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
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