England!

Good for you Ralph. I'm Scottish and, (in some ways), proud of my Nationality, but in others, almost ashamed to be associated with it. There's nothing wrong with national pride so long as its not taken to extremes or at the expense of others. I'll never have pride in my 'region' as the Government would have it.

Cheers Jam Its been a fantastic day and for once for the right reasons. Now, if we could just get the Olyimpic Games. That would be wonderful. It was great to see such diversity there today. Ralph

I'm not one to be negative and if people want to do the celebration thing its a free country, but if you ask me, what happened today is a load of bolocks. the fact you are English is a complete accident of birth. The fact the English team did well is not down to anything you or I did. So what the frigging hell are we all supposed to be celebrating? I hate nationalism, its just childishness. All the people down through history who have been nationalists have been total tossers like Hitler, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. If you think about it, being proud of your country means sweet FA, its just a noise. There are just as many tosssers in this country as there are anywhere else in the world, so no reason to be specially proud

I don't agree that nationality is a mere 'accident of birth' and therefore not worth celebrating - I think the fact that I think in English, speak English, read English literature, am exposed to English culture ('high' and 'low'), English history, English customs and the English landscape must have a profound effect on me. If I were French or even Scottish, I'd be a different person. What I do find offensive about the rugby team type of patriotism is the rather pathetic desire of all these boorish boneheads to be part of the in-crowd - over the last few weeks support for the rugby team has started to become a kind of Jeremy Clarkson-style badge of thick-headed masculinity, against the supposed effeminate cosmopolitanism of New Labour. During a England football or rugby match, if you go into a pub full of men, you can almost feel the IQ levels drop - like an emptying bath. The sheer vulgarity and stupidity of it makes me want to vomit.

Quick walk round Covent Garden at about 7 this evening confirmed that the song of the English rugby union team's fans is not: "Swing low, sweet chariot" but "get yer tits out fer the lads". A few of the ladies in the bar seemed to be very obliging. [%sig%]

Quite - the way women are treated by such gangs is repulsive - a more robust moral climate would charge these men with indecent assault. And I don't care if it is consensual - it implicitly threatens all women.

Philip you make my point for me. the fact you read English, speak English and are exposed to english culture is a total accident. you didn't invent the language or the culture, all you did was get born into it, like me. So you can take no credit for it and being proud of it is neither here nor there. I don;t have a problem if people use nationalism as a harmless joke among friends. the problem is when they start to treat it as if it is something important or think that when they say they are proud of their country they are saying something big. They are not. It means bloody nothing. They might just as well be saying oink oink oink. Ive got nothing against my country, there are worse places I couldllive, but I have to tell you every time I hear the national anthem I feel I could puke.

Shackleton mate I just tell it like it is.

Len I agree with you about the national anthem, but do you never experience pride in say, Shakespeare? I think most people probably do. Isn't nationality an integral part of identity?

Bad choice Philip I hate bloody Shakespeare. He takes 100 words to say what the rest of us say in 10. But if I did like him it would make no odds to me if he was English or Korean. I feel no special connection with any race and don't see why anyone should.

Hmm. Well I'm not convinced.

Len - do you prefer 'the rest of us' to Shakespeare?

Dear Glen This is what it was all about. From todays ndependent. By James Lawton 09 December 2003 If we hadn't known, even remotely, the depth of this need to feel good about ourselves, we knew it now. We could see it in nearly a million faces along Oxford and Regent streets and The Haymarket, and the truth was that those faces, many of them painted in red and white, told us the story long before the great waves of sound that came when the Sweet Chariot buses nosed almost tentatively into Trafalgar Square. It wasn't about strident nationalism, for all the flags of St George, and it wasn't about political opportunism because suddenly we knew it didn't matter if the Prime Minister got a one-on-one picture shot with Jonny Wilkinson. Nobody needed telling who owned the young hero of England's World Cup rugby triumph. It was the nation, for this day at least, and a huge crosssection of it came streaming into the West End not to bellow like a rent-a-mob but express their happiness. That was it, happiness. The happiness that comes with a pride in genuine achievement. It shone from every face, and even those who worry that, as a nation, we have become entrapped by the appeal of mere celebrity, that we rush to the streets at the drop of a headline or two, would perhaps have had some reassurance at the mood of the vast crowd which lined the streets on a grey, cold mid-day. It was a crowd that clambered on to every available point of elevation, traffic lights, rooftops, perilous window trestling, somewhere below the crane driver operating the family video high above Oxford Street, but it didn't do it with any mad hysteria. It was measured celebration but it seemed to reach down to the bones. One roughly written placard appeared to speak for everyone - the kids in their England rugby shirts, the business types taking an early lunch, the hard-hat workers perched like flocks of beefy starlings on their red-and-white decorated scaffolding: "It's great to be English again - thanks, lads." England's coach Clive Woodward, covered in the red-and-white ticker tape blasted from a machine on an upper floor of Marks and Spencer, sprayed the crowd with champagne. And Dorian West, a member of the winning squad, sipped from a can of Tetley's. Wilkinson, naturally, sat at the back of the bus, shy to a fault, talking with his unlikely confidante, the big flanker Richard Hill, and periodically giving a small wave and smile to his adoring public. Wilkinson's status as the new heart-throb was repeatedly underlined. One teenage girl clung to a lampost with one hand and waved a sign with the other. It said: "Jonny, I won't have sex unless it is with you." Another sign announced: "Jonny, I want your babies." An old-fashioned sentiment? Maybe, but this in a way was a strangely old-fashioned England. Thousands were crushed together but there was no fighting for position; everyone seemed to be breathing evenly. Martin Johnson, the captain, the awe-inspiring Johnno, did his best to enjoy the great outpouring of affection. You sensed that he would have preferred to have been back in his favourite pub in the Leicestershire countryside but this was his team being saluted for its sense of national pride, and duty, and this was another chore which had to be accomplished before real life could begin again. Perhaps it was here in this implicit modesty where you could find the great source of the warmth that filled the streets of early December, this sense that these were heroes fashioned by the integrity of their competitive nature and not by any great expectation of the kind of the tribute that now washed over them so overwhelmingly. It is certainly true that, as they came out in to Hamilton Place beside Park Lane and boarded their chariot, most of the players showed far more apprehension than they had displayed on the days counting down to their final triumph against Australia in the Telstra stadium two weeks ago. On the ride up Park Lane, they had only the merest glimpse of the reception that awaited them. Well-heeled pedestrains waved to them from in front of the Rolls Royce and Jaguar showrooms, and from a window of the Inter-Continental Hotel the former prime minister, and passionate cricket fan, John Major raised a fist of triumph. Woodward murmured: "How could you imagine you would ever come to a day that would make you feel so proud?" In Oxford Street the impact was astonishing. As the buses rolled under Marble Arch and swung into the street, the density of the crowds plainly stunned the players. Halfway down Oxford Street the people starting singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and, from every side street, they came running, businessmen in pin stripes, elegant lady denizens of Mayfair, shopgirls. A copper blew his whistle in long, jubilant blasts. In Regent Street, the pavements and the rooftops and the balconies were jammed. A man in an Australian shirt waved that country's flag defiantly at the chariot, and the players laughed and cheered and nobody tried to storm his balcony. Hamley's toy store was not above a little bit of salesmanship - a great banner hung from its building, announcing: "The finest toys salute the finest boys in the world." At New Zealand House, the pain of All Black defeat had receded enough for a generous declaration: "100 per cent pure congratulations." Then, after the thronged old heart of the empire, Piccadilly Circus, there was Trafalgar Square and the great array of red and white, and the media calls and the receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. But you had to believe the heart, and the strength, of the day was in the streets, in the interaction of a people and its heroes. Whatever else happened, you knew that had been perfect. In a pub in Shepherd's Market an ageing man, not unemotional, recalled a time of his youth when, as a member of a bomber crew which had to make a crash landing, he was obliged to walk with his crewmates through a town centre in Lincolnshire for a train that would take them back to base. They were were, of necessity, wearing their flying gear and something remarkable happened. People came out of their shops and their offices and applauded. The old man said that he had never felt such a sense of a nation as one, of such a strong bonding. He said that he heard more than an echo of that in the streets of London yesterday. Maybe everyone needs their heroes, on a battlefield or in the skies or a sports pitch. That, certainly, was the soaring conviction of those who came to salute England's rugby team yesterday. What you wanted to do, as always on these occasions, was take hold of the moment and store it for the future, let it be a living memory of what can happen when a nation, one perhaps a little weary and disillusioned, is reminded of the best of itself. It happened yesterday. The nation celebrated a great sports victory, and, perhaps, something a little bit more. There was lot of joy and, maybe, a little more hope in the air.

Philip I don't understand your question. I prefer people talk straight and be brief, not go OTT like Shakespeare. as for Ralph, I'm glad everyone had such a sodding good time, but don't kid yourself it was straight reporting. Even the INdependent has a bloody agenda, and the agenda yesterday was "don't rain on the parade". The reporter was only looking for good stuff, even if he had seen bad stuff no way could he mention it. I hate mass hysteria, I hate nationalism/patriotism and I hate rugby, so excuse me if I don't jump with joy over this.

What a dreadful cliched piece of journalism. Low quality rubbish that's fit for the bin and not a lot else. Len. If you really think Shakespeare couldn't/didn't 'talk straight and be brief' with panache, power and beauty then you have made a mistake. He talked long as well, but that's not the point. Coriolanus on leaving Rome: 'there is a world elsewhere'. Meandering? Meaningless? Lengthy? No. No No.

That article is even worse than I thought. Lazy, disingenuous tripe. James Lawton deserves to be Ozzy Osbourne's pillion passenger.

I haven't read all Shaekspeare, but the bits I've read go on for ages. there's that bit in Hamlet where he goes on and on and all I think he's saying is I'm not sure what to do next. Well why didn't he just say that! His biggest problem is I don't understand him and he's not easy to read.

Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat matlock. Not really Len. I read Shakespeare for the first time 17 years ago when I was 26. I had to read it as I was doing A levels as a mature student. They were the first exams I'd taken. I did f**k all at school except make people laugh in the class and left early to join the navy. Anyway. I thought well I'll have to endure reading it in order to get the A level in English lit which I wanted. The texts we were set were Coriolanus and Twelfth Night. I set off with the idea of enduring it but by the end of the course, helped by a really good teacher, the beauty and power of what was taking place was a real source of pleasure. The challenge of approaching the work in the first place was repaid many times over. Getting into Shakespeare is a marvellous and life enhancing experience. I know it's all the rage to sneer at hierarchys but Shakespeare really is a top drawer fantastic accompniment to life. I think the ability to look at the spectrum of human behaviour, as Shakespeare does, and not to look away or look down on his characters but to write as though they are all worthy of his time and genius is magical and contemporary.

I'll take your word for it Kevin, but you have to be a certain type to like Shakespeare and I aint that type. For me he's just hard work and life's too short for that.

To knock Shakespeare in such a manner is just bizarre. The test of time has demonstrated that his writing is still witty, provoking, original and glorious. Nationalism? Well, that's another matter. I too despise nationalism (which, incidentally, was a 19th century invention) but I love to support our sporting teams - in triumph or disaster, just the same. It's an opportunity to lose oneself in the heat of the contest without taking up arms. It lasts as long as the match and I just adore it. As for doing nothing to help them? Poppycock! Without my deeply insistent vibes winging their way from the front of my TV set to deepest Australia they wouldn't have stood a chance. I gave heart and soul for English rugby this World Cup and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their achievement. It made me feel good for days - and that feeling still lingers.

Bada Bing Tony, Bada Bing

My word Len, do you leave the house? If so, Why? What's the point in enjoying anything, it's all just nonsense. It isn't done the way you do it or it isn't yours exclusively so what's the point of it? Perhaps the Welsh should be celebrating England's victory as they were the original Brits and we're just Saxon invaders, or Maybe Italy or maybe we should look on 'Druids Reunited' for some peed off Gandalf lookalikes moaning in a chat room about how their country's gone to the dogs since it was stolen. Maybe we should all go back to Africa and find the original missing link that started our species off and ask how she feels about that last minute Wilkinson kick. The 'Bard' used a lot of words but there are a lot of them to use. If we all took the path of least reistance and shunned the 'pointless' then we'd never get anywhere. Just try and enjoy this England Victory for what it is. A chance to feel bloody great for free and at no cost to anyone. I almost cry when I see that kick, like Beckham's free kick against Greece, I get to feel great, it's as simple as that.

It's far less about nationalism and more about community. When you see thousands of people out on the streets of London all cheering for a common source of enjoyment, where's the harm? There's not enough of it in this country. I do think producing a stamp of the England rugby victory that is only good for posting to Australia (68p) is a bit mean though (but vaguely amusing).

Look I respect the skill it takes to win a world cup, and I'm glad you all get pleasure from England's success, but I can't get excited about any of it. It's a free country aint it, and if I want to feel that way that's my right. Calling me a miserable git isn't going to change my mind. A happy bloody Christmas to everyone!

Len - it is your absolute right not to share in our joy. I wish you could because it feels great. You probably never played sport at any decent level and therefore don't understand the shared experience of victory (and defeat) and how it changes the way you look at life. I have been sport-mad since I was five years old. I've played a number of sports at good, bad and utterly indifferent levels. I'm old and arthritic now but my kids still do it for me and I cheer them on from the sidelines. It is an opportunity for shared experience and one that I will treasure all of my life. If, as on this occasion, I choose to share my joy with millions of others then all the better for it - I've shared my misery with them so many times. Don't knock it until you've done it!