Anyone for Tennis

So Tuesday last week was Call of Duty day, basically it's an excuse for all the men between the ages of 16 (yes I know it's an 18 certificate, but that's the facts) and 45 to spend the whole day neglecting just about everyone else on the planet to play a silly little game on whatever console they can lay your hands on. Now if you had any brownie points or goodwill vouchers in the bank then today was the day to cash them in. Just be careful not to overspend and have to fall into hock on said vouchers. Always stay in the black, never play catch up. The repayment terms are always very steep and you never know when the debt will be called in. It's usually somewhere near a shoe shop, with matching handbag, obviously, but you have been warned. The day itself really paled into insignificance so I won't bother to recount the parts that were even remotely worth mentioning, as they were few. To break it down it goes something like this, did as little work as I could get away with, got home as early as I could, played the game for a lot of hours, upset the wife, yes I was in the wrong, eat too much crap food then went to bed late. The end

Swiftly on to Wednesday

Wednesday, where the hell did the name come from? Well it’s based on the Old English Woden’s day which derives from the Germanic for the day of Odin, the top dog when it comes to Norse deity.  Now if Odin is the Mac Daddy when it comes to Northern European gods then why is his day stuck in the middle week surely it should be at the weekend? So basically the naming of the days is nearly as inane as the naming of the months, which comes from our Italian friends. December is supposed to be the 10^th month of the year from the Latin “Dec” which means yes, you guessed it 10. Which follows on from the 8^th month “Oct”ober and the 9^th being “Nov”ember, which also derive from the relative Latin terms. So basically it’s a mess, but no-one’s going to change it now. No-one questions things they believe whatever they are told.

There is a reason for this wittering on as it’s something that really annoys me. How people’s ignorance and stupidity make them look like such spanners, but then other people listen to them. It’s like the whole British or being English thing. Why do people say idiotic things like England should be an Anglo-Saxon country again with no foreigners’. Hang on a minute the Angles and the Saxons where both Germanic tribes from Northern Europe that popped across the North Sea when they heard the Romans had finished building straight roads in Londinium and buggered off home to kill each other and watch their once mighty empire fall to bits. How can that be classed as being “English?” What they are saying is to be English means you’re German! You know the place where Adolf Hitler came from (yes I know he was Austrian)

OK let me show you just how crazy this is. I’m going to give you the history of England the abridged version. The bible in three lines last time and now the history of our fair Isles as well aren’t you lucky. Here goes, 500BC the country was in the Iron Age and after around 6 thousands years of living on berries, grass and anything we could kill with spears our first visitors arrived, the Celts. Mainly from France but also from across other parts of central Europe. Our Gallic friends took over and we all started eating garlic, but no one had invented the beret yet so not all bad. The French were in charge for around 500 years until the Italian’s popped over the channel for their turn. The Roman’s gave the Celts a good whacking, sent half of them back to Italy as slaves and moved in togas and all. They did build some nice towns, roads, viaducts, sanitation, under floor heating and the odd high wall though.

After 4 centuries of eating spaghetti and drinking olive oil, the Romans finally ran out of slaves and other Roman’s to fight and all buggered off back to Italy. That left the door ajar and who stuck their toe in the gap, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The armies of modern day Holland, Germany and Denmark took their turn. The usual wanton rape and pillage ensued, but after a short struggle they moved in their big dogs, popped their slippers by the fire and got down to bleeding the locals dry. This went on for about 300 years until the Viking landed their long boats on the east coast and started having some fun; they took the whole pillaging thing to a whole new level and took over much of the North.

1066 saw the French back again and this time William the Conqueror or William the bastard as he was known at home, completely remodelled the place, setting up all his mates with nice big chunks of land as long as they built him great big stone castles with which he could bleed yet more tax from the local serfs. The Normans hung around for just under 100 years until passing crown to another bunch of lovely Frenchies, the Plantagenets. The likes of Richard the lion heart, who in his 10 years as King spent just 8 months at home, hung around for the thick end of two and a half centuries before being replaced by Kings from the house of Lancaster. Northern monkeys in general, but their first king, Henry IV, spent most of his life in, you guessed it, France. Which is where all his buddies and hanger-ons came from, by the way! The crown was then passed around different northern families for 150 years until they managed to unite themselves and we then had Tudor kings. These Tudors were short lived and within 100 years Lizzie the first decided she didn’t fancy having kids and the crown was passed to a Scot. Not lost in battle or hideously robbed in the night. No handed to them on a plate. The old enemy were now in control and low and behold everything went to pot.

Over the next 100 years we had a civil war, cut off the Kings head, didn’t bother with a king at all for 10 years, but still found time to be horrible to the Irish. Then we invited a King back again (from France). Then after no one could decide whether we wanted to be Roman Catholic or Church of England we told the Scots to bugger off and invited in the Dutch.

That didn’t really work either so we then asked the Germans to have a go; I’m sure hoping their renowned efficiency would be good for a country of beer drinking lunatics. This actually seemed to go quite well and everyone became rich, except for the poor people obviously and we ruled the world. When this line of monarchs ran out of steam we passed the mantle onto their German friends the House of Saxe-Coburg. We then changed the name to the house of Windsor, when World War I broke out and it became very unpopular to be German, and that’s what we have right up until today.

Half the stuff that marks us as English has come from alien shores.

The Queen – German

The Tower of London – built by a Frenchman

Fish and chip – Jewish for Portugal

Tea – from the Far East

Strawberries & Cream – Strawberries first imported from France

Tennis – first played in France

St George – Muslim or Roman from Asia if he ever lived at all  

The Ritz – designed and open by a Swiss businessman

Marks & Spencers – started by a Jewish Pole

Tesco – Jewish son born of a Polish dad

Isanbard Kingdom Brunel – French Dad and educated in France.

So to be honest if you class yourself as truly English through and through then you are basically saying you are a fur wearing, berry eating, deer chasing, unclean, mindless, Iron Age thug.

Actually I might have just hit the nail on the head there?