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me. That night I was killing someone else.’
    Independent

CHAPTER 4
BEST OF BRITISHNESS
    When an earthquake damaged homes in Kent, victims went down the pub to watch football…
    Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean is a clumsy, gurning, bumbling, birdbrain – and undeniably British…
    If you ask a non-Brit to describe Mr Bean, these are the words they deliver back: ‘Hapless, awkward, self-conscious , childlike, disaster prone….and British.’
    Guardian
    Next day Guardian reader Brian Denoon, of Inverness wrote: ‘Your appreciation of Mr Bean as the epitome of Britishness will boost the desire of Scots to become independent. This cringeworthy creature could not be anything other than English.’
    Guardian
    There was a very British response when the fourth largest UK earthquake shook Kent in April 2007 – people emerged from their damaged homes and went down the pub to watch football.
    Independent on Sunday
    British tradesmen drink the equivalent of 1.3 BATHFULS of tea each year.
    Direct Line
    When packing for their holidays 51% of Britons take baked beans, 46% HP sauce, 23% teabags and 19% loo rolls.
    Independent on Sunday
    During a 2007 visit to Washington, then Prime Minister Tony Blair demonstrated once again that he is truly a man-of-the-people.
    After talking about his plans to promote understanding among people of different faiths and bring peace to the Middle East he went on to tackle a problem which really does concern the British: the difficulty of finding a really good cup of tea. ‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘This is a British tradition that must not be lost. If I were running for office again, I’d make it a major part of any platform.’
    Daily Telegraph
    Britons have a bewildering lack of knowledge about their country according to a survey commissioned by UKTV History. It revealed:
Four in ten think the bulldog is the animal that symbolises the country. It is, of course, the lion, which is has been part of the Royal Arms since the Plantagenets.
A quarter said the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall are among the Seven Wonders of the World, confusing them with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
One in five think the Pennines are between France and Spain.
Fifteen per cent think Hadrian’s Wall is in China.
    The Times
    The 2007 Rough Guide names 25 things to do in Britain before you die. Among them:
See the Belfast murals.
Sup Guinness.
Breathe in the sea air in Tobermory.
Hunt ghosts in York.
Gorge your way through Birmingham’s Balti triangle.
Go clubbing in London.
Visit the best beach in Britain: Holkham, Norfolk. (The Queen’s bathing hut is in the woods just behind the nudist beach.)
    Daily Telegraph
    Journalist Cole Moreton went in search of polite society after it was reported that schools were to have Civility Classes. When a man dropped his plastic pint beer glass in a pub Moreton said: ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped something.’ The beery bloke lurched forward, chest thrust out and fists clenched, slurring: ‘Wassyer problem?’
    Maybe, wrote Moreton, if the man had been to a civility class, he would have said: ‘Yes, I see the error of my ways. I will hasten to a bin. Thank you for helping me to be a better citizen.’ Or maybe not.
    Modern Britons are rude and getting ruder.
    Independent on Sunday
    Bestselling American author Bill Bryson has a deep knowledge and an absolute passion for England’s heritage. So it was no surprise when, in May 2007, he became president of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. He lived in England for a long time and then went back to the States, intending his return to be permanent. But, he says, he ‘spent the next eight years pining for Radio 4, the English sense of humour – and Branston pickle.’
    He once wrote of Blackpool: ‘On Friday and Saturday nights it has more public toilets than anywhere else. Elsewhere they call them doorways.’
    And of Liverpool: ‘They were having a festival of litter when I arrived.’
    Guardian
    In