Go East, Young Man!

But before I do, here (via) is some more intelligent thought on the English nationalism/English parliament debate, and here is a very personal take on some of the reasons why I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Also, if I may, some parish notices. Imaginary Friend: I make it 21923 days as of today, not that I'm counting, and, clearly, not that I'm placing excessive importance on dates. I gather the traditional British gift is sugar, but we're eschewing petty nationalism on this site, and anyway, at risk of coming over all syrupy, you're sweet enough. Dad: as we said earlier, stuff the card manufacturers, well, all bar these; Thing, sorry to not have found time to call you before we go; Annie & co, hope Freddie's arrived, and had a better journey than expected. Do let us know; Helpful Links for Growth, Rob's voiced my doubts: I'm grateful for your input - I don't see anything more sinister here than someone taking the trouble to comment on what I've written - but I've got to admit I'm wondering what's the story with the site you link to. Do you have a blog or personal site of your own, or at the very least a more inviting pseudonym? Anyway, to you and everyone else, do keep dropping by, even if there might be less traffic for a month or so.

Right, off to take Ms Dynamite-E-e to meet her other great-grandad for the first time, a Nobel enterprise if ever there was one, and laze around on the Black Sea coast conduct some important fieldwork for the magnum opus. Out of England for the rest of the World Cup, that's my sort of patriotism, even if we are taking England shirts* for the Vietnamese cousins.

*We once had to take them Manchester Utd tops, now that was a real test of family loyalty. Worse still, we then started getting regular begging letters merchandising mail-outs from the greedy Septics. In fact, that's the real reason we're moving...

If I Were a Carpenter

As anyone who ever saw one of my shelves would tell you, I'm not one of life's joiners. I don't know if this is due to an excess or a lack of self-esteem, whether I pose the question in the form what can I offer them, or what can they offer me? It may also be the result of a healthy streak of contrariness: when I learnt that Aquarians are supposed to be unconventional, I thought, right, I'd better start conforming to the mainstream. Apparently, though, only Virgos take astrology seriously.

It may also be why I have been somewhat reserved in commenting on other people's blogs - if that's what bloggers do, then I probably shouldn't be doing it myself. Can't be seen to be joining in, now, can we? Still, things appear to be changing, prompted by a couple of posts over at the excellent Sharpener on the subject of national identity. As the name of this blog hints, I have some interest in this subject. But personally, not being a joiner, I wonder how relevant British, and certainly English, identity is to me.

Certainly, I've never really felt English. For me, the word leads me to the Home Counties, cucumber sandwiches, and a certain froideur. It doesn't encompass the looming mills of my home town, nor the open moors around it. In my understanding, I'm not English, I'm Yorkshire, although as my previous posts show I'm happy to play around with that identity, and I'm aware of its various facets and hues. There are, for example, fine degrees between plain speaking, through bluntness, to downright inconsiderateness. And whatever the positive traits might be, I wouldn't want to use Yorkshire nationalism as the basis for a political movement. Where does it end? My other blog is advertised as being written by a Bradfordian exiled to Leeds, for God's sake.

I tend to move from Yorkshire straight to British, although Chris's thoughts give me pause: is the British identity more warlike and Imperialist than the English? As he observes, it was always called the British Empire, and unless I'm wrong there were plenty of Scots and not a few Irish in the army, navy and administration that kept the colonised countries in their places, but wasn't it mostly English politicians that sent them out, and English people who occupied the senior ranks? Rob Jubb approaches this from a different angle, saying that:

the British establishment is predominantly English: the Scottish class system has had its top lopped off, and so its exploitation and status hierarchy differ from that of the English one, simply because to a certain degree you stop being Scottish once you reach a certain level. [My emphasis]

So my tentative hypothesis - I'm still thinking through the implications of this - is that my preference for British over English identity is a way of bypassing this English hegemony, and I do mean here that English is Little.

I've already been big-headed enough to drop Ernest Renan's name, and his apercu about nationalism involving as much forgetting of history as it does remembering. But, if you don't accept what has been termed the instrumentalist position that national identity can be infinitely manipulated for political ends, then any calls for national traits must have some rooting in perceived reality. Clio tells us that Liverpool was once rich, grown fat on the slave trade, yet on the other side of the country we also hear William Wilberforce hailing us from Hull. So there are traits that can plausibly be associated with British identity that I can commend, but my list would bear an eerie similarity to this one.

But I'd far rather not join the Dutch Auction at all.

Ignore this, it's just a tag: nationalism
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Britishness
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Englishness

What football?

This made me laugh:

The national anthems The Polish anthem is your standard European fare, a strict 4/4 with an old-school military pomp. Ecuador's is a much more jaunty number, the sort of tune you could set to footage of a man who has just found £20 walking down a street.

Found in the Guardian's minute-by-minute coverage of Poland vs Ecuador - a country whose name I can only ever hear in one way, thanks to those accursed musicians. Ms Dynamite-E-e is currently unavailable for typing duties, as she's nagging for replays of the Lion Sleeps Tonight. Yes, quite. However, in other circumstances, she could do a right good typographical representation of what I mean.

Mind you, if you think the post you're reading is a cheap cash-in on the World Cup, you ain't seen nothing. The lad Justin, as ever, gives 110%, and the boys in Red had to resort to a professional foul. The BBC, however, provide an action replay. I can only guess that A. Campbell, esq. has a touch of psittacosis. Go on, give him a ring (hat-tip: Manic), cheer him up.

Ignore this, it's just a tag: World Cup
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Alisdair Campbell
Ignore this, it's just a tag: football

She Was Thin

I know Peter Kay makes much of t'internet, and by Jove I think he's onto something: Northerners have clearly been in t'vanguard of technical innovation. For example, look at the biggest internet auction site, which was launched from a small coastal village just south of Whitby. Local man Pierre Omidyar's sweet stall at the Tuesday market was doing all right, but he was inspired by the old dears fighting over the second-hand stall next door. "Ee, by 'eck Elsie, look at that! And only two bob!" "I'll give you half a crown." etc. He took the first two syllables, altered them as a pun on the village name, and, well, the rest is history, albeit occasionally disputed. As Wikipedia says:

The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade PEZ Candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media.

In fact, the best-selling item in the early years was a spin-off from Pierre's stall, which he dubbed Ebay Gum.

Selby man Isaac Asimov achieved worldwide fame with his stories chronicling the large families he grew up in and around. The notorious reticence of the Yorkshire people he portrayed led some outsiders, particularly the literary critic Bob Hicks, to consider these characters as somehow inhuman. Asimov attempted to set this right by presenting a fictional elder brother he called "Our Daniel" to allay these stereotypes. Our Daniel was tasked to introduce visiting Methodist lay preacher Elijah Bailey, and thus the reader, to his community and mores.

On the basis of these encounters, many of which simply presented variations on the same theme, Bob Hicks drew up the "Three Laws of Robert Hicks", which state:

1] Tha may not 'arm people, nor, by doin' nowt, allow people to come to 'arm.

2] Tha must obey the commands given thee by people, unless tha might break t'first law.

3] See all, hear all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt. And if ever tha does owt for nowt, mek sure tha does it for thy sen.

Given the prominence of Northerners in promoting new technologies, it's hardly surprising Ee-commerce has emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Next week, we will examine the influence of information technology and science fiction on the lyrics of Shane Macgowan.



Ignore this, it's just a tag: Yorkshire
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Ebay
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Asimov