Lesson on Britishness

Last week there was a weird celebration called the Celebration of Britishness at the Regent Street. If you know the orientation of London, Regent Street is one of the main perpendicular roads to Oxford Street. You can imagine the chaos when this arterial road is closed!

Regent Street

I went to see what "Britishness" was all about and was quite surprised to see the similarities between what British and foreigners interpret "Britishness" to be. Sometimes, I wonder if Britishness is defined by foreigners rather than British people because it should be about what others think about you rather than what you think about yourself!

I initially thought it was such an unnecessary celebration. Isn't it like saying the celebration of ugliness for a pig or even a celebration of kiasuness for Raymond Hee? I mean, I just didn't get the point. Then, I realised Britain does not have an Independence or National Day like many countries do.Ah! Now it all fits together!

So, what is Britishness?

Here are the answers:

The red bus

Mr Bean's old faithful?

Bread, biscuits and cakes

British toy store

British band

Characters from Harry Potter

Scottish Bagpipers

Traffic lights. Apparently the first traffic lights were built in London in 1868. Our modern day traffic lights are from the US though. However, the one in the photo must be the first traffic light with a patterned green arrow!

Living statues and street performers

For me, I thought what I saw yesterday was a very good way to sum up what Britishness was all about - Union Jack waving, British people together, patriotic songs, Royal Albert Hall, etc etc. This is a short video of the BBC Proms finale.



Note:
The video and audio are out of sequence because Youtube doesn't support the high resolution which the video was recorded in. Hope you like it.