Raven Smith's Britain

A modern pandemic, a rash across our great nation, but so finger-licking delicious. I’m not sure what our best national dish is at this point though. Fish and chips? Yorkshire pudding? Cornish pasty? Chicken tikka masala? I feel very British eating leftovers on the sofa watching one of our nation’s chefs going unnecessarily berserk over a just-dug-up potato or beating a soufflé mix with a whisk. I like Delia Smith at Christmas. Jamie Oliver in summer (even though he ruined Turkey Twizzlers for everyone). And Nigella any time of the day or night. Brits cannot resist the siren-call whiff of coronation chicken. We all want a spotted dick.

The bottle blondness. The twin-set dressing. The Crocs. Chain smoking and being hoarsely gruff. Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours. (iPad-era Hockney doesn’t count.)

Infant mortality and the Black Death aside, a simpler, purer era. Medieval reality (re-enactment never counts) just feels cool and analogue and less about apps and engagement. Let’s bring back sacrifices at Stonehenge. Bring back the Sheriff of Nottingham. You really don’t get enough sheriffs these days.

Dahl typifies the British pastime of saying something explicitly racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic or ableist and waiting for a laugh. For the record, I love his books and think back-dated edits reek of 1984: Big Brother is removing the word ‘fat’ from your manuscript.

It’s not Christmas until loads of young families get conned by a rubbish Winter Wonderland, stranded in the cold in
a Midlands field with little people in striped tights and dogs with gaffer-taped antlers. It’s hard for me to feel even remotely festive until I see a crappy shed with a cardboard box manger on the cover of The Sun.

Welcoming people in need should be our proudest national achievement. We’re really fucking it up.

Sorry to be a union flag traitor, but I hate going to the pub. I find all the queuing and forced banter and holding my mate’s hair back while she paints the pavement with warm lager tiresome. I do love a morning airport pint, which, on reflection, feels more British than continental. An early bird bev is the perfect start to a long weekend, and nothing feels as British as a bank holiday. Fly wherever you want, but don’t clap when you land and remember there’s nothing as vulgar as a horseshoe-neck pillow on a short- haul flight.

Everybody does it, it’s just that nobody talks about it.

British people are psychotic about tea – how it’s made and when and whether it’s been offered. Straight tea (non- bubble) feels like an old person’s game, it’s the pass-the-parcel of beverages. I’m adding tea to the list lest people send complaints to the BBC. I love a Starbucks, but a lil’ teapot and matching strainer is preferable to watching a barista doing celebrity portraits in milk foam.

Sitcoms with an army of dads. Sitcoms with hyper-clueless fashion PRs. Sitcoms set in an office. The Millennium Dome, especially when the wind tore it open. Hampstead Ladies’ Ponds. The island where they do the weather on This Morning. The girthy Greek columns of the British Museum. The Spice Girls. The two Victoria Beckhams in Not Such an Innocent Girl. Madonna’s bloke era, her flat-cap years. Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. The Queen, but reserving judgment on King Charles. Meghan and Harry just giving up on Britain and leaving (lol). Reading up on James Cordon’s New York restaurant etiquette. Grace Wales Bonner resurrecting Bob Marley living in London in the Seventies. James Bond rescuing yet another scantily clad woman named after a synonym for bonking. Complaining about the cost of things. Trying to get the Prime Minister fired for not knowing the price of a pint of milk. Converting metric to imperial. Converting imperial to metric. Converting our trauma into witty anecdotes. Boris bikes, not Boris Johnson. Civilians going apeshit at government officials on Newsnight. Kate Bush. David Bowie. Harry Styles when he’s channelling Kate Bush or David Bowie. Dr Who. Gary Lineker. Big Ben.