Beijing 2008, or: who else isn't watching?

[Adrian II]

That was very funny.

Adrian, what is your connection to the U.K.? You seem to show a particular affinity for it in your posts. Have you lived there at all?

You could say the same with regard to threee other countries. I simply love our neighbours like I love my own country; in many ways I identify with Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. I grew up visiting them countless times, making friends and acquaintances in all four of them, reading their literature, papers and magazines, watching their movies and tv channels - and of course writing about them. This little cluster of countries embodies the best and the worst of European history and culture and by extension, in my mind, of mankind.

Call me a North Sea-centrist..

[Strike For The South]

You could say the same with regard to threee other countries. I simply love our neighbours like I love my own country; in many ways I identify with Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. I grew up visiting them countless times, making friends and acquaintances in all four of them, reading their literature, papers and magazines, watching their movies and tv channels - and of course writing about them. This little cluster of countries embodies the best and the worst of European history and culture and by extension, in my mind, of mankind.

Call me a North Sea-centrist..

Communist

[Adrian II]

Communist

Okay. I read books, I admit it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Call me a North Sea-centrist..

Countries, cultures, in my opinion, are difficult to group in exclusive clusters. To speak of Europe as divided in 'Latin', 'Germanic', or Catholic / Protestant / Orthodox is fruitless. Too many overlaps.

Better is the analogy of a ripples in a pond. A certain cultural trait will usually have a clear centre, and ripples out. Europe then, is a pond with many different ciricles, of many clusters of cultures.

The marriage of language and the nationstate in the nineteenth century, at the exclusion of most other cultural identities, has diminshed the prominence of many of these underlying cultural belts, or clusters. But they are still intact.
France is clearly 'Latin', but it also falls within the circle of Northern Europe. Beer drinking Germany and Britain belong to a separate cluster from France, together with the Czechs, Danes and Belgians. As opossed to the wine drinking countries to the south, or the Vodka belt to the east and north. Britain is sometimes Anglosaxon, and sometimes European. Etcetera.

What then, this is my question, is the common denominator between your five countries? Apart from sharing in the fortune of being Belgium's immediate neighbours, is there a common denominator, a North Sea culture?

[Adrian II]

The marriage of language and the nationstate in the nineteenth century, at the exclusion of most other cultural identities, has diminshed the prominence of many of these underlying cultural belts, or clusters. But they are still intact.

Without a doubt, esteemed colleague. Though I would point out that a narrative analysis of contemporary identity formation marginalizes extraterritorial influences.

What then, this is my question, is the common denominator between your five countries?

This, then, is my answer: I like them.

[Husar]

This, then, is my answer: I like them.

And so do I, no really.

[JR-]

This, then, is my answer: I like them.

And so do I, no really.

That's what worries me! *









only kidding.

[Papewaio]

What then, this is my question, is the common denominator between your five countries? Apart from sharing in the fortune of being Belgium's immediate neighbours, is there a common denominator, a North Sea culture?

The five biggest colonial powers at one point.
Yet now five of the most influential and stable democracies around...

Good models for positive upwards trend, even if some of them are two steps forward and one step back.

[Strike For The South]

Countries, cultures, in my opinion, are difficult to group in exclusive clusters. To speak of Europe as divided in 'Latin', 'Germanic', or Catholic / Protestant / Orthodox is fruitless. Too many overlaps.

Better is the analogy of a ripples in a pond. A certain cultural trait will usually have a clear centre, and ripples out. Europe then, is a pond with many different ciricles, of many clusters of cultures.

The marriage of language and the nationstate in the nineteenth century, at the exclusion of most other cultural identities, has diminshed the prominence of many of these underlying cultural belts, or clusters. But they are still intact.
France is clearly 'Latin', but it also falls within the circle of Northern Europe. Beer drinking Germany and Britain belong to a separate cluster from France, together with the Czechs, Danes and Belgians. As opossed to the wine drinking countries to the south, or the Vodka belt to the east and north. Britain is sometimes Anglosaxon, and sometimes European. Etcetera.

What then, this is my question, is the common denominator between your five countries? Apart from sharing in the fortune of being Belgium's immediate neighbours, is there a common denominator, a North Sea culture?

Communist

[Adrian II]

Communist

Texan!

[Viking]

Texan!

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Texan!

Compliment!

[Strike For The South]

Texan!

You and the other europeans should start some kind of union

[Adrian II]

You and the other europeans should start some kind of union

You guys don't have the guts to secede.

[Strike For The South]

[KukriKhan]

You guys don't have the guts to secede.

LOL.

Maybe Russia should issue passports to Texans.

[CountArach]

You guys don't have the guts to secede.

Haha