Attila and St. George's Day Bash...

[Pavilionaire]

Fatbadger, I believe that it is not just the date of Christmas that was nabbed by the Early Church, but also most of the key events and customs, i.e. the Star In The Sky, the three wise men, gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh etc.

In fact, biblical scholars concur that about the only part of the Nativity that is true is the bit about Jesus actually being born.

As I posted earlier on in this thread, I believe the date of the 1966 World Cup win, 30th July, to be the best alternative to St. George's Day. Any other dates are either technically British or else involve war of some sort.

 

[Sorrel]

I don't like St George's Day either. I think the nation day of English celebration should instead be on the believed birthdate of our national poet.

That should please everyone.

 

[Titanic]

how about we declare independence from Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland - on, say, 4th of July - and celebrate then ?

 

[London Irish]

Brovian, we'll have to disagree on the white kids charging around the school shouting "Ingerlund, Ingerlund, Ingerlund" being a positive thing - there has to be a better way to define Englishness in that school, a better way that starts off by being inclusive towards the 80% black kids too. What that is, is not an easy question to answer, that's true enough.

I went to a school where there was roughly about 20% white kids (mostly Irish it has to be said), but casting my mind back, if that had happened in my school, the racial tensions would have been terrible. As it was, my United Nations-type school in North London was free of racism and whatever gangs and cliques emerged in the school, they rarely ever broke down along ethnic lines. That early experience has given me tremendous optimism to this day that England will solve its racial problems quite easily - as long as the racists are marginalised.

Not wanting to divert this excellent thread in an Anna Swallow-type direction, but perhaps one of the very few things that would persuade me to leave lovely Brighton to live in Crawley would be that everywhere you go in that town you will be fortunate enough to pass by some jaw-droppingly gorgeous young Asian woman.

Now the chances of any of these feisty young madams accepting a forced/arranged marriage or any other repressive aspect of their culture would be about the same as you and me Brovian converting to Islam.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

As for the Queen and the idea of having a royal family love it makes us what we are unique and the best country in the world,

Unique? I think not.

What about Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco?

And that just Europe.

 

[SM BHAFC]

London Irish I was wondering how old you were as I too went to a school in London although in my case West London probaly about 50/50 black/asian and white (many Irish)and it was almost totally split along those lines.

You may have got the odd Paki hanging around with the whites but not that much and the black kids stayed in their own gangs exclusively. Maybe I am a little older than you and times have changed, or maybe my school was not typical but that was the way it was in the early eighties in most West London schools

 

[Brovion]

Allah be prasied London Irish! Yes, good debate even if we can't 100% agree on the right way to approach these things. Anyway, can't stop now I'm off to the Mosque.

 

[SM BHAFC]

Ok Lord B I am aware that there are other countires with Royal families but IMHO they are not as prominent as our's are through being head of the commonwealth.

 

[London Irish]

London Irish I was wondering how old you were as I too went to a school in London although in my case West London probaly about 50/50 black/asian and white (many Irish)and it was almost totally split along those lines.

You may have got the odd Paki hanging around with the whites but not that much and the black kids stayed in their own gangs exclusively. Maybe I am a little older than you and times have changed, or maybe my school was not typical but that was the way it was in the early eighties in most West London schools

We sound the same age, yes I went in the early '80s too - my school drew kids from Neasden/Harlesden/Stonebridge Park/Wembley part of Brent.

As to why our schools had such different experiences, well........one guess is that perhaps we as individuals had different experiences and our memories are affected by that. I admit I mainly hung aroud with the brighter West Indian and Asian kids, they were my clique.

Another theory is not one I think you'll like, but perhaps it worked better in my school because there were fewer white kids. If you have a school evenly divided between white and black, that gives scope to those with white supremacist ideas to start causing trouble.

In my school, whites were in such a minority that any white who would be foolish enough to breath any hint of racist ideas would get battered very quickly. Harsh, but it worked.

 

[SM BHAFC]

Stonebridge Park, nice manor mate!!!!,

Interesting but it was not just the white racism that was the problem it was black on white and particularly black on asian which was always the worst. Yep there was white racists no doubt and being a school very near Stamford bridge with all the gate 13 and headhunters stuff going on I can assure you that battering them was not an option but there were some bad rucks.

Having grown up in Brighton I was singled out for the differnt accent so found myself fighting everyone whatever the colour which was nice!!

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Ok Lord B I am aware that there are other countires with Royal families but IMHO they are not as prominent as our's are through being head of the commonwealth.

I'm not sure that the rest of the world sees the British Royal Family as prominent because the Queen is "Head of the Commonwealth".

I think they owe their fame to the fact that most of them are celebrity shaggers, with the added twist that their activities are funded by the taxpayers. They also have the unique selling point that - unlike Kylie - they somehow expect their privacy to be respected. That's a real challenge to the paparazzi, and will keep this show going forever.