Why is Britain crap at everything?

[lightblue]

Now I am not English, but have lived here for long enough to know that not everything is great (my main gripes is the public transport system). However there are some things that England can be proud of, and a lot of them have been mentioned.
Another example is something I just heard on ITN news, how Rumsfeld complimented the British special forces (SAS/SBS) as the best-trained, smartest and toughest forces currently in Afghanistan.
And living in Cambridge I think that the intellectual history (and present to a lesser degree) of Britain is probably matched by none. If you look at list of alumni from Oxford and Cambridge and see names like Newton, Darwin, Milton among them, it is something to be proud of.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Its not a patch on Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska!

The drive through Nebraska was so damned boring that to see a couple of old cars piled into a Stonehenge replica was actually the higlight of the day.

Hey!!! Oh wait, Nebraska is a boring ****hole. My bad.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by lightblue
...If you look at list of alumni from Oxford and Cambridge and see names like Newton, Darwin, Milton among them, it is something to be proud of.

And Provost Harrison

[Solly]

Prince Charles went to Aberystwyth!

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Infatuation
Prince Charles went to Aberystwyth!

Did he have a nice holiday?

[Par4]

Originally posted by Chris Wilkinson


I know that it was orignally a medicine and I remember reading that it's actually British...

That's club soda not coke, the coke guys cook the carbination idea from club soda which was originally a medicine but caught on in drug stores where the soda 'jerks' would make italian sodas and whatnot.

Mr. T says

Cokes from Atlanta fool!

[Lonestar]

You Brits are still good at...erm....

.......

James Bond movies?

[Tolls]

The millenium dome was rubbish admittedly, but the London Eye is a great addition...and of course the rather impressive Eden Project in the west country (apart from the absurd queues)...

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Chris Wilkinson
...the Internet is technically English too.

I am curious at how you justify this staement too. I would have said it was American/Swiss. American since the 'internet' itself was originally designed for US defence purposes, Swiss because the 'World Wide Web' (ie. the pointy clicky interface for the internet) was developed at CERN (where I work) in Switzerland.

The only reasoning for British is that the CERN project leader was British.

Edit: hmm - thinking about that again, since CERN is governed by an international treaty, it isn't really Switzerland (which is why I don't pay income tax).

[Roland]

I'm not going to play along and start praising Britain now, but suffice it to say that like most countries it has weak and strong sides. Unlike the US, which has only strengths, with the sole exception of its citizens suffering from total self-overestimation.

What I find funny though is that pan-angloism. Even funnier that it is so prominent among the Yanks. Now we continental europeans have some quibbles with the Brits, but tieing up with you Americans would be a total culture shocks for both sides. Can you imagine dubya in PM's question time ?

[Dauphin]

(which is why I don't pay income tax).

Of any kind??????

Do they take this into account when they pay your wages, or do you get paid 30% more than the average *insert job position*.

[Tolls]

Rogan:
I think he's actually referring to the web, rather than the internet.
Tim Berners-Lee is credited with the invention of the WWW...though, as you point out, it was at CERN that he built the first browser and web server.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Of any kind??????

Not a sausage. (I do, of course pay for health insurance though.)

Do they take this into account when they pay your wages, or do you get paid 30% more than the average *insert job position*.

Well, it is kind of hard to say. Since Switzerland is rather expensive, it is difficult to compare with other national labs - Switzerland, on the whole does pay better than most other places. But comparing to 'average' positions in say Germany, the CERN gross (=net since no tax) is also considerably more than the German gross (which has to then have 30% or so removed).

[Dr Spin]

Can you imagine dubya in PM's question time ?

Dubya isn't America incarnate, my "hip-to-bash-USA" friend. Most of us didn't even vote for the fellow.

US-Britian isn't much of a culture shock after all. Behind your english backs, continental europe calls you a "culture-lacking nation of shopkeepers". Sound familiar?

Take away the Monarchy, and Britian is almost indistinguishable from the northeast USA.

[Dr Spin]

as you point out, it was at CERN that he built the first browser and web server.

Gaaah! In ROOT no doubt...