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Is anyone worried about the future of Britain's culture?

I have just returned to Britain after several years living abroad. Grew up here all my life and kind of ignored this, but coming back I can't help wondering... is it just me worried about Britain losing it's culture? Is everyone really cool with it or are people just numb to it now?

Living in places in East Asia and Africa, many people expressed to me an admiration for 'British' culture. British gentlemen, afternoon tea, the Oxford-Cambridge education system, etc etc. You know the stuff. After years abroad I kind of played up to it. I was proud to tell people about little quirks of our culture, our history, our religion and how it branched off from the rest of Christianity. How monarchy became the Magna Carta became the parliament became what we have today. All that proper 'British' stuff.

Coming back, it... seems like none of that really exists anymore? Seems like most areas I go to Brits aren't even a majority. And what's worse, most countries in Asia have better customer service, transport and atittudes than we do here.

Is anyone else worried about this? Are people just apathetic? Do they not realise because it's been a slow creep? Or do people really not mind all the things we've lost?

away and drown in your own shite
 
Nothing makes me feel more alienated from 'british culture' than the arcane -bordering on surreal -rituals of the haut bourgeois. The empty hurrah-hurrahs of the most intensely parochial set in britain. The undercurrent of darkness in it all, of secrets and histories denied. Rule brittania eh.
 
British culture is still alive and well...
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This was at least 10 years ago, when Britain was really Britain
 
I'm quite fascinated by the definition of British culture provided (British gentlemen, afternoon tea, the Oxford-Cambridge education system).

There really weren't any of the first in my 1970s childhood and I don't think I've really ever had any dealings with them - are these the people in bowler hats carrying briefcases from old newsreels? Afternoon tea I do remember in Enid Blyton books but has never been offered to me in real life. As for the Oxford -Cambridge education system while completely inaccessible to most of us I believe it is thriving?
 
I'm quite fascinated by the definition of British culture provided (British gentlemen, afternoon tea, the Oxford-Cambridge education system).

There really weren't any of the first in my 1970s childhood and I don't think I've really ever had any dealings with them - are these the people in bowler hats carrying briefcases from old newsreels? Afternoon tea I do remember in Enid Blyton books but has never been offered to me in real life. As for the Oxford -Cambridge education system while completely inaccessible to most of us I believe it is thriving?
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This is the sort of British culture that the OP is lamenting I think
 
...and there's no melody whatsoever...and you certainly can't hear any of the lyrics.
 
Usually when loss of "British culture" is lamented, like here, its what the stock-broker and posh farmer class do on a Sunday when they're not busy selling off all the infrastructure. It's never anything i can remember from my life when i was growing up 50 years ago. I too only ever saw a handful of black people until i moved to London at 18 but what's that got to do with anything? Might as well lament the arrival of the Normans - they really fucked this country up!
 
Apparently, a Department for Culture, Media & Sport think-tank is toying with the idea of rejuvenating British culture and national pride by making it mandatory for cinemas in England and Wales to play a Chas & Dave song at the end of the programme. This, they believe, would replace the outmoded tradition of piping the national anthem over the tannoy with something more up-to-date and meaningful.
Instead of standing to attention when the music begins, patrons will be encouraged to have a right old knees-up - and therein, I feel, lies the problem. Cinema-goers up north, in Wales, or indeed anywhere other than parts of Essex and Kent will not, I fear, respond favourably to compulsory cockanee singalongs.

That's the trouble with a lot of modern British people today - they ain't got no Cockney pride. Gertcha!
 
I'd certainly enjoy having a knees up to Dahn To Margit at the end of a film.
The best (and possibly the only) cockanee singalong I ever experienced was at a theatrical bar in the West End; a drag queen wearing a tight-fitting Gerri Halliwell-style union jack dress led the proceedings and trotted out all the old favourites, Knees Up Mother Brown, Any Old Iron etc. I was surprised that I knew the words (probably from a misspent youth having watched old Ealing films, or Steptoe & Son?)
Among the audience was a father and son celebrating the lad's bar mitzvah; the singer dedicated a song to him but I forget what it was, possibly My Old Man?
 
The best (and possibly the only) cockanee singalong I ever experienced was at a theatrical bar in the West End; a drag queen wearing a tight-fitting Gerri Halliwell-style union jack dress led the proceedings and trotted out all the old favourites, Knees Up Mother Brown, Any Old Iron etc. I was surprised that I knew the words (probably from a misspent youth having watched old Ealing films, or Steptoe & Son?)
Among the audience was a father and son celebrating the lad's bar mitzvah; the singer dedicated a song to him but I forget what it was, possibly My Old Man?
if you watch eg the sweeney you sometimes see regan and carter singing with a small band backing. i saw something similar once, a three piece backing band for people at the fox, now closed, on kingsland road where a lady in her sixties or seventies was singing hey big spender. must be 30+ years ago now
 
Apparently, a Department for Culture, Media & Sport think-tank is toying with the idea of rejuvenating British culture and national pride by making it mandatory for cinemas in England and Wales to play a Chas & Dave song at the end of the programme. This, they believe, would replace the outmoded tradition of piping the national anthem over the tannoy with something more up-to-date and meaningful.
Instead of standing to attention when the music begins, patrons will be encouraged to have a right old knees-up - and therein, I feel, lies the problem. Cinema-goers up north, in Wales, or indeed anywhere other than parts of Essex and Kent will not, I fear, respond favourably to compulsory cockanee singalongs.

That's the trouble with a lot of modern British people today - they ain't got no Cockney pride. Gertcha!
where i used to live, in a tower block in hackney, my upstairs neighbour would blast out chas and dave when spurs won. until he was nicked and convicted of murder
 
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