Great Britain

[diddle]

be carful stopper, we can't demand everyone to speak english, that an english problem, most of us are too lazy to learn another language, and we demand that everyone speaks english

[edmundomcpot]

i dont think its the fact that were to lazy, modern second language is quite a popualar G.C.S.E.. however english lessons are far more intense across europe

[heavycola]

Is this a real live meeting of the BNP?

Use the password, like we discussed.

Carry on.

white power

[Ruben Cassar]

The European Union's motto is united in diversity. So yes, Europe needs to unite, but at the same time it strives to foster the cultural differences between each of its member states. In fact I think the EU had done a lot of positive things in this aspect. That way you can be patriotic towards your state and towards Europe. At least that's how I see it.

Also about your comment that most people are not enamoured of the idea of a united Europe, the problem the EU has is bureaucracy. It's just way too cumbersome and complicated and politicians are distant from the people. It needs to be simplified. Also the French and Dutch no votes to the EU constitution were more like a no vote to their national governments than to the EU per se.

If we're going to talk about the EU in particular, surely one of the fundamental problems has to be people's attachment to their own nation-states. The activities of the Euro Parliament, EC, and CoJ are certainly poorly reported in Britain, and this is a big factor making those institutions distant from the people, in a way that Westminster isn't. I'm willing to bet it's like that (to a greater or lesser extent) all over Europe. People aren't interested in European news, and even when they are, they see the issues in terms of narrow national self-interest.

This lack of proper reporting may be one reason, incidentally, that allows the EU institutions to become so bloated (and possibly corrupt) - there is also a lack of accountability to the electorates.

One other big factor blocking further integration, BTW, has to be the multitude of languages spoken in the EU [and I'm aware of the EU's commitment to cultural diversity - 23 main official languages, according to Wikipedia.] If only they would all speak English!

Hehe. Can you imagine the French speak English in everyday life?

If that decision was up to me I would teach every EU student Latin and make that the lingua franca (Latin word! ) of the EU so that no one would be offended if his language was not chosen. So apart from the native language every EU citizen would speak Latin as well.

I know that such a thing will never happen and that many people will think I am crazy for proposing it!

[neoni]

they tried it a while ago with esperanto but it never really took off

[Ruben Cassar]

they tried it a while ago with esperanto but it never really took off

I know. But Latin is better than Esperanto. I mean *ahem* the Romans invented Latin...it's bound to be good no?

[btownmeggy]

they tried it a while ago with esperanto but it never really took off

I know. But Latin is better than Esperanto. I mean *ahem* the Romans invented Latin...it's bound to be good no?

And a POLACK invented Esperanto. It's bound to be worthless, no?

[Bertros Bertros]

For the record my passport says I'm a British Citizen but I'm not proud of that really. As others have said I am very glad to live here but I'm not particularly proud. That being said there isn't any other country I would be more 'proud' of.

be carful stopper, we can't demand everyone to speak english, that an english problem, most of us are too lazy to learn another language, and we demand that everyone speaks english

Hmmm this gets my back up a little. We don't demand that everyone speaks English. If a Japanese business works with a Danish business, what language do they use to communicate? Japanese? Danish? No, English. English is the international language of business, and in much of the world the language people use to communicate when they don't share a native language. This isn't a demand of the British though. Sure, we are complacent in that we aren't multilingual as a matter of course, but then the motivation isn't there to make that happen as it is for other nationalities.

[diddle]

so, how many different languages do you speak

i think the latin idea is a good idea, if we could pull it off

[Stopper]

they tried it a while ago with esperanto but it never really took off

I know. But Latin is better than Esperanto. I mean *ahem* the Romans invented Latin...it's bound to be good no?

And a POLACK invented Esperanto. It's bound to be worthless, no?

Oh my, I thought I was good at taking offence at apparently innocuous statements, but that is excellent.

[bigbullyweedave]

I am not British however if I was British I would be damn proud of it. In fact there was that saying a few years ago that if you were born British it was like winning the lottery of life.

Seriously now about this England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland debate, personally I find it incredible that people are still bickering about these things. Do you think Scotland would be better off by being independent? What could it gain? I respect the Scots and I believe that each region of Great Britain should preserve its culture and traditions but Great Britain is fine as it is.

Cool. We'll just chuck you're wee diddy island in as part of Italy then?

[DAZMCFC]

chariots of fire was on again last night. when eric liddel (scottish) won the 400yds the hairs still stand up on my arms, feel the pride. tingleling sensation.

[Ruben Cassar]

I am not British however if I was British I would be damn proud of it. In fact there was that saying a few years ago that if you were born British it was like winning the lottery of life.

Seriously now about this England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland debate, personally I find it incredible that people are still bickering about these things. Do you think Scotland would be better off by being independent? What could it gain? I respect the Scots and I believe that each region of Great Britain should preserve its culture and traditions but Great Britain is fine as it is.

Cool. We'll just chuck you're wee diddy island in as part of Italy then?

Actually you already tried to do that. I remember there was this documentary that said that when World War II was going to start Great Britain tried to give Malta to Italy to please Mussolini in a bid to stop him from allying with Hitler. I must do some research on this one. However if we were part of Italy I wouldn't complain...there are worse things than that and anyway ethnically speaking the majority of Maltese are of Italian descent.

Btw if the Scots were really united and avoided massacres like Glencoe where the Campbell betrayed the MacDonald and killed them while they were asleep there is a slight chance that Scotland would be independent now! Instead the clans fought each other instead of uniting against the common enemy of the time.

Still even though Malta is small we are independent today and you are part of Great Britain.

[Ruben Cassar]

One other big factor blocking further integration, BTW, has to be the multitude of languages spoken in the EU [and I'm aware of the EU's commitment to cultural diversity - 23 main official languages, according to Wikipedia.] If only they would all speak English!

As a side note on this one, even though the EU has 23 official languages (they just added Irish (Gaelic) in fact) there are only 3 official working languages of the EU institutions as far as I know. English, French and German.

[diddle]

they are also 3 of 4 languages they teach at secondary school level, the other one is spanish

[Bertros Bertros]

diddle: one with any real finesse though I can get by speaking both Spanish and French as long as everybody talks slowly... Oh and I could call you all manner of pig related insults in Finnish if the mood took me...

[flashleg8]

Btw if the Scots were really united and avoided massacres like Glencoe where the Campbell betrayed the MacDonald and killed them while they were asleep there is a slight chance that Scotland would be independent now! Instead the clans fought each other instead of uniting against the common enemy of the time.

Their common enemy perhaps. Not the common enemy of the Scottish people as a whole. The majority of the Scottish people (yes I said majority) in this time period supported better links with the English crown. This had to do partly with religious issues (the lowland areas being predominantly protestant as opposed to the mainly catholic highland clans) but also economic trading links. Scottish history is often re-written with a Walter Scott style romanticism of the highlands representing Scotland as a whole.

[Kahless]

try and argue with this then.... William Shakespeare,
Lord Nelson,
Charles Darwin,
Charles Dickens,
Stanley Matthews,
Bobby Moore,
Stephen Hawking,
Ellen Macarthur.......to name a few....all english

....your boys took one hell of a beating!

[diddle]

what do you mean?

[flashleg8]

what do you mean?

Kahless was playing on that great bit of commentary from the Norwegians when they beat England years ago at football.

I'll try and find a link.

[flashleg8]

Sorry can't find the clip but it goes like this....


'Lord Nelson! Lord Beaverbrook! Sir Winston Churchill! Sir Anthony Eden! Clement Attlee! Henry Cooper! Lady Diana! Maggie Thatcher - can you hear me, Maggie Thatcher! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!'
Said by Bjorge Lillelien on Norwegian TV
When Norway beat England 2-1 in Oslo in a World Cup qualifier in Sept 1981

[Ruben Cassar]

It is not such a big accomplishment to beat England after all. Many teams can beat England at football!

[diddle]

i must say, our football team are going through a rather rough spot of shit, as are our cricket team, out rugby team, our tennis players.......

[Koba]

i must say, our football team are going through a rather rough spot of shit, as are our cricket team, out rugby team, our tennis players.......

We're pretty good at dingy sailing...

[diddle]

true, to be honest, england have been quite good on the water for a very long time, who's ever heard of the spanish armada.....