"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Whenever Americans find out that I’m from England (and not from Australia), the conversation quickly turns to the subject of London.
For example, it’s usually assumed that I was born in London (I wasn’t) and that I’ve lived in London my whole life (I haven’t). When someone is telling me about his experience of London I’m often tempted to ask him what he means by “London” because, like most things in England, things are rarely straight-forward…
Yesterday I uploaded to Facebook a picture of a can of Boddingtons as my profile picture. This prompted a childhood friend of mine to go on a lovely little rant:
“Hmmm, since when has Boddingtons originated from ‘Britain’? Was it brewed in Scotland, N.Ireland or Wales? I don’t think so! England!!!!!!!! You can bet your life if it was a Scottish product it’d say imported from Scotland on it 😀 Plus… If the collective ‘Britain’ really has to be used they should at least have the decency to use the ‘Great’ at the beginning of it! Phew… Sorry- Rant over! PS  I guess I should be grateful that it doesn’t state ‘Imported from Europe’ on it :-D”
I told him that if this sort of thing bothers him, he shouldn’t move to the USA!
I find that Americans are usually rather flummoxed when it comes to knowing the difference between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom so I thought that today I’d offer a brief explanation…