Proud to be British?
Nov 21st 2011, 11:39 pm
#47
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Posts: 8,497
Nov 21st 2011, 11:49 pm
#48
Too young for BE
Joined: Aug 2011
Location: Sunnyvale CA USA
Posts: 295
Re: Proud to be British?
OH MY GOD NO. 
NOT Jerry Springer. He is so awful really he is. I can not stand him or his TV show. His show is just a lot of people who are poor white trash who just yell, scream and fight.
Completely useless. He is one of the worst people who are on American TV today. Oh well.
Rant over
NOT Jerry Springer. He is so awful really he is. I can not stand him or his TV show. His show is just a lot of people who are poor white trash who just yell, scream and fight. Completely useless. He is one of the worst people who are on American TV today. Oh well.Rant over
Nov 22nd 2011, 12:09 am
#49
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Apr 2004
Location: CHELTENHAM, Gloucestershire, England
Posts: 1,494
Re: Proud to be British?
Correct on both counts.....born and bred in Des Moines, Iowa. Came to England for the first time in 1973 and it was love at first sight, even when in "combat" with Mrs Smegma of Dover......took jobs in journalism....met and married an English girl.....lived in the wilds of North Yorkshire for a while....went back to the USA with wife and kids and stayed there for a while....he and his wife wanted to come back to the UK......now lives in Norfolk, England.....very active in environmental issues here through his chairmanship of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, his adopted country which he loves with passion unbounded.....very instrumental in the fight against the curse of widespread litter dropping in England's green and pleasant land, seemingly an endless and sometimes dispiriting task in a country where too many people still fail to recognise the actual purpose of litter bins....many kids think they are either something to sit on as they eat their takeaways or to chuck empty drink cans at from a distance.
Nov 22nd 2011, 12:11 am
#50
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 41,518
Re: Proud to be British?
Correct on both counts.....born and bred in Des Moines, Iowa. Came to England for the first time in 1973 and it was love at first sight, even when in "combat" with Mrs Smegma of Dover......took jobs in journalism....met and married an English girl.....lived in the wilds of North Yorkshire for a while....went back to the USA with wife and kids and stayed there for a while....he and his wife wanted to come back to the UK......now lives in Norfolk, England.....very active in environmental issues here through his chairmanship of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, his adopted country which he loves with passion unbounded.....very instrumental in the fight against the curse of widespread litter dropping in England's green and pleasant land, seemingly an endless and sometimes dispiriting task in a country where too many people still fail to recognise the actual purpose of litter bins....many kids think they are either something to sit on as they eat their takeaways or to chuck empty drink cans at from a distance.
Nov 22nd 2011, 12:16 am
#51
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Apr 2004
Location: CHELTENHAM, Gloucestershire, England
Posts: 1,494
Re: Proud to be British?
OH MY GOD NO. NOT Jerry Springer. He is so awful really he is. I can not stand him or his TV show. His show is just a lot of people who are poor white trash who just yell, scream and fight. Completely useless. He is one of the worst people who are on American TV today. Oh well.
Rant over
NOT Jerry Springer. He is so awful really he is. I can not stand him or his TV show. His show is just a lot of people who are poor white trash who just yell, scream and fight. Completely useless. He is one of the worst people who are on American TV today. Oh well.Rant over
Nov 22nd 2011, 12:17 am
#52
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Joined: Apr 2004
Location: CHELTENHAM, Gloucestershire, England
Posts: 1,494
Nov 22nd 2011, 12:18 am
#53
Too young for BE
Joined: Aug 2011
Location: Sunnyvale CA USA
Posts: 295
Re: Proud to be British?
Nov 22nd 2011, 11:13 am
#56
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Joined: Apr 2004
Location: CHELTENHAM, Gloucestershire, England
Posts: 1,494
Re: Proud to be British?
There certainly have been times in history when events took place which gave very strong reasons for NOT being proud to be British, such as in the early 1950s.
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal.
He liked to sleep with other blokes.
So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal.
He liked to sleep with other blokes. So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
Last edited by Lothianlad; Nov 22nd 2011 at 11:17 am.
Nov 22nd 2011, 4:45 pm
#57
Life goes on.
Joined: Dec 2006
Location: Texas
Posts: 23,661
Re: Proud to be British?
Blue Peter
British Bobbies
Fish and chips
British bangers
Pink Floyd
Oh and Chavs, of course.
British Bobbies
Fish and chips
British bangers
Pink Floyd
Oh and Chavs, of course.
Nov 23rd 2011, 1:23 am
#58
Too young for BE
Joined: Aug 2011
Location: Sunnyvale CA USA
Posts: 295
Re: Proud to be British?
There certainly have been times in history when events took place which gave very strong reasons for NOT being proud to be British, such as in the early 1950s.
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal. He liked to sleep with other blokes.
So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal.
He liked to sleep with other blokes. So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
And there are many more reasons that I am some times not proud to be British. I will start a new Thread about that.
Nov 23rd 2011, 3:35 pm
#59
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Oct 2003
Location: Avon Lake, OH
Posts: 5,270
Re: Proud to be British?
There certainly have been times in history when events took place which gave very strong reasons for NOT being proud to be British, such as in the early 1950s.
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal. He liked to sleep with other blokes.
So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
Take the case of a guy already mentioned in this thread - Alan Turing, born in 1912. From a very early age this bloke showed clear signs of being an absolute genius - a mathematical genius of the highest ilk. Like most geniuses he was also very eccentric in his manner and style. He was 27 when WW2 broke out, and his mathematical genius and extremely complex, logical, enquiring, reasoning mind made him a prime candidate for joining the team of code-breakers at the highly secretive code-breaking establishment at a large mansion way out in the countryside (in those days it was way out - it's now been swallowed up by the Milton Keynes metropolis) of north Buckinghamshire - Bletchley Park.
It was there that Alan Turing worked on the Enigma project aiming to break the Nazi German codes - and this genius did just that. He was absolute ace man at the job - his success was such that he actually shortened the horror of that war and in the process save millions of lives - literally.
Still young when WW2 ended Turing was set on a course to perform many other mathematical miracles which would have proved enormously beneficial to this country, Britain. But the poor bloke had one major "problem" to contend with - a personal "problem" which, in the incredbly inhumane (in this particular aspect) Britain of the 1940s/1950s, would have classified him as a criminal.
He liked to sleep with other blokes. So, putting aside the small matter of nicking something trivial from someone, probably done mistakenly knowing his absent mindedness in trifling matters, often the case with a genius, the police of the time were infinitely more interested in his sexual proclivities - no surprise there - evil minded prurient coppers on the prowl looking for "deviants" and all that kind of caper....even in the privacy of their own homes, can you believe it.
In the end, Turing was given the choice of either going to prison or being subjected to a course of castration - he chose the latter.
I bet that made the Britain of 1954 ever so proud, and maybe even more so after the poor man bit into an apple into which he had injected cyanide in that same year.
At least the British Prime Minister of Britain in 2009 - almost half a century after this shameful episode in British social history - Gordon Brown - issued an official British Government apology for the way this man was treated by the law of the land all those years ago. At the age of 41 in 1954 he could well have continued to do a whole lot more for a country which, all said and done, as good as killed him simply for being a homosexual.
Had Britain had been a far more humane and enlightened country than it was in those dreary days of cruel ignorance Turing could have carried on in his private life the way he wanted and have no fear of any kind of blackmail and retribution that could well have harmed Britain's secret service operations during that period.
Last night, - 21/11/11 - on the UK's Ch 4 TV channel the whole affair was the topic of a very interesting documentary, titled "Britain's Greatest Codebreaker - the story of Alan Turing".
As shown here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/b...st-codebreaker
Nov 23rd 2011, 3:44 pm
#60
Heading for Poppyland
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: North Norfolk and northern New York State
Posts: 14,547
Re: Proud to be British?
One reason NOT to be proud to be English; all really wicked and evil people in history were English, for instance that really evil Roman Emperor who had Russell Crowe's wife & kids murdered etc.