Monday 27 October 2008

The One That Is Putting The Bunting Away . . .

Oh dear. The Brown Gorgon has had to make a minion announce that plans for a 'Britshness Day' are being quietly dropped.

I'm actually quite sad about it. I like the idea of a Bastille Day or a 4th of July, it could be fun. Of course in our Brave New World there'd be none of the Joie de Vivre the French have in their annual tear-up or the 'Yeah! We're Best!' exclamations of the Americans. No, we'd be stuck with a day 'celebrating' British diversity, multi-culturalism, tolerance, our ratification of ECHR, I'm losing the will to live here, people, our adoption of sustainable ecological wossname and it would all be celebrated with a glass of tap water, a rich tea-biscuit for the great and good. There would be no singing, no dancing, no waving of flags, no fun and no bloody point.

We would have to celebrate a politically acceptable ideal of what the Righteous think Britain should be.

Well, I don't want that. I want Roast Beef and Real Ale, Haggis and Malt Whisky, I want Chicken Tandoori and bloody great big vodka Lassis, I want the music of Elgar, Handel, Novello, Lennon and McCartney (ooh, an immigrant, see what I'm doing there?), I want the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Burns and Marlowe, the art of Constable, Lowry and Banksy. I want tables on the street with kids wearing Union Flag, St. George Cross, St. Andrew saltaire and Welsh dragon plastic hats gorging themselves on sausage rolls, cake and fizzy drinks. I want the best fucking soldiers in the world dressed in their finery on parade in every barracks town, the Royal Navy putting on a show in Pompey and Devonport and the RAF demonstrating their skills in the skies.

And you know what Righteous? That's all fine, because it isn't about white skinned protestants. I am just as British as the Sikh Indian, Muslim Bangladeshi or Pentecostal Tobagan that now live here. We have always, always, accepted and absorbed new people, new languages, new religions and new ideas. You will not divide us. You are the racists, sowing dissent and mistrust, ghettoising people whilst pretending you are looking out for their interests.

You disgust me, you arrogant, mealy mouthed, joyless little cretins.

Right, let's get me diary out. How about the following dates:

Waterloo Day (June 18th)
Armada Day (August 8th)
Trafalgar Day (October 21st)

All a bit militaristic for you? OK. . .

May 25th? - The day we got rid of the last lot of bastards who patronised, smothered and generally made everybody miserable. Yes, that was the day we got rid of Tumbledown Dick.

Does that offend your Republican leanings?

Hell, I'll even meet you half way, let's go for August 24th, the birthday of William Wilberforce, you know, the guy who pushed through the legislation banning the slave trade? Surely that's a date we'll all be able to agree on.

And that's the difference between you and me, I'll happily come to a consensus, rather than whining and bitching and stifiling any debate with accusations of impropriety. That's why I'm better than you. That's why I want to stand on a chair in August with a belly full of Biddenden Cider singing Land of Hope Glory at the top of my lungs with tears running down my face, because I know what this country could be and should be if you lot stopped tutting and making disapproving faces. Because all the above belongs to everybody in Britain, regardless of skin colour, religious belief or anything, and there's nothing you can do about it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could I be excused the Chicken Tandoori please (it gives me terrible wind the next day)

Mac the Knife said...

Hear bloody hear... :)