothing to inflame English nationalism, that is by using any reference likely to identify the English as a distinct peoples with their own traditions. Perhaps the author hasn't lived here long enough to know the English exist. Anthony Browne lives in London. Once the capital of England, that city is home to few English people nowadays, and what few remain are busy making plans to leave, a phenomenon that come to be known as 'White Flight'. I rather think the future dreamed of by this particular 'patriot' has all ready come to pass. He is welcome to it.