there's a position available as leader of the english defence league, if you're interested

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Tue 8 Oct 2013, 11:15, 5 replies)

I know it said "No lists" but since everyone else is finding a bridge to jump off...
The Goodies
Dr. Who - the old ones, mainly Tom Baker, Pertwee and some Davison & everything with Nicola Bryant.
Spooks - most of the stuff involving Harry and Grace is good.
The Young Ones
Dangermouse
Morph
Catherine Tate Show.
The Bill.
Miranda.
The IT Crowd.
Gavin & Stacey.
Snuff Box.
Being Human - the proper ver.
Misfits.
The Office - Gareth made it cringeworthy for me. The sepo ver. with it's whole storyline and conclusion was a little bit better. (Shoot me now.)
Doc Martin.
Kenny Everett Video Show.
The Might Boosh
The Two Ronnies - it's good night from me...
Brumm.
Thomas The Tank Engine.
Cold Feet.
Rebus - more the Ken Stott over John Hannah.
Wire in the Blood.
Waking The Dead.



Mrs. Browns Boys - reminds me of the comedy show within a show on Extras. Dreary at best.
Little Britain - there's a few good skits in there, the rest is just padding. Same goes for the airline show they did and Big School.
Extras - gets really sad rather than cringe-worthy.
The Office - Gareth made it cringeworthy for me.
Are You Being Served.

Clearly I'm a bit of an Anglophile when it comes to sitting on my arse and staring at a TV screen.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Tue 8 Oct 2013, 10:49, 16 replies)

Having lived and worked in North America, South America and Asia as well as a few other countries in Europe
Britain's pretty much par for the course. I like it because it's familiar, but everywhere you go, you meet nice people, awesome people, and small-minded twats whose only purpose in life seems to be to try and make themselves feel better by belittling others. As long as you associate with the awesome people, and you're not one of those small-minded twats, you'll do all right, but the country you live in doesn't really matter.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 8 Oct 2013, 1:12, 10 replies)

I'm easily pleased but the brief is a bit limiting.
I hate the political vacuums who have inveigled their way into power and money with a great deal of emphasis on the latter. The sooner a new force in politics gives them all the shove the better. Cameron, Hague, Miliband, Clegg, Salmond and company wouldn't know an honest idea if it bit them in the arse - I can't mention any more names as I've no idea who most of these vampires are.

I hate lowest-common-denominator television and its screaming, brain-dead studio audiences.

Estuary English makes my flesh crawl.

I think anyone who promotes PFI in schools or hospitals needs to be shagged with a ragman's trumpet.

I have no time for the professionally offended. Tough up and get a backbone or, in a lot of cases, bugger off back under whichever stone you crawled out from and stop trying to make our country fit your demands.

I love so many things that I'd take up too much of your valuable time to list them all; perhaps in another topic . . . .
(The Jannie, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 19:27, 5 replies)

FOR THE RECORD

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 19:19, 8 replies)

I gets me brain medicine on the narshunal 'elf

( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 17:51, Reply)

Britain has by far and away the best henges
Any other country's henges can go fuck itself
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 17:06, 4 replies)

The great British eccentric
I have lived and worked with lots of them, and they would simply not be tolerated in Japan or Germany. We embrace them, which is great in itself.
My father was one. Upon being told he was being awarded the MBE, he asked if I'd go and get it for him; he didn't really have the time. Apparently you can't do that so eventually they came to him.
I remember my grandmother, a West Country lady of solid resolve. She was scything the garden and took a chunk out her own leg, right across the calf.
"Bugger" was all she said as I nearly fainted at the blood. "I'll sort it out" she smiled at me. Her solution was to put a pair of tights on that held the wound together. It damn well worked too.

What I hate is the opposite of the above. The instant fame crap like X Factor, and the 'I've messed up, somebody sort it out for me' mentality.
( TheSundaeLunch I'm a fucking shrub, alright?, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 15:56, Reply)

When Percy Pished Shelley wasn't off his tits on massive drugs
He penned this, which was cutting stuff at the time and still echoes today nearly 200 years ago after the Peterloo debacle (look it up yourselves, you lazy fuckers) .

Things haven't changed much, but there's always hope eh? And he does reference a "phantom" who might cheer us up a bit. HP, over to you then.

"An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th' untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day."
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 15:29, 6 replies)

Ahh... Britain...
The last bastion of freedom in the European superstate? Where it's perfectly legal to think that someone's a complete cunt. Even if calling them a complete cunt will get you arrested for "public disorder".

The only country in the civilised world where a burglar can sue you for tripping over and injuring themselves when they're ransacking your house.

The only country in the civilised world where you can get shot on the tube for being a Brazilian electrician.

The only country in the civilised world where an innocent news seller can be accidentally murdered by law enforcement.

This country sucks - but the problem is, what's the alternative?
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 13:20, 60 replies)

The NHS
Is nowhere near as bad as some may make out. It's not going to be 100% perfect, but the number of problems is such a vanishingly small percentage of the people who have use of it. You might hear somebody having complaints with the NHS, this isn't indicative of the entire service.
A couple of years ago, I saw my GP who then referred me to a neurologist who I saw 2 days later. He said he would send me for an MRI. I got a letter three days later (on a Saturday) with an appointment for the following Thursday.

Mrs SLVA ruptured her achilles tendon last month, saw a GP, referred for an ultrasound who then arranged for an appointment with orthopaedics. He recommended having corrective surgery, an operation that she'll be having soon.

Also it's free as opposed to prohibitively expensive. I hate to think how much the above would cost with the American medical insurance paradigm. Bear in mind that cover doesn't pay for everything and there is often an excess to pay out of your pocket.

The downside of the NHS isn't the service itself, it's just poorly managed by successive governments over the last 60 odd years. Shame the Tories are hell-bent on killing it off as it's this country's biggest and most valuable asset.

So there. And anybody who disagrees is a paedophile.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 11:50, 20 replies)

My wife is one of them forrins that UKIP and the Daily Mail is always going on about

...so, as a full-blooded Englishman, I'm always interested in her perspective about us Brits.

There are many things here that she finds totally baffling: the TV license, benefits culture, marmite, Ealing Comedies, emotional repression, knock-knock jokes, warm beer, and why a grown man would want to watch Gerry Anderson programs.

But the one thing that impresses her is our acceptance. The fact that in England (and especially in Brighton) you can be what you want, dress how you like, do whatever makes you happy, without being judged. In her culture, people dress in their finest clothes to go to the shops, because whenever you're in public, you're on display. People have to have expensive clothes, a new car, a new house, to show that they're successful - even if they can't actually afford it. Life is an endless round of social competition and conspicuous consumption.

Another related thing that delights her, and is totally different from her home culture, is the way that people of all ages and backgrounds hang out and interact in the same pubs and restaurants. Her society is far more stratified.

Personally I feel quite proud of those things. To the point where I can just about accept the Gerry Anderson thing.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 11:30, 11 replies)

I once had some fruit and soft drugs in a tourist destination.
Nothing of any note happened.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 11:01, 3 replies)

I love
Finding torn-up bongo mags in rural hedgerows.

I HATE it when people do not STAY ABOUT FROM MY BINS.
(Eukanuba, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 3:52, 4 replies)

Ok, so here's my "England" tale.
We find our young ringofyre Misery McUglywife s0ckpuppet traipsing the olde streets of London Town having accompanied his mummy on a holiday to the UK to see his grandparents (for the last time).
s0cky's taken a few days off to catch up with an old girlfriend and some mates from Oz to have a bit of a "run-a-muck" around London. Yeeeee-har!

So I hopped off the train at Victoria Station one bright, sunny morning (inorite!?) having arranged to meet up with the ex at the Charlie Chaplin statue in Leicester Square after work - yes that long ago, 1996 to be exact. Feeling a bit peckish I got myself a couple of ripe, juicy apples (again!) to munch on. Not seeing a bin I just chuck the core into my backpack & off I toddled.
First I hit the V&A - culturing meself up I was. Hanging out, checking out armour from the Crusades and shit. I was hip and that was da bomb!
Then some lunch, I got a yummy falafel with the lot but again I noticed - no bin to chuck my wrapper or napkin... "Tell you what if was paying rates round here" I thought, "I'd be on the blower to the council to sort out their bins."

Finally I finished my sightseeing day at the Natural History Museum. Brilliant!
I wandered slowly over to Leicester Square where I met some Irish people who were having some drinks on the lawn. I was intrigued as street drinking is illegal here in Oz and I'd noticed several police men and women stroll by not so much giving this bunch a second glance. So I asked them about it - sure enough within moments I had a cold can in my hand. The topic of smoking came up - I was asked about pot in Australia and explained that mostly we smoked bushies and sometimes hydros. They told me all about hash and breaking it up on roll your own cigs. Surprise, surpise - moments later I was surreptitiously puffing on a joint I called the "Little Leicester Laughter Stick".
Within halfa my ex turned up and after introductions she looked at me with a quizzical and exasperated look and said "Only You!".
"What?" I asked feigning innocence.
"You're the only person I know who I could rely on to be getting pissed & stoned with a bunch of strangers in the middle of a strange, foreign city."
"Oh." I said rather sheepishly and bid my new friends adieu.

Later that night in the pub she went rooting in my bag for a cigarette (again, that long ago) when she found my apple core and lunch wrapping.
"The fuck have you got these for?" she asked slightly slurringly.
"Oh, I couldn't find a bin." said I.
"That's cause the IRA blow them up." she said somewhat matter of factually.

At first I didn't believe her. But some of our mates chipped in. Then I thought they were taking the piss of the parochial Aussie.
"Where the fuck do you chuck your rubbish then?" I asked.
"Ahh, just throw it in the street."
"But isn't that.... littering?"
"Yeah, but everyone does it and no one blows up piles of rubbish. Yet."
I could not believe my ears. This was a concept that I felt belonged in some third world despotic regime. Yet here were a bunch of Aussies who'd only been in the UK for a couple of years and yet they all seemed completely blasé about it.

Tell you what - here in Oz we'd lynch the fuckers if they blew up bins - that'd give the councils the perfect fucking excuse to put our rates up!
EDIT: Didn't realise it was a roasted pea.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Mon 7 Oct 2013, 1:21, 15 replies)

Children
I used to be a real patriotic type. Used to.

When I ended up in the Family Court system however to let my son see me things changed overnight. To the extent that if it wasn't for his existence I'd have emigrated to, well, anywhere else.

Don't get me wrong - I love the countryside (I live in a National Park), I am a history nut, I love the culture in a lot of ways.

I can forgive most things but any country that allows (and indeed sometimes abetts) children being deprived of decent parents for no good reason needs some serious critical examination.
(Audax Victor, Sun 6 Oct 2013, 20:18, 9 replies)

stamp thatcher
Love the Stamp Act. It was a driving force in uniting the Colonies to form the USA. Thank you very much for the nudge.

Hate Margaret Thatcher. Not for her policies, but her ovaries. She will be referenced ad nauseum in our next presidential election as a reason why we should elect that shrieking bitch of a harpy, Hillary Clinton. A dastardly revenge you plotted, there.
(sloremonger, Sun 6 Oct 2013, 16:47, 11 replies)

One hundred and first!

( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sun 6 Oct 2013, 15:42, 1 reply)

Eccentics
I love the eccentrics, The fact that this tiny island can produce genuinely funny people who brighten up my day by just being themselves. Brian Blessed springs to mind, but for a far more select audience, my Father in Law, the bike riding in a 3 piece suit, huge silver cross wearing (his nickname is the Pope) even though he is a complete agnostic, stuck in his ways, the laptop his daughter brought him is still in its box not because he fears tech-he uses it in work but at home he just doesn't see the need for it. Yet a fascinating fellow full of opinions and stories.

On the other side of the same coin. I have the way we are slowly sliding into a monoculture. All the town centers look the same with the same pubs, shops and people.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Sun 6 Oct 2013, 14:27, Reply)

Never been, but I do think 'Escape to the Country' is just about the most anthropological show about Britain I have ever seen. Jesus, why did they film Lord of the Rings in NZ when the houses in Britain make hobbit holes look palatial? Why are washing machines in hallways and kitchens? Why are your lounge rooms the size of a postage stamp and considered spacious? Is there a height limit to live in Britain? Why do people get so jolly about a view filled with nothing or power poles?

Love the stickybeak and hyperbole, can't bear the sense of claustrophobia I get thinking about living in a British home.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Sun 6 Oct 2013, 10:04, 23 replies)

Well, I left a while ago.
I miss chip shops and the NHS most of all.

Don't miss the general attitude of gobshitery.
(yeswehavenopasties, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 23:49, Reply)

Much Like Everyone Else I Expect
Love

Our self-deprecating sense of humour
The rich history of literature, music and art that the British Isles have given birth too.
Green spaces, national parks etc.
Libraries

Hate

Clone Towns
Jobsworth officialdom
That every Englishman thinks that it’s his God given right to use every hedgerow, public thoroughfare and motorway siding as his personal dustbin
Traffic congestion
The price of beer in pubs these days (£5.50 for a fucking pint!)
Hoodies, chavs
Apathy
(Nitrous Nitrous, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 16:48, 16 replies)

I can finger a dog with almost no chance of getting rabies.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 12:05, 1 reply)

BNP Boss
My old boss had political views that would have seen him kicked out of UKIP.
To him, the idea that the foreigns should be sent back to Bongo Bongo Land wasn't extreme enough. After they'd all been repatriated, Bongo Bongo Land should then be nuked to prevent them getting out again.
One day he was getting drunk at the bar and started to hold court.
He lived in a sleepy, Sussex village and recently a family had moved into the area who were of the dark skinned persuasion.
This was not on. There were places for blacks to live, and they were cities (if we couldn't send them back to BBL). It was a fucking disgrace, why should he have to put up with living within a mile of these people.
"My grandad didn't fight in the war so I'd have to live next door to a load of blacks. He fought for white, Anglo Saxon Protestants and he'd be spinning in his grave right now."
At this point I was gob smacked. I knew his views were not to my taste but I didn't really think he was that extreme.
Suddenly an old man sat at the bar pipped up over his half. "My dad fought in the war and if he'd have heard you he would have punched you straight in the face. He was a Scottish Catholic and he fought in the war to stop fascists like you!" With that, he necked the end of his drink, and walked past the now spluttering racist and without glancing in his direction left with the immortal words "You cock!"
Within the space of a second I'd gone from hating my fellow countrymen and the place we live to having my faith in humanity restored.

Edit: must admit I didn't really read the brief. That's one thing I hate about us Brits, too arrogant to believe the rules apply to us.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 12:00, 5 replies)

Confessions of a Pathetic Anglophile.
Here's the thing, I was born in South Africa. My ancestors are from all over north-western Europe, with a slight numerical bias towards the Scots, and then the English. I have never been to Britain, as we were not wealthy and it was hideously expensive due to the exchange rate. I was raised on books like the Beano, Giles annuals, Battle/Action Comics and Enid Blyton. I went to a very prestigious (state) school where we wore blazers and boaters, had a rowing team, all that jazz.

Because of the historical English/Afrikaans divide in South Africa (amongst white people) there was a degree of snobbery about accents on the English side, and my school actually encouraged enunciation tending toward received pronunciation. With fairly English-sounding parents, I was somehow one of the only students in whom it took root, to the point that people in my own country thought I was foreign.

Now I live in Australia (I emigrated blindly, don't regret it) and people here just assume I'm British. Including local Brits. Considering my birthplace's historical baggage and my countrymen's aggressive reputation, I don't really mind the confusion ameliorating first impressions.

Throughout all of this, I've never felt I belonged in either country. Too English during Apartheid, too white and "Eurocentic" afterwards, and a foreigner in Australia. The Afrikaners have a term for people like me: "Soutpiel", meaning salty-cock from having one foot in Africa, one foot in Britain and one's penis therefore dangling in the sea.

The people I seem to have the most in common with online tend to be British. There's a certain humour we share and I have little in common with the Americans, what with their lack of ZX Spectrums, boring profanity, horrid spelling and dialect and bewilderment at meat pies and Marmite. I love QI and other such congenially tweedy bollocks.

I'm well aware that England and Scotland are in reality urban, grey, full of Jeremy Kyle's audience, and that someone with my accent would probably be thought a bit of a wanker. In my mind it's all misty, winding avenues and hedgerows, otters and hedgehogs, Spitfires, ancient manors and cosy cottages, Big Ben clanging out midnight, welling up during "Jerusalem" and all that stuff that presumably makes me an annoying prat to the locals.

I know that John Major got pilloried for his speech celebrating the kind of England I get wistful imagining. I like James May, and even he hates this kind of "heritage England" mythmaking. I'm not remotely what would be a Tory, before anyone wonders.

In my own little fantasy existence, I live in a small, genteel English village, and the locals all nod stiffly as I make my way through the evening chill to the ancient local pub for a quiet beer.

I'll probably never even visit because I'm kind of poor and seldom have any paid leave, but I thought you'd all be amused at the pathetic reasons I love Britain. Feel free to have a laugh and point fingers.
(Ladyfingers is in your wardrobe,, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 10:18, 26 replies)

Surprised no-one has said
'this isn't the British Isles, it's the PAEDOPH ISLES!!!'

Especially after last week's nonce sense.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 9:39, 13 replies)

Accents
I love the diversity of accents.

However, BBC/ Queen's English raises my hackles.
(roysin, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 9:24, 4 replies)

Re: Public of Oz.
About 14 years ago here in Oz we had a referendum. One of the proposed changes was - To alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.
Sadly it didn't get passed and here we are in 2013 with the Governor General as the Queens representative still *technically* wielding more constitutional power than either the PM or the Senate.

It got me thinking. Now I'm sure there are a few die hard 'royalists' out there but I'm guessing that most of you who pay taxes in Old Blighty look at the Queen's annual "earnings" and splutter your tea-soaked digestive all over the screen.
Here is possibly one of the most inbred families on the planet (bar a couple of recent commoners) and to this day the loyal peasants are still funding their extravagant lifestyles thru tax and tithe. I mean these guys have a few spare castles and riches unbound - something many of us (apart from Albert Marshmallow) could only dream about.
You bet they have full social calendars where they are seen to be performing civic duties - if they were seen to be no-good-layabouts they'd be fucking lynched within the hour.
As an Aussie (albeit a naturalised one) I'm quite happy to say that I personally believe that we no longer need as a nation to be "governed" by an elderly lady half a world away (yes - I am generalising and I do realise that the Queen doesn't 'really' have any say-so in the Australian Government). Since their election the Abbott government has cut foreign aid spending (not such a bad thing in some ways) but I'm guessing that didn't include the amount of foreign aid we dole out to the monarchy each year just to be included as their subjects.
Hey, maybe we should start an independent coalition with The Gambia.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 7:23, 29 replies)

I hate Britons
They never include Northern Ireland.
(PintOfGuinness, Sat 5 Oct 2013, 0:15, 13 replies)