What is British/English culture today?

[december]

It is well known that the British customs, holidays and traditions has a rich history.
And it is something to be really prode of...

But when I read the British newspapers, watch TV or meet people from UK I have a feeling that the British culture is declining to the Spice Girls/Benny Hill level...

I did discuss this subject with some people from UK and they agree with me. They say me that there is no decency in British society these days, and that Britain is not what it used to be...

But what do you think?

[umbrex]

It is well known that the British customs, holidays and traditions has a rich history.
And it is something to be really prode of...

But when I read the British newspapers, watch TV or meet people from UK I have a feeling that the British culture is declining to the Spice Girls/Benny Hill level...

I did discuss this subject with some people from UK and they agree with me. They say me that there is no decency in British society these days, and that Britain is not what it used to be...

But what do you think?

Brits are renouned for slum and crooked teeth. This has been the Brittish stereotype for a while i think...

However i will agree that the cultural distinctions and the required preserverence is declining at such a rate that i fear we will live in an americanized cultural hemisphere with only a part of once was.
But it is a globalizing world. We are boimbarded by the mass media every day. How much of what u see on TV is domestically produced ??
Historyclass is renouned for being so boring, and for my own part i can only say that it was the topic i skipped the most.l It simply had no intrest to me.
Same goes for danish at the highest level.

All in all there are many contributing factors for the decline of cultures. It was bound to happen so to speak, but it has been speeded up intendedly by those in control.

A funny thing about brittain is their love for soccer and how you actually see how these idiots deliberatly seeking the violence - even planning it to happen and go for beer afterwards. Yes some might find it amusing, but this isnt even the bigger clubs anymore, it's rather widespread. My view on it is that its so so much the idolization of the game of the players any more, its about your piece of land and defending it, much as the clans did some 800 years ago, so u could in fact say the brits are moving back in time mainly due to a bad schooling syetm and unemployment in the lower caste.

My 5 cents - Umbrex.

[lumukanda]

fish and chips, beer, football.
of course there's lots more to it, but those are the stereotypes.

[lottie]

The media play abig part of portraying our culture too though, i feel bad sometimes about the impression thats given by the media as im given that label too, and i dont live up to the medias interpretation of our culture!! i wonder if its propergander alot of the time...??

[eternal_spirit]

Cocaine,ectasy,steroids pub ...... bad dance music and rap, chavs, scallys, goths. Lot's of live music and bands.

Rugby, football , more sport, but most watch and dont participate, you can rarley go to a pub for a drink without some sport being on huge televison screen(more like cinema screens ) kebabs, currys, cannabis and a whole bunch of other stuff, which I'll get around to another time.

[lottie]

what is 'culture' anyway?

a measurement of how many of us do the same thing? (behave like sheep) all doin the same thing, liking the same things, acting the same way.

a way to label us further? group us together?

[whitenight639]

damm right, i just been to the service station/ supermarket and couldnt find any PC magazines or anything that looked remotly interesting people just want to see celebs with no pants! wtf is going on? anyway please leave the spice girls out of it as there are far more cheesy manufactured pop groups with a lot less talent (yes i have a soft spot for the spice girls, they were what i grew up with but i do have other tastes in music!) pick on paris hilton and other trash.

[andrew wilson]

I do not recognise my England to that which is here described. I suggest that it is all relevant to your own social standing and circle. Some would say that your experience is a reflection of your mind.

[aventurine]

what is 'culture' anyway?

a measurement of how many of us do the same thing? (behave like sheep) all doin the same thing, liking the same things, acting the same way.

a way to label us further? group us together?


Indeed. :)

I no longer care about culture identification...I may live in England, and call myself English - but it means nothing to me, other than an indication of where I live and what language I speak. If other's then stereotype me as a beer-swilling, football hooligan then that's their problem, not mine. Especially as I do neither.

I am me, I am free....LOL.:D

[lottie]

Indeed. :)

I no longer care about culture identification...I may live in England, and call myself English - but it means nothing to me, other than an indication of where I live and what language I speak. If other's then stereotype me as a beer-swilling, football hooligan then that's their problem, not mine. Especially as I do neither.

I am me, I am free....LOL.:D

Agreed, i was having an argument with a friends' husband recently regarding patriotism etc and my heritage, he couldn't get his head round why i wasn't patriotic and why i wasn't 'proud' to be english, i said im not proud to be anything, many people have done many bad things and i do not want to label myself in with them, 'England' has done some awful things, our 'culture' is pretty tacky and nasty, and i don't want to be a part of that- i am proud to be 'Me' but i dont need a label to 'belong' to im secure enough in myself to just be proud of me and not a label which links me to the behaviour of everyone else..
I was born in England i am living in England i am labelled by the masses as 'English' but im certainly not proud to be English, im just Me!! and like you say....FREE!!!!! :D ;)

[lottie]

Just found this poem by Benjamin Zephaniah;


The British
Serves 60 million
(from 'Wicked World')
"Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese."

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

:D

[edelweiss pirate]

I'm often the first to criticise my country Umbrex

But when a foreigner does it, it seems like you're shit flinging...

I won't mention how your country is totally infested with masons and that their offshoot The Oddfellows, openly advertise their lodges in the town. Nor that your country is the most rogorously controlled and ordered that I've ever been to, fined for jaywalking, secret police everywhere that seem to have been left behind by the nazis... It's also a nightmare of dodgy and dark symbolism, and your architecture is nasty too.

Not nice is it?

Anyway you get the point. I don't think it's for others to criticise our or your country. A non Jew can't tell Jew jokes but Jackie Mason can...


Britian, compared to France, Denmark and just about every other country in the world is a country where racism and intolerance has found no anchor in the public psyche (unlike France and Germany).... We are chilled out and relaxed for the most part and we know how to party (unlike France and Germany)....

There's plenty of rubbish though and many people are just hideous in their thoughts and appearance....

I like it though. I'm glad to be a Brit.

[umbrex]

I'm often the first to criticise my country Umbrex

But when a foreigner does it, it seems like you're shit flinging...

I won't mention how your country is totally infested with masons and that their offshoot The Oddfellows, openly advertise their lodges in the town. Nor that your country is the most rogorously controlled and ordered that I've ever been to, fined for jaywalking, secret police everywhere that seem to have been left behind by the nazis... It's also a nightmare of dodgy and dark symbolism, and your architecture is nasty too.

Not nice is it?

Anyway you get the point. I don't think it's for others to criticise our or your country. A non Jew can't tell Jew jokes but Jackie Mason can...


Britian, compared to France, Denmark and just about every other country in the world is a country where racism and intolerance has found no anchor in the public psyche (unlike France and Germany).... We are chilled out and relaxed for the most part and we know how to party (unlike France and Germany)....

There's plenty of rubbish though and many people are just hideous in their thoughts and appearance....

I like it though. I'm glad to be a Brit.

I enjoy having foreigners teach me on my own country, it means so much to me having an expert oppinion. Lol.

Best parties i've ever had were in germany.

Glad to see that non racist and non bigos character in action ;)

[joy division]

Umbrex it is called FOOTBALL, not Soccer. That is a word the yanks use as they allready have a game called football which they seem to use their hands more than there feet, now thats stupid.

Im surprised they dont call it Hand Ball.

British culture, hmmmmmm, CCTV cameras and lots of them.

[bicycle]

Britian is a lovely country, it has some of the best, diverse scenery than anywhere else on the planet.:)

[december]

i fear we will live in an americanized cultural hemisphere with only a part of once was.

Well, it's true. There IS american influence in UK, but Benny Hill and Austin Powers are very much British...

Is this a new face of Britain?


http://www.sutton-acoustic.co.uk/Benny%20Hill.jpghttp://www.ciadvertising.org/sa/spring_04/adv382j/libbyg/mytheory/austin%20powers.jpg

[fantana]

What civilization is is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each others shoulders and kicking each others teeth in.

It’s not a pleasant situation and yet you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise.

Yet, we are led by the least among us, the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. Were led by THE LEAST among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons. This is something and I mean I don’t really want to get off on this tier because it’s a lecture in its own right but culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people’s convenience and the convenience of various intuitions, Churches, companies, tax collection schemes what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you, it disempowers you, it uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture. Yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual, we understand the felt presence of experiences is what is most important but culture is a perversion. It fetishes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false knowledge in the form of squirly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines. Means processes of means passed down by Madison Avenue and a Hollywood.

How do we fight back? A Question worth answering

I think that by creating Art, man was not put on this planet to toil in the mud. Or the God who put us on this planet to toil in the mud is no God I want to have any part of it is some kind of Gnostic demon, some kind of cannibalistic dema urge which should be thoroughly renounced and rejected. By putting the art pedal to the metal we really I think maximize our humanness and we become much more necessary and incomprehensible to the machines.

[whitenight639]

Let me tell you how the british are portrayed in the Swedish media.

Some years ago, the british where portayed as intelligent, well mannered, a bit boring, proud and patriotic.

Now the picture that is painted is of stupid, agressive, beer drinking, football fanatic, fat people.

These are not my own opinions but the impressions I get from watching brits in the media.

well the media is bullshit, most of us are hard working and just trying to make a living and provide for our familys, then u have the elite which prosper in this country and suck out all the wealth and spend it on stupid offshore projects, and then you have the poor that work hard for there 12k a year and because of there shitty jobs they spend most weekends getting paraletic and escaping there shitty reality, and start a few fights.

[them]

What's going on in Great Britain?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/media/Lieoftheland247x165.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/ram/2007_18_wed_02.ram

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2007_18_wed.shtml

Molly's latest film, The Lie of the Land, has something in common with her first, in that they both made me cry, albeit for completely different reasons. While Home From the Hill lovingly charted a sentimental journey, The Lie of the Land is an Important Film, utterly devoid of sentiment.

It has made me feel sad, angry, guilty, and as a result not merely made me vow to change the way I live my life, but actually do it.

The countryside is in crisis.

You can fairly easily ignore it if you don't live there, or you can be vaguely aware of it but feel you are doing your bit by buying the occasional designer sausage or slab of posh cheese from a farmers' market, but the fact is you probably do not have a clue.

Farmers are baffled by the level of apathy about, if not downright antipathy towards, their predicament, as evidenced by the urban response to Countryside Alliance marches where men and women who have spent a lifetime riding horses to hounds are treated as though they have been indulging in, say, the recreational abuse of Iraqi prisoners. This is very wrong.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2073203,00.html

[december]

What's going on in Great Britain?

them, why do you think Benny Hill and Austin Powers are popular in Britain?

[cheeb]

benny hill and austin powers are not popular in england
b hill was thrown on the scrap heep years ago ,probly at his peek worldwide

we are into more subversive /sattirical humour like steve coogan and chubby brown

at the moment its pretty flat

although tony blair did his "am i bovvered "bit for comic releif

and weve got that cretin ricky gervais telling us how rich he is

[dondaz]

I think that by creating Art, man was not put on this planet to toil in the mud. Or the God who put us on this planet to toil in the mud is no God I want to have any part of it is some kind of Gnostic demon, some kind of cannibalistic dema urge which should be thoroughly renounced and rejected. By putting the art pedal to the metal we really I think maximize our humanness and we become much more necessary and incomprehensible to the machines.

That's the way to go Fantana. Creative and artistic!

Have you ever done something creative december? Be great if you could post something to show us!

[cheeb]

The russians love a bit of Voddy,

Yeltzin at his best:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xMThTEA4M0o

Yo,Ho Ho And a bottle of rum!!!

[mada88]

Why should we be pround of something that we have been given?

[december]

benny hill and austin powers are not popular in england
b hill was thrown on the scrap heep years ago ,probly at his peek worldwide


Was I asking you? No.
Here's the face of todays Brits:


The British public is generally pretty stupid....but this is by design. So it's not totally our fault. You may not be aware but the education we get here is very very poor (not relatively). They actually hide any knowledge from us that could be of any real use.

For instance, most of the population eat pre-cooked meals from the supermarket because they havent a clue how to cook. There are tons of cookery programs on tv but they dont actually show us HOW to cook the meals they are cooking. When I went to Australia I watched cookery programs on tv and I can say that I actually learned something!!! (i watched Huey's cooking Adventures lol)

It's not just cooking, it's EVERYTHING they hide from us, it's very hard to learn anything here, the internet has sort of changed all that, that's why they hate the internet so much :D

So generally speaking we here are pretty dumb, easy to brainwash and easy to deceive....abit like the Americans ;)

People like us on here (and alot of others) are trying to change all that so that we get a life that we TRULY deserve :)

http://davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9101

[mada88]

My aunt went to egypt this year and some egyptians where shouting at her "cheap as chips" "asda price" so theres some of our fine cultural exports.

[armoured saint]

I learned everything about British/English culture from Roger Waters.:)

[h1s_l0rdsh1p]

Was I asking you? No.




What the hell was that all about? :confused:

[lottie]

Was I asking you? No.




OF COURSE YOU WERE DECEMBER- THATS THE POINT OF THE THREAD- CHEEB IS BRITISH! YOU ASKED
'WHAT DO YOU THINK?

You are already treading on thin ice December....or should i say Threading on thin ice.....

[synergy777]

on huge televison screen(more like cinema screens ) kebabs, currys, cannabis , it makes yer proud.

the good thing about england is its small size, which forces all cultures to fuse together, along one street you get italian, chinese, indian/asian, african/carribean, mexican, cafes/pub etc.

also without being cheeky, the things above are from asia, plasma, curries, kebabs, and cannabis, lol well a canny scot invented the tv. in fact scots are intellectual powerhouse's, adam smith, baird, hume etc. they are good with money too, well tight,and enjoy a good dram/whiskey, and have a dry/bitter sense of humour.

eg frank boyle on mock the week lol
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bJgkTevIVQ4

[notaslave]

What is British/English culture today?

What the feck are you asking? About English culture or British?

[cf24]

fish and chips, beer, football.
of course there's lots more to it, but those are the stereotypes.


Hey nothing wrong with that, its all part of the ride. Just remember that it is a ride....:D

[notaslave]

In an attempt to answer your question, you are likely to go home wearing a saltire out of your arse if you came to this part of Britain and called us British/English.

[synergy777]

english culture is a fusion, an ever evolving, which i think gives it strength. the old and new compliment eachother, eg beer and curry, you know it makes sense.lol

what i don't like is the xenophobic peeps, thats when i take the piss, which itself is an english trait, oh the irony, lol well it was a trait before the tavistock social engineers got everyone pc/metro .