What is it about the Brits?

Subject: What is it about the Brits?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 08:11 AM

My dear dear fellows and friends:
For those English comrads here, who are bothered by American films, and much of what you say is true, Mississippi Burning would give the impression that the FBI was the friend of the Civil Rights Movement, not the disrupter of the same - remember the attempt to black mail Dr. Martin Luthor King Jr? HOWEVER... and have a cup of tea and calm down before you go off on me... YOU all live in a nation where there is official censorship of political speach and the news, especially about our little green home which protects you all from the worst of the North Atlantic weather. So to quote our old dear Ben Franklyn, it is easier to see the sty in your neighbor's eye, then to see the mote in your own... I now will sit back and watch the fireworks...
All the best
Larry

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Brendy
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 08:23 AM

Oh.....you're a cute hoor, Larry!!!!!!

B.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 08:28 AM

Too much of this inflammatory stuff going on in here...

IS it too much to ask that we try to respect one another's differences and relish them for the diversity that they bring to the melting pot? Instead of looking for what's wrong with each other's cultures, societies, outlooks, etc... why can't we start a thread about what we like about each other?

Particularly, in this area - folk music - where the contrast of traditional and new, Celtic/AngloSaxon, European, American, blues, world all bring us together...

Come on, let's not do this....

Let's make this the last "What is about the [insert nationality here]" threads. Please.

Cheers M'Dears

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 08:49 AM

...stirs tea...pauses...then
Hey, Larry, next you'll be telling us that Queen Anne's dead!
These days we don't have much official censorship per se (speaking as one who's spent the past 20 years working in the national meejah). What we have is perhaps worse (in a democracy you can, possibly, do something about governments) in that we have a supine attitude to the powers that be, coupled with a media - both print and broadcast - which does little more than "campaign" about vested interests and pander to the lowest common denominators of taste in the pursuit of profit. Ever wondered why so many newspapers are rabidly anti-Euro and Little-Englandish? Maybe because they're owned by proprietors with more to gain from isolationism and membership of NAFTA. But let's not get onto that one...
Meanwhile, and I'll whisper this in case I'm tarred and feathered by rabid monarchists, you may find that more than a few of us on this side of the Irish Sea would prefer to be citizens rather than subjects.
Of course, mention English republicanism an everyone always says "yeah, but then you'd have suffered President Thatcher", but I think the two Mary's in Ireland have been pretty good presidents.
Mrs Robinson didn't have the best sense of humour though - a pal on the Irish Times once had tea with her shortly after she announced that she was keeping a candle burning in the window at Aras an Uachtarain to welcome home the Irish diaspora. "Still not back yet, then?" he says, nodding at the candle, to be met with a distinctly frosty glare.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Brendy
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 08:55 AM

Erskine Childers used to hold 'audiences' in Greek & Latin when the fancy took him, I'm told.
But Mary's candle came in for a lot of stick, alright!

B.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: robroy
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 09:59 AM

I get kinda annoyed when people say Brit instead of English and sometimes even the other way round!

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: kendall
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 10:05 AM

the English are not the only Brits, right?

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 10:42 AM

Ah we are of to a great start!
For the record, one should read the what is with the yanks posts first, to see the spirit in which this was posted... and secondly, there is a familier ring to the chears m'dears greating, a little wit from Wiltshire mayhaps? Well, I hope those who respond so well, for example Gervase have read my other posts, for I am in no way a Brit basher, in fact there are no governments on this planit I trust, for over on this side of the atlantic we have had overt political censorship for all the generations leading up to telivision, when we did not need to put people in jail for free speach (the plamer raids for example) as most Americans put down the books and papers, picked up the TV remote and turned off their minds, giving over to the censorship of the pursestrings. Gervase, you are in good company, Helen Mirin is my favorite English Republican, and I have great hope that one day even here in the US we may be citizens and not subjects, but our kings and queens hide better. One last barb and then we will all sit down for a good sing and a good cry, I do accept that there is a new spirit of glasnost coming to England and environs, however, when are we going to be able to read the Stalker Report? It is hard to plan a future without a little truth and reconciliation.
Scrumpy all round, and howbout a few verses of "On a Monday Morning"! Chears agus slan
Larry

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 10:57 AM

Hey Brendy, careful what you say about Mary's candle!

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: AndyG
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 11:15 AM

Kendall,
When someone posting under the name robroy says:

I get kinda annoyed when people say Brit instead of English and sometimes even the other way round!

the irony bell rings for me :)

(I don't call US Citizens Yanks and, personally, I dislike being referred to as a Brit.)

AndyG

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: GUEST,Chantywrassler
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 12:40 PM

OK... (deep breath )

First off, I am not a wilt from wiltshire ( whoever that might be) but am in fact Scottish, living in Glasgow..

and I'm not all that little...

And yes I have been thru the "what is it with the yanks, what is it with the English/Irish... etc etc..." threads.

What I said earlier was not a complaint about this specific thread. But about all such threads.

I just get so dismayed by the way that people use this music-based forum as a way to sound off about other nationalities. It seems so far away from the real internationalist spirit of folk music..

Is it that we can't really feel secure in our own identities, unless we can point to another national group and say "well, at least we're better than them because...."?

I know that we Scots are particularly prone to scapegoating the English, but just because it happens elsewhere doesn't make it right or acceptable. And it really is so pointless. If we can't at least preserve the civilities in a setting like this, where people are supposedly drawn by a common interest, it makes me profoundly depressed.

So many other "communities" in the Net are nothing more than open-air zoos, where people bait and flame one another, just to see the sparks fly. Is that what this forum is becoming?

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: paddymac
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 01:55 PM

The line between good-natured teasing and things more malignant seems to be very indistinct. Thus, some can find offense where none is intended. The interesting thing about the term "Brit" is that it derives from a mis-spelling of "Praetani", a celtic group that dominated a good bit of the island in earlier times. One who objects to "Brit" would probaly also object to "Prit". The transliterations might be especially objectionable: "Brit" to "Brick" or "Prit" to - well, you know how it goes. I try to solve the problem by referring, in familiar and informal contexts, to people from the bigger eastern island as "East Dubs." It has a nice historic twist about it as well. [Only teasing, folks, really! *BG*]

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Brendy
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 01:57 PM

It's alright, Gervase. She could have been holding it for me. *BG`*

B.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 02:10 PM

Ah my dear Chantywrassler:
Funny enough, your closing is common with a fellow Scott, living in Wiltshire and the best man at my wedding. He is a great joker, and it would not be unlike him to use a pen name. Please excuse any offence, I, in fact used the term Brit to poke fun at the thread about "yanks". I was actually going to say a word or two about the film about breaking the sound barrier, but someone beat me to it. Glasgow is a great old ... whoops, no longer the old town I am afraid, but gave this piper a great welcome back in the seventies - both Celtics and Ranger fans. To get back to the tunes, was it Mat McGinn who wrote the song about the crew of the SS Sheildhall (pull the chain and we'll answer the call?) If so and you know the words, I'd be really happy if you post them.
Oh, as to the size of the wit, his on line name - my Wiltshire brother, is the popular half wit, so well, I suppose he will join onto this discussion with some of the wisdom of the origional Jobber Brown. Keep th

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 02:11 PM

whoops... keep those ships slipping into the Clyde...
allthe best
Larry

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: kendall
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 02:36 PM

Your point is well taken Andy G, I was on the wrong tack.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 03:30 PM

Someone should have told Mary (Mary the First, as I suppose she'll become in the history books) that golden rule in the convents: lights out at nine, candles out at ten.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Kim C
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 04:13 PM

I dunno, but damn if I don't love 'em.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 09:56 PM

I think Brit is rhyming slang anyway...

There's a quote that fits in here. And it applies to the way most of these threads seem to stir people up:

"So far as criticism is concerned, we don't resent that, unless it is absolutely biased - as it usually is." That's from Prime Minister Vorster of South Africa 1966-78, and President 1978-79. Resigned after financial and political scandals.

And here's something I wrote about my employers when I was a Social Worker, and about how they treated criticism from outside (or inside, to be fair) - and I posted it in one of the gun control threads, but it seems relevant here too.

Dialogue of the Deaf

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes
We know that, though we do our best,
we are fallible.
You appear to believe
that we believe we never make mistakes.
This is so absurd
that you must be either fools or liars.
It is clear that you see us as our enemies,
and that we cannot trust you.
Therefore we must give you
no ammunition that you can use against us.
So we must at no time
admit to making any mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.
You never admit to making any mistakes.
This is so absurd
that you must be either fools or liars.
It is clear that you see us as your enemies,
and we cannot trust you.
Therefore we must give you
no opportunity to get away with any mistakes.
So we must at no time
admit that anything you do is right.

You criticise everything we do.
Apparently in your eyes,
we can do nothing right.
This is so absurd
that you must be either fools or liars.
It is clear that you see us as your enemies,
and we cannot trust you.
So we will not listen to any of your criticisms.

You never listen to our criticisms.
You appear to think that you never make mistakes.
This is so absurd
that you must be either fools or liars.
It is clear that you see us as your enemies,
and we cannot trust you.
If we letup, you will never admit
that you make mistakes.
Until you do that,
we will find fault with everything you do.BR>

The Mudcat is a pretty friendly neighbourhood, all things considered, such as the riff-raff from all over who've moved in over the years...

Love your enemies is just another way of saying love your neighbours. (I think Chesterton said something like that, but I can't find the quote. Anyway though he probably said it better, my version is shorter.)

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Jun 00 - 11:16 PM

Well done, Brother McGrath.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Jun 00 - 06:59 PM

What is it with the English?.

Apologies to all the non-English British.

Subject: RE: What is it about the Brits?
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Jun 00 - 04:15 PM

And weren't the Pretani just the folk who happened to live here, the root of that being cognate with the Creta of cretaceous, ie the chalk? (Latest reading will not permit me to link Albion with white, too.) So they could even have been pre-Celtic.

Penny (who has to admit to post-Celticism)