LAND OF MARMITE WITH BITTERSWEET MELANCHOLY

By Julian Sudre

Once upon a time, the idyllic chocolate-box picture of a suave island with her gentleman-like manners conveyed British-ness with grand standard. Now the palette of behaviours has been splattered into anarchy with the most vivid colours of 21rst Century England.

If anything, one would wonder who let the dog out in this frabjous country that Bill Bryson has been standing four-square behind. Well, in all fairness, I would not derisively fill this column with words freighted with cynicism because I for one, have enjoyed many a thing here despite the abysmal weather and Marmite. But I have nearly felt addicted to this cynic pleasure of moaning about the weather forecast while I would sip on a cup of tea and wish I was in sun-drenched California. And again the grim reality of espousing the gritty approach to stiff-upper lip holds fast to my beliefs.

Nevertheless, it would be a lie if i had omitted my unerring displeasure of English cock-a-hoopness, the disdainful pride of being English wells up dangerously during football matches. Lager louts invade touristic towns in Europe and turned them into stag party hot spots. Ladettes proudly have their Saturday night "events" photographed and plastered on Facebook. Obesity is ballooning and we have become celebrity-obsessed. I am worried about modern England with the barbarous demeanour and the sloppy, inward-looking attitudes of working classes that has started to spill into pockets of violence and self-destruction.

The British empire exuded the thew of an athlete that fought, with grace and talent, all manner of territories; now englishness has fallen from grace. Sometimes I wonder if a touch of decadence has rendered England too wild to be controlled.

Yet, patriotism since times immemorial always has pervaded through the psyche of nations. And that of course, is the main driving force that elicits a sense of identity. The flag-waving spirit and the go pit-a-pat thrum of self-drunken nationalistic acceptance ripple on down human generations through basic osmosis. Then history comes in to reinforce the distinctiveness of one’s kingdom; as colonised countries entertain the inner child in all of us, we have learned to play tic-tac-toe or nought and crosses with almost an air of derision that has turned us into grown-up kids who get a kick out of winning. And winning diagonally or horizontally by ticking the music box, the food box or the cinema box is what distinguishes the personality traits of a country.

But the tenor of the debate here is to distinguish that positive patriotism can hold hues of negative patriotism. Let’s call it the National Giddiness, shall we? England has got carried away in a contentious, chin-out way. It is almost revolting, perhaps unconventional, by any stretch of the imagination to turn into an over-confident person that forgets about himself. Dear England, ye shall not burst with too much vanity and learn to contain your hauteur before the karmic laws cut you down to size.

Drunken football fans and riots were the scene of a war zone a couple of weeks ago during the Uefa Cup final in Manchester. A police officer almost lost his life had it not been for a former soldier to rescue him. Why those horrendous explosions of madness happen specifically in England? and the stabbing culture is now endemic. All in all, the creativity and eccentricity is at its best but like any madman or genius, England can't stay for too long two sandwiches short of a picnic. Otherwise, it will burn itself out.