The Cambridge Footlights Revue (1982)

Starring (in their younger student days): Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Penny Dwyer, Tony Slattery, and Paul Shearer. 

Come join us in the noblest of causes
The battle for national improvement
The creaking of leather and uniforms
Is the hymn of our British movement

We promise you riches and prosperity
Employment for the British working man
We promise you holidays in America
On exchange with the Ku Klux Klan

Eliminate the Paki, exterminate the Blackie
Pull out this disease by the roots
A British Movement government would repatriate the immigrant
To the tramp of Union Jack boots

Children in football grounds and classrooms
Are paraded in tiny rank and file
Incited to multi-racial aggro
Exalted by the war cry “Sieg Heil” (“Sieg Heil!”)

Imagine a society with skinheads roaming wild and free
And not a pair of thick lips in sight
Fumigate the Underground and sterilize the cricket grounds

White coat and white elephant
Whitewash and White Christmas
White horse and white rich and white poor
White dirt and white licorice
White helmets, white truncheons
White face and white Willy Whitelaw

A parody of course, of The British Movement, which was essentially a neo-Nazi political organization advocating a fully white Britain. If that wasn’t obvious. 

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie - Piano Masterclass

Still one of my favourite things ever. 

I’m serious. I really, really love the French 1914 uniforms (right-most)

The British: What they say, what they mean, and what others understand. 

“The Somme”

I liked this documentary. There are inaccuracies, such as the rifles the British soldiers are holding: they’re rifles from the Second World War, not the First. 

It’s naturally a little British heavy, but I appreciate that there are some limited accounts from French and German letters. There’s a lot of beauty in their written words, which only adds the tragedy of the war. 

What’s most interesting is watching the differences in doctrine and strategy which so delineate the British, French and German approaches. They don’t focus on it, but it’s there. 

Take 30 minutes of your day to watch this.

After all, what were you going to do with those 30 minutes anyway? 

European Imperialism was intrinsically greedy and detrimental. 

Not entirely true. 

This isn’t me defending imperialism or colonialism. But this is me pointing out that not all imperial ambitions were fueled by land greed and subjugation. 

The Spanish and Portuguese characterised their large early empires by looting. They didn’t truly build an empire, they just conquered and pillaged anything they wanted, and often worked the natives to death mining for gold. This is the main reason their empires became destitute and unsustainable. 

In early expansion in North America, the British and French had entirely different means of spreading their influence. North America didn’t have the rich mines of the south, but was good land for the cash crops of the day. 

The British conquered, built their own cities, and basically did their best to plant England into America. They fought, burned, and signed and broke treaties to their needs. British colonists were often people who wanted to build a new life in America, and would do this at the cost of the natives. 

The French saw their exploration into America as a more humane one. They built trading outposts and a series of forts to protect them and the fur trade route, made many treaties with local tribes, and made an effort to ally and learn about them. For the French it was a royal endeavour that was almost a large diplomatic mission. 

The two came to a head during what the Americans still call the French and Indian War. This was so named because the French had native allies with them to fight the British colonists. 

Europeans call it the Seven Years War, because for them it was a much wider global conflict. 

The French lost the war for a number of reasons, but as far as North America was concerned it was a British (and soon American) future. 

I consider it one of my cultures as a TCK, even though I’ve never lived there. 

But I had mostly British friends growing up, and was educated the British way. When my parents put me into school right at the beginning, they didn’t really know what they were getting into. 

They sent my sister to the American school first, and me to the British. To test them out. Eventually they moved my sister to the British one too. They figured that the better discipline would be good for us. 

I can’t speak for discipline, but even though they didn’t intend it, I am thankful for the decision. Even though I have almost nothing to suggest that I should be at all proud to be British… I am proud of what there is of it in me. 

It would, of course, later lead to a lot of confusion about where I should study, and conflict between teaching styles, what was taught, and academic structure, and… well a lot. But I attribute a lot of my ability to my years at the British International School in Jakarta. 

Now if I could only get the accent back… 

Blackadder Goes Forth - Private Plane

WOOF WOOF! 

Blackadder Goes Forth - Corporal Punishment

So hilarious. 

“I don’t care if he’s been rogering the Duke of York with a prize-winning leek!” 

So hilarious. For non-English speakers and Americans, “rogering” is a Britishism meaning… well… violating. Sexually. 

Really quite dirty. 

fybritishisms:

forget it/f*ck it