Viva la English

Yesterday, I finally decided that it was possibly time to take down the remainder of our Euro 2004 decorations at work. The competition was back in June, but it's been nice having a bit of colour around the office. But all good things do tend to come to a messy end, and it's a wise man that knows his own father, and also sometimes when to stop.

So I took down the wall of Great Englishmen (and women). I took down the wall of Superb English Quotes. And I took down the wall of Why England Is Best, reasons chosen by myself and a colleague. This last wall celebrated in four A4 sheets of paper all the things that are good and proper about England, land of the English (and not many people called Eng).

The walls look very empty now.

I thought I might record here for posterity the some of the contents of the Why England Is Best wall. Just so any of you non-English people can realise what you are missing.

Things The English Are Best At
- Grammar
- Crosswords
- Cooking
- War
- Peacekeeping
- Dog training
- Playing fair
- Queueing
- Getting angry at queue jumpers
- Stopping queue jumpers getting in
- Celebrating any time you stop a queue jumper getting in
- Keeping things in perspective
- Diplomacy
- Tolerating other countries inadequacies
- Humility
- Being the voice of reason
- Knowing when we are better off
- Giving to the poor and needy
- Being able to analyse whether the poor and needy really are so poor and needy
- Self analysis
- Denial

Great English Inventions
- The wheel
- Fire
- Bingo
- Skiing
- Sex Pistols
- Water Pistols
- English
- Tea
- India
- Harry Potter
- Harry Secombe
- Sooty
- Soot
- Dick Van Dyke
- The sunbed
- Dale Winton
- Julie Andrews
- Andrews liver salts
- Cod liver oil
- Scouse humour
- Joyriding

Places You May Commonly Find An Englishman
- In the local pub
- In bed
- Down t'garden
- Not in Wales
- A Portugese jail cell
- Strapped to the torture table of an evil genius
- In the gutter
- In the Big Brother house
- Spain
- Being evil in a Hollywood film
- Inside a Punch and Judy booth
- Milton Keynes
- Under the boardwalk
- At the front of any race
- On a bus
- On The Buses
- By the rivers of Babylon
- In a lift
- Trumpton, Chigley and Camberwick Green
- In top rock-combo, Slade
- In a cheese shop
- Hanging from a hangman's noose
- Dudley
- In bed with Madonna
- Late night talk radio
- Outside the kebab van, late at night
- England

Anyone who says that I'm just writing things here that used to be on a wall at work because I'm too lazy to think of anything original is wrong.