Well I was born in t'gritty north-west of England. I could count forty-nine factory chimbleys from t'bedroom window in my house, two up two down with outside brick shithouse. Our house had cracks in the walls due to subsidence from t'pit under th' 'ouse (this is all perfectly true, by the way, none of your "aye, but we 'ad it tough!" stuff). My mum and dad insulated us from the hardships and we had a great childhood (especially when it was going down the Irwell on long summer evenings to chuck stones at the rats!). When I was a bit older I worked on the Parks and got to know some real gritty blokes who had dead-end jobs, amazing facility when it came to swearing in a northern accent, and a ton of dignity. So I have a great affection for that part of the world. It was the blood, sweat and tears of northern England that drove the industrial revolution, made this country rich and started the cult of the fatcat with a sense of entitlement. I love it and defend it to the hilt, and I go back every couple of months, but I'm not going to live there again. Dunno whether you'd call that patriotism, but I'm not having any old gobshite dissing the north of England.

I go to Italy and Spain a lot for my (budget I hasten to add) holidays these days. I'm a bit sad that a lot of Italians don't seem to value what they've got in their amazing country. In both countries I find the people to be incredibly friendly and helpful, especially in the poorer bits in the south. They're just like me, wanting to make an honest living, not particularly wanting to get rich by fleecing people. I can scarcely do their languages at all (typical ignorant British git), but I never feel foreign in either country. They're just people, just like me. So I don't get this nationalism malarkey. Of course you want your own patch to be as nice as possible. But that doesn't mean you can't see the same aspiration in everybody else the world over. I like distinctness and I hate it when I see a McDonalds in Almería or in Sicily. But that's a bit irrational in this global village of ours. It's a good job that McDonalds isn't any good, otherwise it would sound a bit imperialistic too.