Whatever happened to good old England?

One thing the whole Iran business has revealed to me is how it is possible to hate your own country, a thing I never understood before. I'm burning with anger and shame at the dishonor these giggling buffoons have brought to our country.

My grandfather was aveteran of the First World War and one of the last conversations I had with him, said: "I know I'm dying, but I don't mind. At least I knew England when she was England."

I discounted that at the time. Old people always grumble about the state of the world. Now I understand it, though. I haven't experienced old England but goes something like this—that bumptious, arrogant, self-confident old England, the England of complicated games, snobbery, irony, repression, and stoicism, the England of suet puddings, drafty houses, coal smoke and bad teeth, the England of throat-catching poetry and gardens and tweeds, the England that civilized the whole world and gave an example of adult behavior—the English Gentleman—that was admired from Peking to Peru.

It's all gone now, "dead as mutton," as English people used to say. Now there is nothing there but a flock of whimpering Eloi, giggling over their gadgets, whining for their handouts, crying for their Mummies, playing at soldiering for reasons they can no longer understand, from lingering habit. Lower the corpse down slowly, shovel in the earth. England is dead.

Chris Sabian, Peak District View - 2007-04-10 07:18: