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Time for a bit of national pride on display I think. Nothing too serious though, as ever, it's all in the name of fun and games.

Example?

Being Britsh, I see my country as the world's local psychopathic Terrier. A fairly tiny creature, which belies it's small size with it's sheer beligerence. We bark at Europer. Sometime's we bark at the States. We'll happily growl at Russia, and the last time someone's Ball was kicked over the fence into our Garden, we saw the bugger off in short time. (Falklands War when we chinned Argentina, and just because we thought it was funny, sank a Battleship type thing we'd sold to them in the first place).

And yet, despite our bizarre size/aggression deficit, we're not actually that much of a threat to anyone. Bigger Dogs can shunt us out the way, despite our protestations, simply because we are that small. And yet, nobody seems inclined to stand up to this tiny, yappy little bundle of fury!

And like all Terriers, we take great delight in harassing the neighbouring Dog. In our case, France, which much like the French Poodle, which was once a terrific hunting dog, is past it's glory days and is now just a fashion accesory

To be honest i have none in my country, Australia.

There is nothing to be proud of, we are weak in almost every area, military, economicly, globaly, etc.

We are still tied to the commonwealth (i have nothing against them but then again have nothing for them)

We lag in everything, from technological advances to the release of that new movie or game.

You have Neighbours. And Home and Away.

Besides, your largely a country of Beachbums or Bumpkins, so it's not all bad.

I guess i just have a soberingly depressing look at myself and the world around me.

Ignore my post if you wish.

There are no dumb opinions, just dumb people!

I was going to do a diatribe for Australia then after reading Squig_Herder's post suddenly realised I feel the same apathy.

Except for sports where we puch so far above our weight its amazing.
Especially as we are now the fattest nation on earth.

AUS! AUS!! AUS!!!

Except the Olympics. Where our Fatties thrashed your Fatties when it came to Golds

With my eyes.

I know the bear imagery has been the domain of Russia in the common parlance for a while, but that's the impression the USA has for me. We're large, strong, and combatively powerful; there's few who can tell us NOT to go somewhere and do something and have it stick; we tend to get sleepy and complacent until poked or stung.

I think many years ago the Uk could be viewed as an international Cuckoo. We laid eggs in other birds nests, and watched them flourish at others expense. Still, we've made some great music in our time.

I see good old blighty as a country of art and poetry and music, culturally wonderful, filled with beautiful architecture and an inherent civility. I love my country, but not in a BNP loutish way, I love it's tolerance, wit and humour. There is nowhere else I'd like to call my home. It has many downsides and fools, of course, but if you know where to look you'll find beauty and and an arcadian dream.

Yeah, England is a pick n' mix of a country. I won't praise it to the heavens as we are a nation that is raised to be cynical and that's quite an admirable trait in its own right. Still, when you look over the sea there are some other countries I'd like to nest in.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Except the Olympics. Where our Fatties thrashed your Fatties when it came to Golds

Money talks and those who don't get funding perform at a lesser rate...

The UK Track Paralympics cycling team got more funding than the Australian Track and Road cycling teams for both olympics and paralympics.

I wish our lottery money went to sports.

Also note that most of your golds come from sports where you can sit down...
Rowing
Cycling
Sailing

I see Canada as a small country where we like to be left alone and we talk about ourselves a lot. We also like playing hockey.

For me the U.S. feels like everyone's overdeveloped younger brother. Way to brawny for his age, has a chip on his shoulder, won't back down from any kind of fight and is annoying as hell getting up in everyone's business. He has some pretty weird ideas about the world too, that everyone should be like him because the way he does things is the right way to do things. But he has a softer side he hasn't tapped into for many years.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I was going to do a diatribe for Australia then after reading Squig_Herder's post suddenly realised I feel the same apathy.

Except for sports where we puch so far above our weight its amazing.
Especially as we are now the fattest nation on earth.

AUS! AUS!! AUS!!!

Australia used to be fairly wack at sports until the 70s (Bradman excepted, of course) then the government decided to put a lot of money into it and magically it got better.

The UK gov put millions into sports like sailing and bicycling over the past 10 years, and magically we scooped a load of medals!

For me the US feels like John McCain; stubborn, self-assured, and grounded in narative structure which is about 20 years out of date. Something which causes me a great deal of frustration on a daily basis.

To me (as a Briton and Englishman) our glory days are behind us, but we can still offer the world many good things.

Some fierce genius possessed the British from Elizabeth I's time onwards, which let us to punch well above our national weight for several centuries.

It couldn't last for ever. Things started going downhill in Victorian times. The two World Wars put paid to British and European domination of the world.

On the plus side, modern Britain -- for all its faults -- is one of the most liberal, fair, multi-cultural, creative and tolerant nations in the world.

We're a nation of cantankerous bollockses. Oddly well educated, but with a huge disparity between younger and older people.
Oh, and we're pretty worried about our reputation.

Hmmm, I think the US is a bit like the head jock at the end of a teen movie where everybody learns a valuable lesson about overcoming differences. We're still the biggest, most popular/strongest/etc country, but we deeply resent that other countries even attempt to hog our spotlight.

What everybody, including Americans, forget is that even in an environment in which the US isn't dominate the US will still be calling plenty of shots. We just need to shift from being an alpha dog to the first among equals.

I think the US is like a young guy at a bar who has had more to drink than he should. Life was good, but it hasn't been for a while. He is a bit depressed and lives in the past because those were the good old days. Memories are easier to elevate than the daily grind. Quick to anger, and doesn't think through the anger, but is more than happy to lash out at anyone.

I keep hoping that we'll sober up, and get back on track. America could be really great. But it sure seems like the general populous is more like a group of lemmings than a nation of thinking humans.

ixlar wrote:I think the US is like a young guy at a bar who has had more to drink than he should. Life was good, but it hasn't been for a while. He is a bit depressed and lives in the past because those were the good old days. Memories are easier to elevate than the daily grind. Quick to anger, and doesn't think through the anger, but is more than happy to lash out at anyone.

I keep hoping that we'll sober up, and get back on track. America could be really great. But it sure seems like the general populous is more like a group of lemmings than a nation of thinking humans.

QFT

Da Boss wrote:We're a nation of cantankerous bollockses. Oddly well educated, but with a huge disparity between younger and older people.
Oh, and we're pretty worried about our reputation.

You're also an Island nation that doesn't like fish. Weird.

We are?
News to me, I love fish.

I wanna move to the UK. Where is Forge World located? I wanna work there so I can get some titans with a 5 finger discount.. I mean employee discount...

malfred wrote:With my eyes.

With my...heart. <3

Necros wrote:I wanna move to the UK. Where is Forge World located? I wanna work there so I can get some titans with a 5 finger discount.. I mean employee discount...

It's in Nottingham, which is where GW is based, it's also the home of warhammer world. Apart from that it's a horrible, grim little town, and is the centre of UK gun crime. That still means it has a fraction of the shootings of a nice US town...

Kilkrazy wrote:Australia used to be fairly wack at sports until the 70s (Bradman excepted, of course) then the government decided to put a lot of money into it and magically it got better.

The UK gov put millions into sports like sailing and bicycling over the past 10 years, and magically we scooped a load of medals!

We've always been very good at cricket. While the current length and extent of our dominance is well and truly above the norm, at any given point in time it's more likely than not that we were the best team going around.

It was our effort in Commonwealth Games in Canada that embaressed the Aussies into pumping more money into sport. Within a couple of games cycles our performances had improved dramatically. The UK suffered the same fate at the Sydney olympics, and while money started increasing then it was when they were given the 2012 games that they got really serious about it. And note that the Aussies, and now the UK, increased their performance in sports where you really where sporting infrastructure, advanced gear and lots of support staff really make a difference - sports like cycling and sailing.



I see Australia as a country in direct opposition to it's own national myths. We're seen as a land of these vast open deserts, a country built on farming. Except 98% of us live along the coast and we're the most urbanised country in the world. We've got this reputation for this exotic and deadly wildlife. Except the animal that results in most hospital visits is the border collie. And we see ourselves as this great sporting nation, except apparently now we're fatter than the Americans.

Da Boss wrote:We're a nation of cantankerous bollockses. Oddly well educated, but with a huge disparity between younger and older people.
Oh, and we're pretty worried about our reputation.

Are there actually any of you left over there anyway ? As far as I can make out almost your entire population is over in mainland Uk waxing lyrically about how great your home is.. without actually ever going there.

Australia being fat is entirely because all your slim young folk work over here in bars. Seriously. They're more common than fruit machines these days.

A great nation, the shining city on the hill. It goes through cycles of downturns and has all the problems of other nations. But we have promise and will endure.