The English greatest weapon....

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I love football, Its a pity that a relatively small group of 'fans' gives us all such a bad reputation but, it has.
And I do know that we do not help ourselves with our behaviour.
In the recent Euro's, the English were rounded up by the Police while in the next street the Poles Germans were knocking seven bells of crap out of each other.
But, as I said before other countries are not that innocent..
Do you have the same in America with football / baseball?
Cheers
John
 

I know my friend. I am just giving you crap.

It really is not that bad with American sports. I have never seen that happen here. You always have a few drunk idiots who get stupid, but not on the same level as European Football. I guess it is a good thing for Europeans that guns are banned. Can you imagine Football Hooligans with guns?
 


Guns and beer? gulp.... it'll be like WW3...
The Russian crowds are bad, very racist and violent. They shock even us !
But, they are behind the times in many ways.
 
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"... It really is not that bad with American sports"

Except in Quebec where they riot when they win and when they lose in hockey ... and increasingly, in Vancouver.

Puzzled Canadian

MM
 
Great things about Britain.
Beer.

Music - Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Rolling Stones....need I go on?

Humour

BBC4

Radio 6

Crap things about Britain.

The weather. Bloody rain.

Public transport. Overpriced and underachieving.

The bloody weather again.

Lager brewed in Britain.

Bloody soap operas on tv full of regional accents and unlikely plot devices. "Ey oop, the lass has been trapped in't alternate dimension!"

Did I mention the weather?
 
I quite like the weather,admittedly a bit wet last year,but where else can you experience four seasons in one day.
It's rarely colder than -3c,even when it does snow (cue total chaos) you know it'll be gone in a few days. It's rarely hotter than 28c (cue hose pipe bans and barbecue charcoal shortages) which is pleasant without killing off the old folks.
I'd say that's not too bad overall.
We Brits do like to complain about the weather,I do not claim to be innocent myself. At the height of the London blitz it was still top of the list of complaints recorded by the men in grey who went out and about eavesdropping on we the people to establish how morale was holding up.

I would forward something not exactly an invention and certainly not a weapon as Britain's (more specifically England's) major contribution to a significant chunk of the world. It's something without which many of the democracies whose freedoms many of us enjoy probably wouldn't exist as they do.....English Common Law.

It always warms my heart when the world's largest democracy goes to the polls and I always wonder how you count so many votes,one by one I suppose. I'm referring to India of course.
Cheers
Steve
 
You don't say "Cherrio" and "Spiffing"?
Dang it! Now I have no interest in seeing England.
(You do say "Pip-pip!" though, right?)
 
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The worst is an American actor trying to be English and, a British actor trying be an American.
The syntax is appalling.
 
Readie said:
The worst is an American actor trying to be English and, a British actor trying be an American.
The syntax is appalling.
Click to expand...

Meryl Streep does a totally convincing British accent. Damian Lewis in "Band of Brothers",an american friend thought he was american so he must be pretty convincing too!
I think good actors can do good accents. Dick van Dyke's cockney.....that's something else altogether.
Cheers
Steve
 

Meryl has a faint USA accent when she speaks normally so, I suppose the transition is easier...?
I did read somewhere that colonial accents were those of the original emigrants and thus authentic British accents....albeit rather old.

Sounds better than 'estuary English' that's for sure.
Kent had its own regional accent, its disappeared under a tidal wave of mockney.
Shame.
Cheers
John
 
"When the long tally is added, it will be seen that the British nation and the English-speaking world owe far more to the vices of King John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns; for it was through the union of many forces against him that the most famous milestone of our rights and freedom was in fact set up."
 

English Common Law is a curiosity in that it does not match Anglo-Saxon Law nor French Law. There is a theory that the Normans needed a law of their own in England as Anglo-Saxon Law did not suit them. Fellow Normans had taken over Sicily from the Muslims and taken on the existing law there which was a Maghrebi Maliki (North African) form of Muslim Law. Juries and so forth.

In essence the idea is that the English Normans told their Sicilian Norman friends that they could do with a new complete set of laws and the Sicilian Normans wrote back 'here's one we found and use, try it (copy enclosed)'.

So English Common Law could be based upon a variety of Muslim Sharia law.

Or you could prefer to stick to plunging your head into boiling ploughshares (viz. '1066 And All That') or trial by combat (last done with Ashford v Thornton in 1818.)
 
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