What "British Culture" means to me.

by johnofgwent

I challenge anyone of my generation reading this to look at the image above without feeling something stirring deep within.

I was ten years old when Donald Campbell's life was snuffed out as Bluebird K-7 flipped on Coniston water. The story is put in context with details of the history of the world speed record on water here.

In a tale that parallels the land speed records at Pendine Sands, where "Babs" was dug from the sand into which it was buried upon the death of its owner, Bluebird K-7 has risen from the lake and enthusiasts have fought to restore her.

But it has been a fight against jobsworths and pettty regulators every step of the way. But at last the Supporters Club responsible for restoring the craft to its former condition have been told they can break the byelaw recently introduced "in the interests of preserving tranquility" that restricts anything from moving at more than ten miles an hour on Coniston Water. Bluebird will once again run across the lake, but not at anything more than 100 miles an hour.

But what gets my goat is the long, long list of petty, smug, peaked cap wearing jobsworths who do everything they can to crush the spirit that made this once great country great, and lie about it. Pendine Sands is a very good example. Try driving a car on it now - all access to the famous sands is blocked by anti tank barricades and bollards so the local jobsworths can fly a flag awarded by the european union that takes no account of the shittiness of the water as long as the beach users are controlled and restricted.

One of the oft-used taunts of the multiculturalist supporters of enrichment of this country is the question "What Is British Culture Anyway". And to tell the truth I have struggled on many occasions to find an answer other than real ale, fish and chips and morris dancing. But when I read of the fight the Bluebird Supporters Club have had to get that vehicle back out where she belongs, I knew I had the answer.

What is is about this country that makes it the country it is ? For me now it is clear. This country used to respect The Quest for the Superlative. The struggle, often against impossible odds and on a shoestring budget, to use ingenuity and imagination to be the best no matter what it took. Today we worship and applaud mediocrity in all its wonders.

I can remember a time when the whole country felt a sense of pride in celebrating achievements in science, in technology, in arts, and in sports.

Today it is not permitted to be academically or intelectually talented for to take advantage of such gifts is to belittle those who do not share those abilities, so we must all be dragged down to the same lowest common demoninator of underachievement.

Today we are not allowed to champion "winning" because to do so "causes problems of self esteem for those who do not win" so we are forced to cheer equally for those who strive daily for ever greater achievement and cross the line first and for those whose "diversity" assures them of a winners medal no matter how sliovenly they plod around the track and how long after the supporters are down the pub the finally cross the line.

My God what have we let this country come to.