Top Ten Livable Countries

Ok, I was only joking. Last time I was in London I had very good Chinese and Italian food. And even some palatable shepperd's pie. (sp?)

Steve
You don't need Aussie restaurants - we don't have them here!

But the standard of English food has been improved greatly by an influx of Aussie chefs!

I don't wish to appear patronising to our antipodean friends, they are after all valued members of the Commonwealth, but one has to ask the question what exactly is Australia for? I suppose we have to keep up their morale by allowing them to beat us at cricket occasionally, or in some other trivial pursuit.

And yes I am feeling a bit bitter and twisted at the moment. Its like everything else, we teach the rest of the world useful lessons in democracy, fair play, the rule of law, civilised behaviour, kindness to animals and less fortunate people, and we get not the slightest recognition or token of gratitude. I don't know why we bothered having an Empire sometimes. As for football and cricket golf rugby (and just about all the other sports that have truly international appeal that we have given the world) British teams should be given the courtesy of at least 1 goal start, in recognition and gratitude for us having invented the game in the first place. (And the fact that perhaps we never really took it that seriously in the first place and consequently aren't very good).

Well more tongue in cheek than bitter

Well, you're quite good in football, even if you didn't win the World Cup. I don't know about this spotting of goals, however.

Steve
We let you have a bit of a win in the rugby this year, so kwitchyabitchin. You even knocked over the All-Blacks. Next year will be different.

But those cricketers!!! 2 more tests to go - and it would be nice if at least one could be some sort of match. We're thinking of phoning our scores in and letting you go a couple of innings by yourself to see how you do!

Setanta

The name of the country is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So really you should call me a unitedkingdomofgreatbritainandnorthernirelander. Now I can understand why Americans might get a little confused by this and are tempted just to call us all English. But don't make that mistake with a Scot or Welshman! Best to call us all Brits living in Britain. Just like we call all Americans living in N America Yanks?(!)

We Yanks are so ignorant about these things.

Thanks Margo

That would be a great help. And yes we are pretty good at rugby at the moment, should last for a year or so, just long enough to.... Its because we've started to take the professional game a whole lot more seriously, which is good in one respect but bad for the sport in the long run imho.

LMAO, Steve--there are still a great many places in this country where the term Yankee is a vile epithet, best be careful where you use it. Your remarks about sports reminded me: Every few years, there is a nostalgic romp in the letters to the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the origins of baseball. The last time i saw this, there were references to various newspapers in the New York/New Jersey area, in the 1830's, referring to the game of base ball [sic]. I once wrote in (in a completely innocent desire to set the record straight, mind you) to inform the editors that the opening paragraph of Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, published pusthumously in 1817, refers to the main character in terms which an American would call a tom-boy, and lists, among her pursuits, the game of baseball, spelled exactly as it is today. I was resolutely ignored.

I don't think Yanks (now I will stop using that term) are so much ignorant about the rest of the world as not needing to know anything about it.

But we occasionally hear of ad hoc surveys of Americans, (there was one recently on geography) that does makes you wonder. Out of 20 people, only 1 could identify Iraq on the map. (And that's before its wiped off the map) Virtually all confused England with Britain. Most thought Scotland and Wales were somehow part of England, and that the "Queen of England" ruled the country from Buckingham Palace.

Oh what drivel, everyone who knows anything knows she prefers to rule her evil empire from Windsor . . .

Set

I take my baseball cap off to you!

Hannover

hannover what, the goods?

I got a chuckle out of Steve assessment that if you are loaded, anywhere would be okay. I took it as meaning drunk!

Good one LightW. I meant of course rich. But loaded in your use of the word is beter. I'll drink to that (damnit no drunk emoticons with quick response)

You know, if yer loaded enough (as in a total piss-up), the same applies--just about anywhere is good enough when yer blind drunk . . .

Naah

Dont be silly.. Hannover ... y'no that little old place in Germany where our Royals come from. (And to where I wish they would retire)

Interesting piece in today's Daily Mail (tabloid, but likes to think of itself as respectable).

Summary:-

The British Royals are German. Edward 7 "there is not a drop of blood in my veins that is not German".

The King acted totally unconstitutionally by publically endorsing Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany.

Rudolf Hess and the Duke of Kent were killed in a plane crash on their way to a conference in Iceland. They were conspiring to have the King present Churchill with a fait accompli...end the war or you are gone, by Royal prerogative!

Anthony Blunt, communist spy and keeper of the Queens Pictures, was the illegitimate son of George 5. He went to Germany after the war to retrieve embarrassing letters from the royals to Nazi German nobility and Nazi leaders including Hermann Goring.

Prince Philip's sisters all married high ranking Germans. Consequently at his wedding to Elizabeth in 1947, he could invite only 2 guests. 'The prospect of pews being filled with Nazi sympathisers was to be avoided at all costs'.

The 'English' royals changed their family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor only when the prospect of German Gotha bombers dropping ordnance on London during WW1 became too much to bear. (of course everyone knows that)

Walter, if you are reading this, I think you know me well enough not to assume from any of the above that I am anti German. I do have a problem with National Socialism however, and furthermore I want to elect my head of State. Unfortunately both Adolf Hitler and the British Royal Family are German!