[Dottore]

I came across a nice piece from Julian Barnes the other day.

In it the characters were asked to list three “characteristics, virtues or quintessences” which the word “England” suggested to them.

The results were then reduced to 50, and I cut and paste them here as follows:

1.Royal Family 2.Big Ben/Houses of Parliament 3.Manchester United Football Club 4.Class System 5.Pubs 6.Roast Beef 7.Robin Hood and his Merrie Men 8. Cricket 9.White Cliffs of Dover 10.Imperialism 11.Union Jack 12. Snobbery 13.God Save the King/Queen 14.BBC 15.West End 16.Times Newspaper 17.Shakespeare 18.Thatched Cottages 19.Cup of Tea 20.Stonehenge 21.Phlegm/Stiff Upper Lip 22.Beatles 23.Marmalade 24.Beefeaters/Tower of London 25.London Taxis 26.Bowler Hat 27.Monty Python 28.Oxford/Cambridge 29. Harrods 30.Red Double Decker Buses 31.Hypocrisy 32.Gardening 33.Perfidity/Untrustworthiness 34.Rolls-Royce 35.Homosexuality 36.Alice in Wonderland 37.Winston Churchill 38.Marks & Spencer 39.Battle of Britain 40.Francis Drake 41.Trooping the Colour 42.Whingeing 43.Queen Victoria 44. Breakfast 45. Beer/Warm Beer 46.Emotional Frigidity 47.Wembly Stadium 48.Flagellation/Public Schools 49.Not Washing/Bad Underwear 50.Magna Carta