A pedant notes: that's not really an obvious characteristic of a banana republic. (View Post)

Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire and Cornwall are all rather fine places - you look around yourself and if that place is yours, pride is quite easy to feel. You are reminded again and again of yoir o… (View Post)

I think your latter two points are true. I don't think we ought to go overboard on the national (or even municipal, or regional) pride. But I also wish we didn't go so big on the national s… (View Post)

It's not even the "patriotic" lobby. I love my country. But I recognise that that's a function of me growing up in this country and being rooted in it, and human psychology valuin… (View Post)

Motivation for the destruction 'just drunken stupidity'. In some ways, I find this something of a relief. It's not a *good* reason, certainly, but the least bad reason I can think of. (View Post)