NAPOLEON BONAPARTE thought he was disparaging Britain when he called this country 'a nation of shopkeepers'. What a dilettante. This country has long inflicted much worse on herself: her people call her Blighty (compare this with the habit of the Italians, who refer to their nation as Il Bel Paese, The Beautiful Country) and her capital is the Big Smoke (Paris's nickname is The City of Light; Rome's is The Eternal City). The British are unrivalled champions of self-abasement, but our New Year's resolution in testing times is to put the Great back into Britain and celebrate what makes this country a place we are proud to call home.
1 Understatement
No one in Britain has a huge problem: we are invariably 'in a bit of a pickle'. We are only ever 'a little put out', even when we are completely gutted, but if we are truly pleased with something, we say 'it's not too bad. Alexander Fleming dismissed his discovery of penicillin, which has saved an estimated 200 million lives, with: 'One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When 650 men of the Gloucestershire Regiment faced off tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers during the Korean war, Brig Thomas Brodie told his American allies by radio that things were 'a bit sticky' (the Americans took him at face value and told him to hold the position; only 39 men survived).
2 Endearing animal characters
Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.' A few decades later, 'Mr and Mrs Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform' and, in between, A. A. Milne filled a forest with a philosophising bear and his pig, kangaroo and donkey friends.
3 Cracking the Enigma code
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
