British day

[matteus the inbred]

I'd disagree. I've always thought of myself as British rather than English or Welsh, and a lot of the people I've met would also describe themselves as British rather than English.

is this because it's easier to say 'British' than to say 'Welsh' or 'English' etc and then explain that that's also British? 'British' is a nice recognisable cover-all. i certainly don't wish to offend anyone however, so i'll leave this one here and not pretend to know what Celtic and Welsh people think about it. or other English people for that matter.

Hastings was more of a joke suggestion really, i know it would mean nothing to Scottish, Welsh and Irish people...i disagree with using a historically significant date as an excuse for this, as i think what Gordon Brown really means is, he'd like to see all the relatively recently immigrated British people from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean etc support the notion of being British and proud of it before anything else...a unifying effort to counteract the hostility caused by recent terrorism. so while Waterloo might mean something to me, i doubt it means a lot to AJ down at my local off-licence cos he only moved from Bangladesh fifteen years ago, eg.

on the subject, 'The English' by Jeremy Paxman is a very good book to read