Voinjama Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 The answer to this question will depend on your own economic situation and what demographic you are from. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I don't know, even the poor in this country have it better than the majority of the world, what with social housing, the benefit system and the NHS they can benefit from. Obviously there are exceptions etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 (edited) I think if Britain is to make a claim of greatness it would probably have to be rather better than it is. Here's a list which hardly invites the description 'great'. Education 26th in the world GDP per capita 27th (lower than Ireland) Defence spending 6th Healthcare quality 1st Pension worst at £5500 (Swedes can get £25k earnings related, Spain £26k) Exports 19th Inequality second worst in Europe to Portugal. Fuel poverty in Europe - worst. Child well-being league (Europe) 24th out of 29 Child poverty - amongst the worst (46% in Birmingham Ladywood) 21st out of 34 nations. External debt 2nd in the world ($10,090,000,000,000 - $160,158 per capita) 4x gdp Most expensive rail travel - 1st in Europe Football fifa ranking - England 20th, Scotland 27th, Wales 44th, Northern Ireland 89th Not so great then. Edited July 20, 2014 by MakemineVanilla 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 20, 2014 Administrator Share Posted July 20, 2014 I think if Britain is to make a claim of greatness it would probably have to be rather better than it is. Apologies if someone has already explained this in the thread. It's called Great Britain to distinguish from Lesser Britain, the area now known as Brittany. It's not a claim of "greatness". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I think if Britain is to make a claim of greatness it would probably have to be rather better than it is. Apologies if someone has already explained this in the thread. It's called Great Britain to distinguish from Lesser Britain, the area now known as Brittany. It's not a claim of "greatness". They have, several times! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villaajax Posted July 20, 2014 Share Posted July 20, 2014 I thought 'Lesser Britain' was the Welsh part? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LxYoungAVFC Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 (edited) A few have mentioned wanting a thread about it, it gets alluded to in all manner of topics (I even mentioned our society as being a key factor as to why the English national team is so bad) and now its time to get it out in the open - just how "great" is Britain? I've lived abroad for about half of my post-University life, in Germany and Amsterdam. After being back in England for 6 years, on Sunday I'm off again - to live in Canada. Wherever I go I'm always very proud to be British. Certainly as a designer I find that it can regularly carry a certain amount of cachet. But I often find myself frustrated at the state of Britain now. Maybe I'm getting old, but swathes of British youth baffle me - celebrity culture seemingly being the only valid type, and a lack of morals across all generations being amplified by those in their late teens and early twenties. I've given up on our government, and their opponents. There isn't enough variety in what they stand for or how they execute their policies. It's too often self-serving rhetoric. Social media has many positives but has also caused many issues amongst the youth of our nation. There is no middle ground any more. No average. Everything is extreme - amazing or shit - or it gets filtered out. If you want likes or comments you can't just be average. The country has a drink (and drug) problem too. I've never been anywhere else that I've seen the level of street brawls and debauchery that you get in towns and cities across the UK on a Friday and Saturday night. It's like the vikings make a weekly return. BUT - there is still so much to be proud of. There is REAL culture here - music, art, design, literature. It's amazing. Architecture across the land is varied and beautiful. Our landscapes and countryside are unique and breathtaking. The diversity of our society and the influences this brings is likely unparalleled in any other country as small as ours. We are a people of courage, and honour, and creativity. In times of recession we give millions of pounds to charity, when we host sporting events they are gold standard examples, and our entrepreneurial spirit is perhaps the only reason we have any sort of economy apart from banking. We are a nation of philandering, coke-addled scumbags who cheat on our wives and girlfriends and fight strangers in the street. We make millionaires out of people like Dappy, Joey Essex and seemingly any 18 year old with a full-sleeve tattoo and the ability to kick a football in a straight line. We awarded Kerry Katona with Mom of the Year, and "Britain First" have 300k "likes" on Facebook, making them the most prominent political entity in British social media. We are amazing, yet crap. Genius, yet confused. We are "literally" Great Britain. Over to you...Very interesting. Your post is astonishingly similar to how I would describe my home country Switzerland. Globalisation at its finest/worst. Edited July 21, 2014 by LxYoungAVFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 So what we can actually conclude from this thread is that familiarity breeds contempt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
troon_villan Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 So what we can actually conclude from this thread is that familiarity breeds contempt? We should never have given women the vote? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 A few have mentioned wanting a thread about it, it gets alluded to in all manner of topics (I even mentioned our society as being a key factor as to why the English national team is so bad) and now its time to get it out in the open - just how "great" is Britain? I've lived abroad for about half of my post-University life, in Germany and Amsterdam. After being back in England for 6 years, on Sunday I'm off again - to live in Canada. Wherever I go I'm always very proud to be British. Certainly as a designer I find that it can regularly carry a certain amount of cachet. But I often find myself frustrated at the state of Britain now. Maybe I'm getting old, but swathes of British youth baffle me - celebrity culture seemingly being the only valid type, and a lack of morals across all generations being amplified by those in their late teens and early twenties. I've given up on our government, and their opponents. There isn't enough variety in what they stand for or how they execute their policies. It's too often self-serving rhetoric. Social media has many positives but has also caused many issues amongst the youth of our nation. There is no middle ground any more. No average. Everything is extreme - amazing or shit - or it gets filtered out. If you want likes or comments you can't just be average. The country has a drink (and drug) problem too. I've never been anywhere else that I've seen the level of street brawls and debauchery that you get in towns and cities across the UK on a Friday and Saturday night. It's like the vikings make a weekly return. BUT - there is still so much to be proud of. There is REAL culture here - music, art, design, literature. It's amazing. Architecture across the land is varied and beautiful. Our landscapes and countryside are unique and breathtaking. The diversity of our society and the influences this brings is likely unparalleled in any other country as small as ours. We are a people of courage, and honour, and creativity. In times of recession we give millions of pounds to charity, when we host sporting events they are gold standard examples, and our entrepreneurial spirit is perhaps the only reason we have any sort of economy apart from banking. We are a nation of philandering, coke-addled scumbags who cheat on our wives and girlfriends and fight strangers in the street. We make millionaires out of people like Dappy, Joey Essex and seemingly any 18 year old with a full-sleeve tattoo and the ability to kick a football in a straight line. We awarded Kerry Katona with Mom of the Year, and "Britain First" have 300k "likes" on Facebook, making them the most prominent political entity in British social media. We are amazing, yet crap. Genius, yet confused. We are "literally" Great Britain. Over to you... Very interesting. Your post is astonishingly similar to how I would describe my home country Switzerland. Globalisation at its finest/worst. Switzerland offers a fine demonstration that the things we in the UK blame our membership of the EC for, are actually the result of the demands of globalised capitalism. The same frantic passion for importing cheap labour and with the same results - alienated second-generation immigrants becoming terrorists and the most highly educated unemployed in Europe. Switzerland is definitely not what it used to be and their enthusiasm for tinkering with a society which looked like it actually worked has been staggering. And all to get a little bit richer, when they were already the richest in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 those pesky Swiss terrorists I knew it was them all along Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 (edited) those pesky Swiss terrorists I knew it was them all along Edited July 22, 2014 by MakemineVanilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 well that told / showed me learn something new every day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomh621 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Depends what angle you look at it from i guess. We are currently funding (alongside the US) Israel's war crimes against Palestine. But then we do have great healthcare? It is pretty much impossible to summarize this topic because there are so many pro's and con's, good and bad, left and right. What we do know is their are some fantastically scummy people in this country. But there are plenty of great people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mjmooney Posted July 22, 2014 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2014 Well, I deliberately hung back from this thread for a while, and sure enough, everything I would have said has been covered. My (apparently eccentric) opinion on the matter of pride has been discussed elsewhere. National pride is perhaps the most misplaced of all. Generally, I think that people are much the same everywhere - and the vast majority of them are OK. So, nothing special - good or bad - about the British. Fact is though, that I like living here, and I have never wanted to live anywhere else (even though the missus is still banging on about how you can buy a fantastic house in the south of France for a third of the price of our current one). I don't care about the few disadvantages there are here, the advantages massively outweigh them. I'm still a Brummie, and always will be, but I have long since concluded that a pint of decent ale in a pub in the Yorkshire Dales is as close to heaven as I'm going to get. And I don't need a flag or an anthem or a 'royal' bloody family to tell me that. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Stevo985 Posted July 22, 2014 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2014 Late to this thread, but it seems people often fail to distinguish between "different" and "worse" Britain is much "different" than it was 30 years ago. Is it worse? Not a chance, imo. What's that Socrates quote from thousands of years ago? "Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." People always think the world/country is getting worse. It rarely is. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vive_La_Villa Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 My biggest fear as a kid was stray dogs.They were everywhere and I got chased many times. At least we don't have stray dogs anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 My biggest fear as a kid was stray dogs.They were everywhere and I got chased many times. At least we don't have stray dogs anymore. Really makes you appreciate Al Qaeda. At least they don't give you rabies. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 a few other nations on a very quick random sample appear to think so The place I've been staying had French, Belgian and German families also staying there. They were enjoying the weather, the scenery, the quiet and also the incredible range of activities including coasteering and kayaking in spectacular water where nothing is going to eat you. You can get decent wine and decent coffee in the most far flung of places and the road system is easy and safe to navigate. Also, the sedantry lifestyle of many means that a beach that is a one mile walk including a little climbing is almost deserted all day. If you have the money, it's pretty good. If you don't have the money, there are a great many far worse places. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 What's that Socrates quote from thousands of years ago? "Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." There are a number of problems with this - chief amongst them is that Socrates would have been very unlikely (if the writings of Plato, Xenepohon and a few others are to be taken as a true representation of him) to have criticized the 'youth' in that way. Still, that's the youth of today: seeing summat plastered on facebook and taking it as gospel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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