1. W.I.H.E. Festval - Luke Nye - Shoreham-by-Sea, England

Why do I hate England? 


To be honest, having thought about it long and hard, it is their inability to get past the last eight. 


Up till the quarter finals, plucky little Englanders each and every one of them and then Whoomph, what a waste of space.


Ratchet up the tension to a penalty shoot out and they become custard, Creme Anglaise. And there’s nothing more England than custard.


So it poses the question who do they represent, these Englander Footballers. Not Wales or Scotland or Ireland (northern of course) they all have their own football teams. (Damit England could be good at football if we were just a little bigger). So who or what is England and why do I hate it?


Let’s start with what.  Geographically England is six times larger than Wales. So small, very close to the sea, and very close to its neighbors (shocking rucking fucking neighbors). So close to her neighbors she is almost hemmed in, by outsiders.


So though small, so many different Englands.  Mythically, powerful and magical.  Historically ancient yet with a recent Empire.


This colonizer of countries, took on the world and won. (It was like the conveyor belt on the generation game as England and Europe snapped up tea and coffee and commodities, the main commodity being people.


England had a revolution,  We toppled no crown or governing system  

(we  tried, a long time ago and failed.  I hate England for this) but industrialized our nation. 


The workshop of the world exporting knowledge and goods and it was a complete fluke, it happening here but it did, it happened here. And Scotland. 


Scotland was quite influential regarding the industrial revolution. Watts and Stevenson and Telford, they were Scottish and not English, but are British, were once Scottish but never English.  Not that they are not  Scottish now, it’s just a different Scottish to the Scottish they would like.  I think. It’s very complicated and I have now confused myself.


So Theo’s starting point; Why do I hate England.  This bully-boy England with it’s bull-rag talk, is a bull dog, I’ll tell ya’.


Bull dog brought up on bully beef. We have accumulated unimaginable wealth through our revolution. If feels to me, more like the spoils of war.  We have become and island within an island, quite a feat.  Something only the English could manage.  


This bulldog, Brittanica, Perfidious Albion.  Is England all mouth now ?  Maybe.  


Why do I hate England ? I can’t hate England because England made me who I am.  I am England, St. George, me.  We are England. I am so un-England but I am England. And Europe, and the world, as we all are.   Global travelers, gypsies really.


Luke Nye

Plumpton 

August 2017




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