What makes you think of England?
 

According to a new project it's tea and Alice in Wonderland:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4592476.stm

Was going to reply but do you mean England or Great Britain ?

well the article's about england so I think we can safely leave the Celts out.

I'll start...

David Beckham

- The National Football Team
- The National Anthem
- Green Leather Lounge Chairs
- Sportsmanship and Fairness
- Understatement
- Shoes
- Barbour Wax Jackets
- Harris Tweed
- Sunburn
- Left Lane Traffic
- Pubs
- Humour

et al.

Umbrellas
Queues
Satire
Scrumpy
Village cricket
Deckchairs

Chavs

The patchwork fields in the country.

On the positive side

Steak and Kidney pie
Real ale
Fish and Chips
Tea
Democracy
Literature - Shakespeare, Dickens
Tolerance
Willing to absorb the best of other cultures
Red buses

On the negative side

Binge drinking
Growing lack of respect of elders
Hoodies
The inability to put litter in dustbins
House prices

Positives:

Foxhunting
Monarchy (President Blair anyone?)
The Countryside
The scenery
Pubs
Proper beer and also gin and scotch.
Queuing
The food (yes really)
Marmite
Cricket (especially cricket played by people like me who are hopeless at it)
NHS
Armed Forces
Unarmed police
Unarmed populace
Football and the fact that we invented almost all the global games
The language and the constant reinvention thereof
Darts on the telly
The London Eye

Negatives:

The general crappiness of the yoof of today
The decline of manners (see above)
Precott’s desire to build over every playing field in SE England
Obsession with house prices
The Daily Mail
The Guardian
The current government’s contempt for Parliament and the electorate
The general poniness of public services
The Railways
Not saving Concord
Not building a new royal yacht
Shirley Williams
Arsenal Football Club.

My Lady Wife tells me that whenever we have sex, she closes her eyes, lies back and thinks of England.

((I))

David!!!!!!

Arsenal? A negative?

Cheeky sod!

I think SOME people on this thread are getting 'what makes you think of England' mixed up with what you like/dislike about England. Different subject.

Ira's answer, however, is valid.

Mi image is of a true country of contrasts:

green rolling fields
60s housing estates, grey and dirty

Agatha Christie and Jane Austen
indie music

stag and hen nights
church weddings

high fashion
poor dress sense

Rolls Royce
white van man

tabloids
The BBC

politeness
agression

Wimbledon
Henman

Matthew Arnold's <i>Dover Beach</i>.

Fat 45 year old blokes in Football shirts...yuk

A smell of bacon as you enter homes.
Toast cooling on little silver racks.
People who should see a dentist.
Extremely high prices.
Friendly conversations.
So-so food.
Worn carpeting.
Creaking staircases.
Vague directions to anywhere.
Robust but obscure humor.
A general tired shabbiness.
The smell of peat smoke in Ireland.
Tea with scones and jam.
Lazy public servants.
Whining, whining, whining.

Let's remind the confused about the rules of this game.

It's about England. It has nothing at all to do the neigbouring provinces.Or Ireland.

Now the one thing that summarises us instantly is our most admirable quality: scepticism.

And the one thing that summarises most perfectly all that's gone wrong in the past 60 years is the nomination for English icon by Terence Conran (an average designer in the late 50s, a sharp retailer for a few years in the 60s, a lousy one for the next 20 years as he kept trying to sell us all the same flokati rugs, and now operator of the most ill-mannered restaurant chain in London):

The Royal Festival Hall.

What makes me think of England:

Floris fragrances
Peter Pan
an electric water kettle
hedgerows

Music.

Scones!

Indian Restaurants.