"You'll find a link to Billy Bragg's book on Albion Heart."

That doesn't mean you've read it. Can I ask what you make of Bragg's thesis on the alternative English history of dissent? Because considering that The Progressive Patriot celebrates all you would appear to despise, from punk to football to class warfare, I find it hard to believe it's something you'd celebrate if you truly understood its contents.

What I actually said was that George Best was "the originator of the pisshead, womanising, money-squandering, shallow, cult-of-celebrity lifestyle which has swamped the modern game" - and nothing you've said disabuses me of this notion.

"'They' are the ones who for the past two decades or so have made it almost a sin to be English in any way other than 'their' way, as er...can be seen from some of these posts."

Ypou mean like the ones saying that punk, dissent, class politics and football culture are not particularly valuable or valid aspects of English culture?

You still haven't explained, specifically, who "They" are, or how "they" have stopped you or anyone else saying whatever you like about England or interpreting it however you like. I mean, you work in the National Trust shop, for heaven's sake - purveyor of all that is twee, nostalgic and sentimental about England. Surely if all these class-war yobs were genuinely trying to stop you, or anyone else, from being English any other way than "their" way, they'd be attacking all the NT and Past Times shops in the land...

In fact, no one is stopping you from interpreting "your" England, Lizzie. It's only when you try to shove that interpretation down the throats of people who have a different view that you are met with hostility.

""And a great thing to say to those who, for so very long, have tried to take away our heritage."

Again, who are "They"? it's these paper tiger bogeymen, created by (dare I say it again) the likes of certain newspapers, that's who. Specific examples of who they are and what they're doing to try and take away our heritage, please.