I shall celebrate St George's Day, and be proud of England. I shall start the previous evening, in my folk session in the pub next door to me.

I may regret some things my country has done - but I shall still be proud of my country, and of the many good things it has done.

England - the country of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and thus the greatest literary tradition in the world - the country of the Magna Carta and thus the birthplace of consitutional democracy and subsequently the oldest parliament in the world - the country of Newton and thus the birthplace of the modern science of physics - the country of Tim Berners-Lee and thus the birthplace of the greatest modern communication tool, the internet - the country, more than any other, without which in the Second World War there would have been and still be be no modern free democracies.

Incidentally, the country from which originally the preponderance of the wellsprings of the folk music celebrated on this site came.

Probably the country with the most of which to be proud and the least of which to be ashamed of any in the world. Without England we would not be here having this discussion, whether on this site in this language or any other.

Bird Flu, you have problems.