What am I, and where do I belong?
It sounds a silly question because if I don’t know at my age, I must be losing my marbles. But it’s real and relevant in an age of identity politics, when we’re known by our UK “nation”.
I regard myself first and foremost as British, but Britain isn’t one of the nations – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – that make up the not-very-United Kingdom. Prefixed Great, it is the mother country.
When I lived in the Far East, I was described as “European”, but Brexit put a stop to that. And unlike some Tykes, I don’t regard myself as Yorkshire first.
The question arises after the new Archbishop of York, Dr Stephen Cottrell, complained of southerners patronising Brexit northerners for showing their pride in England.
“What we need is an expansive vision of what it means to be English,” he wrote in the xenophobic Daily Telegraph. Er, like what? Rampant nationalism is already tearing the UK apart. Scotland looks firmly set on the path of independence, Wales increasingly goes its own way and troubled Northern Ireland can’t decide whether to be British or Irish – or both. The last thing we need now is a battle cry of England Arise! from the pulpit of York Minster.
Essex-born Dr Cottrell wants more regional government, but I don’t see crowds in the street demanding an English parliament sitting (inevitably) in Oxford.
The Tories are already destroying local government with Westminster-imposed Metro-Mayors, for whom nobody asked and whose powers are nugatory. Ask Manchester’s Andy Burnham.
And you see many more St George flags in windows and front gardens than Union Jacks. I don’t think we need the Bish to tell us who we are.
The best way to solve “the English question” is to stop asking it.
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A pipistrelle bat, about the size of your thumb, reportedly flew 1,200 miles from Heathrow to Russia, the longest flight ever recorded for the animal. From Heathrow? Sure it didn’t hitch a ride on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow? We’ll never know, because it was eaten by a cat.
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Fewer than one in 10 went to university in the early 1960s when I got my state scholarship. Now, almost half of young people do.
It’s a daunting burden: £27,000 in tuition fees, with face-to-face teaching limited because of Covid. Plus living and, er, socialising costs.
But it’s a good investment. Graduates earn more, are healthier, live longer and usually have more rewarding jobs. And 97% of mums want their children to go – though that may be just to get them out of the house.
In the past, I’ve doubted the wisdom of universal uni, but it’s freedom!
Go for it, young things.
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Losing one centimetre in height during middle age takes years off a woman’s lifespan, scientists have found. It’s true for men too, which is not good.
The doc who measured me last week says I’m now only 5ft 6in tall. I used to be 5ft 7-and-a-half inches at full stretch, so losing almost four centimetres (in new money) is no joke. Where did it go?
Being a war baby, I was always called a short-a***. Now it’s official.
Heightism, I say.
