Thread by @Sotherans

so the hashtag #ProudToBeEnglish is trending this morning and as a company which has been on the streets of london meeting y'all daily for several centuries I can assure you this is not the hill you want to die on

now if we could all get back to quietly enjoying St George's Day, in honor of a man who liked to interfere in the royal succession of far away places and trophy hunt endangered species, that would be lovely

people coming into our mentions like we don't know who the English are, susan we've been hawking you books for over two hundred and fifty years we see your outrageously large hat at that funeral even though they weren't even a close relative

we invented queuing only to solidly complain about it FOREVER and then get mad when people from other countries don't like it either

we also do outrageous things like claim we invented queuing

we did not invent standing in lines
we are just very good at it because it invokes a vague sadness and we are culturally biased towards bleak humor

I think what 2010 onwards english jingoists are missing is that upstanding english patriotism comes with an acute sense of mild anxiety and an open mindedness to making up for all the "oh no" perpetrated on the world across the centuries, and idk where we lost that

read more
books connect us to other people and perspectives
do good things because you can, not because you have to
share stuff with people who aren't like you

then you'll have something to be proud of okay