It gets worse - now we 'lose' Cornwall

The British Empire in danger of shrinking even more with the news that Cornwall (land of Smugglers and Cream Teas) is to be granted minority status under European rules for the protection of national minorities.
There is a Celtic based Cornish language which is still spoken in Cornwall (the most South West of English counties).
Dick Cole, leader of Mebyon Kernow, which campaigns for Cornish devolution, said: "This is a fantastic development. This is a proud day for Cornwall."
The Cornish will gain the same status as other Celtic communities the Scots, Welsh and Irish.
After nine pints on a Saturday night I can also speak fluent Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic.

OMG - It's Saint George's Day!!



Brits - be honest - hands up all those of you who never knew that April 23rd is St George's Day.
Yes, it's today, your country's Patron Saint and you didn't even know that today is your special day.
You should be ashamed....LOL.
To be honest I didn't realise myself until I saw the image on the google search page...thank you google.
That attitude sort of sums up the British phsyche, we have no national identity we can identify with.
The Welsh have St Davids Day, and go around letting everyone they are Welsh and are proud of it, by wearing daffodils (their national flower) or leeks.
The Irish...woah....the Irish...do they celebrate St Patricks day or what?
Hoards of Irish roaming around pretending to be leprchauns, giant green hats, giant pints of Guiness and all getting bladdered from 8.00 am in the morning....brilliant!!
...and how does England celebrate?
A few moth eaten England Flags flying on public buildings and churches..
Yip-bloody-ee!

Shakespeare's Birthday Also Today

....Although no-one is 100% sure, Shakespeare was supposed to have been born 23rd April a very long time ago...which would make him very, very old. Which he isn't cos he's dead.

Anyway it begs the question:

Was St Georges Day chosen because April 23rd is Shakespeare's 'birthday', or was Shakespeare's birthday chosen because of St George's Day

Who knows?.....and what's more...who cares???

Did you know Shakespeare introduced over 1700 words into the English language. Words such as:

aerial, critic, submerge, majestic, hurry, lonely, road, assassination, laughable, reliance, exposure......
Also, you can speak 'Shakespearian' and you don't even know it!
He’s also responsible for many of the every day phrases we use today, such as:
Break the ice, All that glitters is not gold, Hot-blooded, In the mind’s eye, Housekeeping, It’s all Greek to me, The naked truth, One fell swoop, Method in his madness.

Now go out and amaze your friends and family with these amazing facts...excuse me while I fall fast asleep.

 

Queen's April Birthday (she has another one in June)

 

The Queen celebrates two birthdays each year: her actual birthday on 21 April and her official birthday on a Saturday in June. Why?

Because when a King or Queen had a winter birthday there is a better chance of good weather in summer - and that is when the Trooping The Colour take place to celebrate a monarch's birthday.

Us Brits often have ridiculous traditions that date back to god knows when. This particular tradition dates back to King Edward VII who was born November 9th 1841.

Bye Bye Scotland (and Scottish Salmon)?

 

The Scottish people will decide on September 14th this year wether or not to become an independent country and split away from the Motherland - the rest of the UK.
Scotland has been part of the UK since the Union with Scotland Act 1706, and many a brave Scot has fought for Britain in Wars from Napoleonic to Afghanistan.
The Romans built Hadrians Wall to keep the ancient Scots out of England, now the Scots may have to rebuild it to keep the English out of Scotland!
This is a massive decision the Scots are about to take, according to one Poll the YES vote only need a 2% swing to achieve independence.
I'm wondering wether if  independence will mean the Brits will have to change the Union Jack flag - as the cross of St Andrews (the Patron Saint of Scotland) is represented on the Union Jack!

While we're talking about Scotland, a massive decrease of migrating salmon into Scottish rivers (on the East side of Scotland) has been reported.
Numbers of migrating Salmon into rivers, have fallen from about 100 per day to around 5 per day.
Salmon are a major export commodity for Scotland.
Oh well, they'll be able to make it up with North Sea oil revenue.
Revenue that will no longer be creamed off by the British Government if independence is gained.

Nearly Time for Cricket and Tea

Ahh...Summer is nearly here....you can almost hear the sound of leather on willow on some sleepy English green.

 

What the hell am I talking about?

 

Well Cricket, that English of all games. The leather is the hard ball (supposed to be made of leather but I doubt if they are these days) and Willow is the wood the bats are made from.

The only game in the World you can play for five days and still draw, yes FIVE days. The only game in the World where, not matter how exciting the game is, you stop for Tea!!

 

A lot of people don't understand how Cricket works, and that includes a lot of Brits, so here is a quick guide.

You have two teams of eleven. Each team bats twice, usually alternatively. The team that is not batting bowls at the batting team.

The batting team has two batters 'in', one facing the bowler, and one batter not facing the bowler. The facing batsmen will try and hit the ball from the bowler as far away as possible, and run 22yards to the bowlers end to score a run.

The facing batsmen protects three sticks of wood behind him (the wicket)-if the bowler is able to knock over any one of those sticks the batsmen is 'out', and is replaced by the next batsmen waiting to come in.

When all the batsmen are out from the batting team, it's time for the bowling team to have a go at batting, so the old bowling team are now the batting team and the old batting team now has a go at bowling.

When all the batsmen are out that is called an 'innings'.

The team with the most runs at the end of two innings wins the game.

If two innings are not completed in the time allowed (five days for an international test match) the match is drawn - see? -easy!!