Lifeweek magazine in China has produced a list of ideas, objects and individuals who, its readers believe, are emblems of British life. Here’s the cover:
The list may lose something in Google translation, but there’s plenty of wit in it and you’ll quickly get the gist:
01 British bone china
02 cup of tea
03 mods (no rockers)
04 windcheater England element
05 tarpaulin jacket
06 Cornish pasty
07 English breakfast
08 Bitter
09 Builder’s Tea
10 Savile Row tailor
11 Royal Ascot
12 Windsor knot
13 British Shorthair cat
14 British Bulldog
15 fireplace
16 Churchill’s cane
17 Chamberlain’s umbrella
18 pipe
19 Miss Marple
20 Sherlock Holmes
21 naturalist John Ray
22 the English landscape garden
23 flowers
24 trees on a country lane
25 perfect lawn
26 British rock
27 Britpop
28 punk
29 Paul McCartney
30 4AD Records
31 “Q” magazine
32 David Bowie
33 BBC Proms
34 hymns
35 Vivienne Westwood
36 Alexander McQueen
37 pudding with custard
38 fish and chips
39 Kate Moss (described as ‘flat chest’)
40 David Beckham
41 cricket
42 Bloomsbury
43 Jane Austen in Bath
44 vegetarian
45 Utopia
46 The British acting profession (cue: Bill Nighy, Timothy Spaull)
47 British drama (The Thick of It)
48 public embarrassments (Mistresses)
49 Dame Maggie Smith
50 Punch and Judy
51 Shakespeare performances (Laurence Olivier)
52 Danny I (King Danny)
53 Emma Thompson
54 tabloid newspapers
55 John Ruskin
56 Norman Lebrecht
57 Liam Gallagher
58 H M The Queen
59 Topshop
60 Fox hunting
61 The butler
62 English accent
63 flush toilet
64 haunted houses
65 Frankenstein
66 King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
67 “Alice in Wonderland.”
68 Peter Pan
69 Thomas the Tank Engine
70 British Museum
71 Hyde Park
72 George Orwell
73 spy novel
74 Somerset Maugham
75 Julian Barnes
76 Ian McEwan
77 Dr Who
78 Tim Berners-Lee
79 the aristocracy
80 The Times Literary Supplement
81 England Rugby
82 tennis
83 Rowing
84 Goodwood
85 London
86 Tate Modern
87 Harrods
88 National Theatre and architectural brutalism
89 Millennium Dome
90 British humor (Rowan Atkinson)
91 smile
92 Irony
93 D H Lawrence and literary realism
94 self-deprecation
95 laziness
96 Scottish Enlightenment
97 Moore’s freedom principle
98 British Aestheticism (Oscar Wilde)
99 individual and economic freedom (Jeremy Bentham)
100 libertarianism
I don’t know who Liam Gallagher is but you are rubbing shoulders with some pretty nice company on the other side. Now where are Tom Beecham and Ed Elgar on this list? If its living icons you want, how about Simon Rattle? Margaret Thatcher? rain?
More elevated than both HM The Queen and a flush toilet!