Lets put it this way. I wouldn't stop being proud of my nation just because we lose a penalty shoot out, or cos of Tim Henman's imperfect lobs.

malc Stent, a Brummy folksinger probably got nearer to it than most - when he said about the folkscene ....most people involved are 'good eggs.'

I think you could extend that to most streets in England. Most of the people are 'good eggs'. Yes we produce the odd Yorkshire Ripper and Harold Shipman and Fred West, but by and large we make the best of this overcrowded little corner of the world, and do our best with what comes our way.

There are some plumb ugly parts of England, but the nice bits make up for them.

I wouldn't presume to speak for Irish, Scots or Welsh people. but yes I feel good when I see or hear of one of them doing well. They aren't us, but they're from down our street - our closest neighbours, and we understand each other better than anyone else.

Notice I'm not saying that to understand all is to forgive all. In the past we've behaved abominably to each other - at other times like in WW2 - we've pulled together and achieved together.

No confusion WAV. But its not simplistic. The people I was descended from were Irish catholics from Dublin on one side and Irish gypsies on the other. Yet I am English - so were my parents, and two of my grandparents. If you're English you don't need to keep coming up with credentials, and proofs of purchase that you've bought in to us lot.

It reminds me a little of American born poet, TS Eliot; who fancied himself as an Englishman and went about doing stuff no English person would ever think of - raising his hat to the soldiers changing the guard outside Buckingham Palace, going to a fancy dress party dressed as DR Crippen, who had recently been hanged (...imagine if you went as Peter Sutcliff!); at the time of Thompson Bywaters case, he wrote to the papers insisting that poor Mrs Thompson should be hanged (which of course she was) in the event.

Stop defining....just go with the flow.