Skip to content

The English

Cruel, cruel, comment of the day

Jacinda Ardern’s wedding night video.

Brings a whole new meaning to “Give a dog a bone”.

John Galt

A small note for non-English/British readers. We make jokes about, take the piss out of, insult, absolutely everything. It’s the defining feature of our culture. It may indeed be that this specific individual is not greatly enamoured of the fragrant Ms. Ardern’s looks. It’s even possible that you are or are not.

But that’s not the point. It’s a witty, if insulting, joke. At which point it’s a good joke to be shared because it’s witty, however insulting.

It’s also, to be honest, nothing about the fragrant Ms. Ardern. Hmm, OK, very little.

‘N’ if you don’t like that then you can fuck off ‘n’ all, right?

Then honours then

Madsen Pirie, OBE.

Shirley Bassey CH, which is pretty tip top

Bill Beaumont GBE, which is about as high as a non-political knighthood is going to go (for non-Brits, there are some 21 different types of knighthood it is possible to get and yes, they’re ranked).

Michael Eavis KB – Glastonbury is now obviously entirely establishment.

Tim Martin KB, which we already knew about.

Gerald Ronson KB. Clearly, that little difficulty (what was it with? Guinness?) is now past tense.

Anyone seen anything else interesting?

Erm, Yes

Liz Truss has rewarded Brexiteers and those personally loyal to her with peerages and other awards in her long-awaited resignation honours list.

That’s what a resignation honours list is for. To reward personal loyalty.

Shrug.

Do so love a toff

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has been crowned the most popular Conservative backbencher in an annual survey by a leading Tory publication.

The former business secretary pipped Miriam Cates, a rising star from the 2019 intake, and Suella Braverman in the contest.

He won the most votes from readers of Conservative Home, which is often described as the Tory grassroots bible.

The fun thing is that Jacob’s not really a toff. Plays one very well indeed of course, but it is rather a play. Pops was a very bright lad on the make and did very well indeed at it. But it takes a few generations to create a proper toff in the English class system.

Get the blame in early, eh?

London violence ‘direct result’ of Braverman’s words, says Khan

Just think if it’s true though (it ain’t, but….). We’ve now a Home Secretary willing to call out the English mob. Which is going to be interesting as that English mob has been enough to turn matters more than once in the past.

Umm, yes

A British woman who murdered her husband while on holiday in India had plotted to get hold of his £1 million fortune and life insurance, it is claimed.

Ramandeep Kaur Mann faces death by hanging after being found guilty of the love-triangle murder of her husband, Sukhjit Singh, in 2016.

The 38-year-old, from Derby, now faces the death penalty with Gurpreet Singh, her lover and accomplice.

Interesting how British the crime was really. If only one of the three had been a vicar as well it would have been a perfect pre-war News of the Worlder.

Well, yes, obviously

One in three of the richest people identify as working-class, a survey has revealed.

The latest British Social Attitudes survey by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) revealed that in 2022, 32 per cent of Britons in the top quarter of household incomes – those earning more than £40,000 – identified as working-class.

However, 48 per cent of those from the poorest households – those earning less than £19,000 – said they felt middle-class or had no class identity.

As anyone with even a passing knowledge of Britain – or perhaps even England – knows class is not a matter of money in this country. Aristocrats can be penniless and still upper class, others rich as muck and still working class.

A recent Earl Nelosn (I think it was) was a detective sergeant in the police, another recent hereditary was a bus conductor. Aristos the both of them by English standards. Alan Sugar, rich as Croesus, life peer, is not an aristo. Never will be either. Partly that having been in trade thing. His grandchildren probably will be, his great grandchildren almost certainly. Money and class simply are not directly related in this country.

Linked, correlated, sure, but not the same thing at all.

Jeez

Melvyn Bragg says his Northern accent was beaten out of him at grammar school in order that he “talk proper.”

What did he sound like before?

The television presenter, who has celebrated the richness and diversity of the English language in a series of books, said he grew up in the 1950s effectively speaking two languages – standard English and his local Cumbrian dialect.

“When you went to grammar school, they were determined to beat that out of you. So you didn’t talk like that anymore; you talked proper,” Bragg told the BBC’s This Cultural Life.

“We kept it subversive between ourselves,” he added.

Oh. So standard code switching then. Sigh.

Good grief

What meal should be called “dinner” is a British debate as old as time and one that staunchly divides the nation.

But now, the argument may have been settled once and for all by one of the greatest Englishmen of all time: William Shakespeare.

The 17th-century bard and linguistic renegade used “dinner” when talking about the middle-of-the-day meal, agreeing with much of the North of England.

Yes, we knew that. The question becomes what did later people call it all?

What did the Victorians say?

Shakespeare puts an end to ‘dinner or supper’ debate
The name for the evening meal has long divided the nation but it would appear that the bard agreed with north England

And that’s the headline, which is even worse. Because supper is an entirely different meal anyway. That’s the light snack before bed, not the blowout three plater which could be dinner or lunch or tea.

Sigh.

True, if impolite

Being colonised by Britain was the best thing to ever happen to Australia
Britain’s former colony is a prosperous, stable, modern country – something that cannot be said of many places settled by France

But then being impolite about France is the national sport, no?

How, umm, county

His parents largely lived apart, his father hunting in the country and his tastes not running to music. When he did go to a recital, he shouted at the pianist during the pause between a sonata’s movements: “Oh, do get on with it, man!”

Hmm

Isotope analysis of the girl’sbones and teeth suggests she had an Alpine upbringing until at least the age of seven, and enjoyed a healthy diet.

But towards the end of her life, experts noticed that her diet deteriorated, suggesting her lifestyle changed significantly after moving to England, although the cause of her death is unknown.
#…#
The burial, dated between 650 and 680 AD

So the reputation of British food was established pretty early on then….

Imagine, a diet worse than German….

How lovely

Looking something up for summat else I find this:

It is 7 miles 2 chains measured from London Victoria

And:

the principal station serving the city of Brighton, East Sussex. It is 50 miles 49 chains from London Bridge via Redhill

Network Rail is still using chains to measure distances.

Now that is archaic – I know that chains exist but I couldn’t actually tell you what one is. A unit of a furlong maybe?

I even love the idea that people looking to rent a retail unti on a station platform need to know how many miles – and chains – it is from the terminus station.

Path dependence is a thing, eh?

Hmm

The Age of the Noodly Armed LinkedIn Man is going to be brief, before he is overpowered and eaten on TikTok by militant Norfolk Separatists. But until that fated day, he dreams of turning the whole island into Greatest London.

Picture it: a vast, vibrantly smelling, 15 minute eco-slum from John O’Groats to Grenfell. With a Halal Chicken shop on every corner, and a guaranteed gender clinic place for every child-identified person.

Surely only a radical right wing extremist could object to that.

Steve-O

It’s possible to prefer the warm beer and old maids cycling through the mist to morning communion, isn’t it. Isn’t it?