Plain lazy, opinionated, messy, unhygienic, loud, troublesome, unreliable - (to name just some of the adjectives commonly in discourse with them). Is the english student really deserving of such a bad rap?

Let’s turn to my own experiences. It is true I have heard some real horror stories, students tearing down furniture, walls, or even each other from houses they are commonly letting. Does this mean that the average British landlord has every right to rip us off? Many sight their concerns over the violent seething underbelly that they assume exists in most students, commonly housing the idea that all students are destructive types intent on causing injury to their property. Maybe in some areas of the country such attitudes can be justly validated, but why in areas where students have a proven record of being conscientous, mindful people must they continue to be oppressed by their landlord and letting agent?

The world can take note that the modern student is feeling the oppressive effects of corporate business and private landowners. We are tired of being stereotyped as apathetic and uncaring. The truth is most of us recognise the stresses and strains of owning property, we work hard to keep that property over our heads and we ensure that good care is taken in order to reflect positively on oursleves. England must look after it’s students more carefully and show us some more sympathy. We are helping to build this country and to take it further into the twenty first century, we do not need our elder community’s to foster such resentments toward us.

Source : http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/info_and_tech/assets/messy_desk_contest_winner.jpg

In no way do student’s rooms look like they’ve been worked in as much as this.

In the early part of this century a particular television show aired by the BBC went hugely global. This show depended largely on the comedy behind its realism, which was that of a setting in the office of a paper company located in England. The shows leading actors became global successes and can now be found permeating into the highest roles available in the movie industry. To the foreign audience it was surprisingly successful despite its boundaries; such as a heavy reliance on irony and satire that a lot of audiences sometimes fail to make sense of. To us at home, it became an achingly real counterpart to the many people within this country that work in the environment of an office.

The English office is a feral beast, one that I have recently just come to know. Inside it lurks a wealth and variety of strange and wonderful creatures. There is the office geek, completely unable to say anything of any interest. There is the office psycho, who looks as if they have broken free from the shackles of a straight jacket and spends the remainder of their days twitching nervously and growling. There is the office predator, the leering male who offers to complete the work of any female coworker and constantly hovers and flits in between each one. There is the office wide boy, who thinks he’s everyone’s best friend and constantly boasts of his own productivity. There is the office grafter, constantly stressed and moaning, who takes their work home and agonizes over every last detail. Then there are the ambivalent ones, the unhygienic ones, the comedians and those that are always sick. Almost always accompanying this host of wild characters is a strangely eerie managerial type who one often wonders how it came to be that they ever showed promise for such seniority.

The difference between American English and British English is particularly difficult to spot to non-native speakers, but to us native tongued creatures these differences can be glaringly obvious. Apart from the spelling: ‘color’ for ‘colour’, ‘favorite’ for ‘favourite’ there exists certain different semantic forms that refer to similar meanings.

‘Hey, I like your bangs, there so cool!’ Such statement may provoke stifled responses from your typical British English speaker. A certain difficulty in attempting to discern what exactly is being referred to may be the first point of contestation, swiftly followed for mistaking such innocence for emboldened crassness. What are bangs you say? Is this some kind of secret term you have for ‘certain’ body parts that belong to me? Well, such rationale is not so far from the truth.

For an American to refer to your ‘bangs’ is for them to comment upon your hair. However the term is limited, it cannot extend simply to a shaven head, but must be in reference to a fringe. Why they don’t simply use the word ‘fringe’ is largely mysterious, it succeeds as being one of the many words in British English that can have multiple meanings, which depends largely on context in order for us to discern its correct usage. ‘Fringe’ can refer to the margin, or the ripples being made on the edge of a community, it can also refer to festivals: ‘Edinburgh Fringe’. Examining this word and its American substitute leads us to wonder what the motivations are for coining such terms into language when sufficient terms exist in reference to the object.

Is this replacement an act of creating a unique form of language independent from that of the old colonial foe? Is it a process of assimilation from the colloquial to the standard in the sense of diction? Maybe it is because of the complications that arise from the words multiple usage in varying contexts, this may have lead to the need to use one identifiable term in which to refer to an individuals ‘hair bits’. I might just simply say: ‘Hey, look at my hair that falls sweepingly over my eyes’ but I sense this would not be such an effective topic of conversation. Especially amongst male peers. Down the pub. Whilst watching sport.

The author’s bangs, (on the right)

In England we love game shows. Again, this is not exclusive to our population but I do have to say: we really have been connoisseurs lately.

Deal or No Deal; a cultural phenomenon, not only lead to the resurrection of a television Jesus (with a scarily physical likeness) but also spurned a whole host of translations abroad. Take for example, the sexed up (in more physical way than Alistair Campbell’s dossier) American version. Doing away with the aesthetically distorted members (fat and ugly) of the general populace present in the British version and replacing them with the geometric perfectas of the American supermodel, our transatlantic counterpart oozes all the sex and glam we would come to expect. With this version comes an eccentric, balding gnome who is quite contrary to our own host but who has all the fervency of an excitable American at the gates of BuckingHAM palace.

Then there is the Dutch version and the Japanese and the Nigerian and so on and so forth…. John Fashanu has found work again since Gladiators; the dole office can breathe a sigh of relief. The point I am getting at is that our game shows are becoming a new form of British Imperialism, hell bent on invading the TV sets of those more susceptible victims spread out around the globe.

Look at ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’; the format translated for use in the other countries is crucial to our information gathering subversive agenda. Here, we use it to test the intellect of our closest neighbours, now we’ve detected their stupidity let’s advance and give them a proper old fashioned imperialist education!

- An Englishman an Irishman and a Scotsman were in a pub, talking about their sons. My son was born on St George’s Day,” commented the English man. “So we obviously decided to call him George” “That’s a real coincidence,” remarked the Scot. “My son was born on St Andrew’s Day, so obviously we decided to call him Andrew.”
“That’s incredible, what a coincidence, “said the Irishman. “Exactly the same thing happened with my son Pancake.” 

Not a particularly effective joke, but none the less another of the endless stream of Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman jokes. Why is the Englishman always the most intelligent, the Scotsman the most practical and the Irishman the idiot? I’m not sure, I really can’t discern why the Englishman is depicted in this way other than the tradition in which these jokes continue. The main convention and the way these jokes work is in mocking the scattish traits of the Irishman against the sensibilities of the other two nationals. It’s such a cruel world.  This racist vein continues, and again the Englishman is defended by the absurdity of the depictions of other nationals when we turn to a similar joke:  

 - An Englishman, and American and a Greek were complaining about their stupid wives.
The Englishman says, “my wife saw a sale in the supermarket and bought 50lbs of meat, and we don’t even have a freezer!”
The American guys says, “I got that beat. My wife bought a £60,000 car, and she doesn’t even know how to drive!”
But then the greek says, “no, mine beats that. My wife went on vacation last month with her friends, and took 100 condoms with her, and she doesn’t even have a dick!” 

The Englishman gets off with the lightest punishment once again. Why is it we are always able to avoid being the butt of such jokes? Please come mock us!

I love it! Google Image search Englishness and in comes a terrific image of icons that represent England. Following on from the previous ‘Best Symbols of England’ blog earlier in the week I can’t help but feel I missed some great things, but look a little bit closely at this image and what do you see?

All of these icons may appear particular positive at first sight, but are they really? Look closely and you can see how each image thematically relates to the superior might of our country in terms of empire and warfare. “How does tea?” you may well ask. Well the symbolic nature of tea is long associated with Englishness but if we were to trace its roots more closely we can see its origins on the foreign lands that England ruled over. The importation of tea began in 1660 when our own King Charles II received two ounces, and was essentially exported by two monopolies in China and India. The escalation in tea sales grew during the 1750’s due to the rise in cane sugar importations, because tea with sugar is after all, a lot more sensational. In reflecting back on the origins of tea in our country can we not argue that its place in our society is largely because of our colonial interests?

Now we turn to Henry VIII as I feel the other two icons are fairly self evident in their epitomizing of superior force. Now, Henry VIII, obviously a powerful British figure but what is he really remembered for?  Cutting off the heads of wives, throwing out the pope and fighting various wars with neighbouring countries, need more be said about the origins of these British icons? Is the greatest thing about Englishness our superior force in the world?

The way Japanese people learn English is really quite beautiful. As you can see they are really optimistic about the situations they may encounter in an English speaking country: “take anything you want”. Maybe it is crucial to teach them how to act in the moment of a mugging, I’m sure they would definitely take the time to really think about how to pronounce “spare me my life” properly, it’s just instinctual. I think the songs are sure fire hits; the funky looping beats behind the repetitive chants really cement the teachings in one’s head. I’m going to bed with “I was robbed by two men” echoing in my head. Thanks, YouTube.

So England kick off against Russia tomorrow and there has been an almighty hoo-ha about the conditions our top athletes have to play in, the artificial pitch being the main point of contestation.  Football as our national game - and possibly as some would say national religion, is a hotly contested point of discussion amongst the many social arenas of the nation. It imposes on such a large part of our culture that in some ways to be an English football supporter is a passage to fully fledged citizenship.

What of those in the nation that simply don’t like the game? They fall into a minority sector, rife with prejudicial sentiment and stereotyping occurring on the behalf of their football loving receptors. In some ways these individuals are extradited from the cultural consciousness of the country. This happens due to sports position as one of the single most unifying experiences of identity. In the idea of the nation, and many political theorists ranging from Hobspawm to Anderson contend, the nation must define itself in comparison with the other. This sense of the ‘other’ is a notion borrowed specifically from Edward Said who wrote of it in dividing the attitudes of the colonizing West to its exotic subjects falling outside of the West in terms of their global positioning.  

In many ways the game that will take place tomorrow is an epic battle that resounds so much further than from within the limiting confines of support. If England’s footballers bring us failure, the nation will fail with them. The interconnectedness we feel with these eleven ordinary people bears such an unbelievable weight upon their young shoulders. In many ways it is crucial that they only frame their mindset on winning a game of football, however as a nation we should also remember this fact and avoid using it as a referent in which to match the power of one nation against another, or even further the superiority of one type of people against another.