What is wrong with St George's Day celebrations?

[Carl the Llama]

Honestly though like I alluded to earlier - the things that I can think of to best celebrate 'Englishness' would be having a pint down the pub followed by a carvery, in other words every Sunday (or every day if you happen to live somewhere like the Spanish or Turkish coast).  

 

The reason nobody seems to care is because the limited things to do on the day which 99% of the population don't find embarrassing are the exact same things we do most of the time anyway and in true English fashion we don't like to make a big deal out of these things for the sake of it.  We aren't like the Americans who get excited over trivial accomplishments like pushing a wooden crate into some water for goodness sake.

[Rincewind]

This 2016. We do not have an Empire or rule the waves. We have abolished slavery, Lord and servant is reserved for the few. So that leaves those at the bottom to decide what is English. For me I hope it is having compassion, embracing multiculturalism and equality. I will leave bigotry for the ignorant. Englishness is for al those that live in England where each of us can celebrate each other's traditions as one owns. That is what makes us different to other countries where people are afraid to open their eyes and see that we are just one race. The Human race. And may it last forever. 

[z-layrex]

I don't feel comfortable celebrating it because the only people I see giving a shit about it are the far right types (my elder sister included).

Would rather just ignore it. I am proud to be English though, don't need a day for that. We are English everyday.

[Alf Bentley]

There's being English because you're born in England and have Englishness.

And there's being ethnically English and having Englishness.

Both similar, yet different.

 

You can be ethnically Irish and British nationality? Get out of town. That sounds like an oxymoron.

To be clear, anyone born in England is English. You're either ethnically English, or civicly English.

If you assume that, for example, a Chinese looking person born in England is a 'full blown English person', then that reduces the concept of someone with clear 'Anglo-Saxonage' also born in England, as being 'full blown English'. There has to be some recognised defining description of what an ethnc English person is or isn't. Like a definition of a word. Like a first impression.

 

I didn't say it was 'shit'.

I'm a culturalist, love freedom of choice and cultural mingling 

 

 

Someone had better nip over to the Shankhill and tell the Loyalists that you can't be Irish and have British nationality. About 20 years back, I went to a talk by the impressive Loyalist leader David Ervine (RIP) and he stressed that he was Irish and British. Someone had better tell the UK Passport Office, too. They've been giving me British passports since birth despite 3/4 of my family being ethnically Irish.

 

I research family history and do have an ancestral line that is English as far back as I can trace it, which is only to about 1800. My English-born great-great-great-grandfather from that line was in the Royal Artillery at the time of the Crimean War. Would he count as English? I've no idea whether he could trace his ancestry back to the Anglo-Saxons. I wonder if anyone has, apart from royalty/aristocracy? You'd be talking quite literally about MILLIONS of direct ancestors, mostly undocumented.

 

You haven't got back to me about the Queen. Is she English? She does have a few Anglo-Saxon ancestors, but an awful lot of ethnically un-English forebears, too: William the Conqueror (French), Henry VII (Welsh), the Stuarts (Scottish), the Hanoverians....although do they count as English? They presumably originated from the same place (Saxony) as the Saxons, it's just that they stayed there for another 1000 years before coming to England. Prince Charles is even less English, presumably, as his Dad came from Greece (though he's a cousin of the Queen, so had a few Anglo-Saxon ancestors, too).

 

Real life intervenes for me today, then real life and football from tomorrow, so I'll bow out now. It's been fun, though. I've ended up feeling more determined to embrace my Englishness, while not letting go of my Irishness. Englishness should not be left to the "No surrender to the IRA" and "Ain't no black in the Union Jack" bigots.

 

When I was 21, I spent about 3 months wandering around France, the longest period I'd ever been outside England back then. I remember the ferry back and the emotions that I felt when I saw the white cliffs of Dover again. The 3 things that I wanted to do were to eat some English fish and chips, to drink several pints of English ale and to listen to John Peel's radio programme, with its eclectic mix of English punk, Scottish pop, American rock'n'roll, Jamaican reggae, German KrautRock, Irish folk-rock, Japanese electro-pop and the rest (not much Bhangra, Welsh or African music till later, I think?). What could be more English? 

 

See you next St. George's Day!

[digitalalba]

We have abolished slavery

Zero hour contracts, minimum wage, the richest 1% richer than the other 99%, slavery is alive and well.

[digitalalba]

Someone had better nip over to the Shankhill and tell the Loyalists that you can't be Irish and have British nationality. About 20 years back, I went to a talk by the impressive Loyalist leader David Ervine (RIP) and he stressed that he was Irish and British. Someone had better tell the UK Passport Office, too. They've been giving me British passports since birth despite 3/4 of my family being ethnically Irish.

 

I research family history and do have an ancestral line that is English as far back as I can trace it, which is only to about 1800. My English-born great-great-great-grandfather from that line was in the Royal Artillery at the time of the Crimean War. Would he count as English? I've no idea whether he could trace his ancestry back to the Anglo-Saxons. I wonder if anyone has, apart from royalty/aristocracy? You'd be talking quite literally about MILLIONS of direct ancestors, mostly undocumented.

 

You haven't got back to me about the Queen. Is she English? She does have a few Anglo-Saxon ancestors, but an awful lot of ethnically un-English forebears, too: William the Conqueror (French), Henry VII (Welsh), the Stuarts (Scottish), the Hanoverians....although do they count as English? They presumably originated from the same place (Saxony) as the Saxons, it's just that they stayed there for another 1000 years before coming to England. Prince Charles is even less English, presumably, as his Dad came from Greece (though he's a cousin of the Queen, so had a few Anglo-Saxon ancestors, too).

 

Real life intervenes for me today, then real life and football from tomorrow, so I'll bow out now. It's been fun, though. I've ended up feeling more determined to embrace my Englishness, while not letting go of my Irishness. Englishness should not be left to the "No surrender to the IRA" and "Ain't no black in the Union Jack" bigots.

 

When I was 21, I spent about 3 months wandering around France, the longest period I'd ever been outside England back then. I remember the ferry back and the emotions that I felt when I saw the white cliffs of Dover again. The 3 things that I wanted to do were to eat some English fish and chips, to drink several pints of English ale and to listen to John Peel's radio programme, with its eclectic mix of English punk, Scottish pop, American rock'n'roll, Jamaican reggae, German KrautRock, Irish folk-rock, Japanese electro-pop and the rest (not much Bhangra, Welsh or African music till later, I think?). What could be more English? 

 

See you next St. George's Day!

The Irish aren't Northern Irish, The irish are irish. It's for you to decide what nationality you are, but defining yourself as 25% this and 75% that, is ridiculous. You're surely 100% something? Can you be 75% a city fan and 25% f****t?

 

Would he? I don't think you read what I say very well.

The queen is English because she was born here. It's irrelevant what her parentage is.

There is nothing Spanish about non Spanishness.

 

People have let themselves be taken in by the false notion that their Englisness is somehow less worthy. To embrace it is somehow breaking some 'society code' that has been inflicted upon us by very nasty people. It's not wrong to defend the good name of the football club that they support, your taste in music, the fact that you still watch cartoons or soaps, but defending your Englishness, and they crumble as if it's some kind of crime. It's mind control, brainwashing, and sad that it happens.

 

Fight against fascism folks, that's the right and proper thing to do.

[Rincewind]

Zero hour contracts, minimum wage, the richest 1% richer than the other 99%, slavery is alive and well.

You are quoting things I normally moan about. Thought you would.

[Voll Blau]

I don't know anyone who thinks Englishness is "less worthy" than anywhere else, and neither have I read about anyone saying that.

 

Not sure you're even full English pal, you seem to be at least 50% straw man in most of this thread.

[digitalalba]

I don't know anyone who thinks Englishness is "less worthy" than anywhere else, and neither have I read about anyone saying that.

I wasn't equating it to other nationalities, I was pointing out that people in our society have demonised English people into believing that being English and being proud is somewhat 'wrong'.

[Voll Blau]

I wasn't equating it to other nationalities, I was pointing out that people in our society have demonised English people into believing that being English and being proud is somewhat 'wrong'.

 

Who has? Show me the evidence.

[Finnaldo]

Who has? Show me the evidence.

 

Presumably the five Daily Mail article alluded to in that video he posted.

 

I mean never mind that the resounding response in this thread that most aren't 'fearful'  of being English, and are either proud, embarrassed of the right wing or just don't give a sh!t, a paper with an obvious right wing stance said that about 20 people are scared about being English over a span of six years most probably because they read other people are scared of being English in the same paper. 

 

Therefore everyone's lying because the Daily Mail said so, all of us are too scared to be proud of England despite coming out in the millions during World Cups and Euros to support our country, but apparently international doesn't count because it's football(??).

 

That's the important lesson I gathered from this. 

[z-layrex]

Zero hour contracts, minimum wage, the richest 1% richer than the other 99%, slavery is alive and well.

The girl from Vietnam who works nights in my hospitals coffee shop has to do 8 nights in a row, 2 days off then 8 on again. No annual leave, no sick pay. If she doesn't work that rota she gets no work because there will always be someone else desperate to do it. The shitty company responsible is AMT.

Slavery is very much alive in this shitty country.

[digitalalba]

Who has? Show me the evidence.

[digitalalba]

The girl from Vietnam who works nights in my hospitals coffee shop has to do 8 nights in a row, 2 days off then 8 on again. No annual leave, no sick pay. If she doesn't work that rota she gets no work because there will always be someone else desperate to do it. The shitty company responsible is AMT.

Slavery is very much alive in this shitty country.

The people of this country are responsible for their own demise.