BritishPages.org

Atonement

2010-03-10T23:12:03Z

Last Wendesday night I was looking for an interesting film that I had not yet seen, when my girlfriend pulled out a bag of films that she had brought over with her. One of these films was called Atonement, It is a film that is set in europe during world war two. Keira Knightley plays the role of a young girl in an upper class family, and James McAvoy is one of the help, who seems to have something of a bond with ms. Knightleys’ father whom we never actually see in the film.

This film is definitely not a light hearted film so if you are looking for some romantic feelgood film you are definitely not going to find this here, however what you will find from this is a story of love, family and the consequences of one with the other.

I really enjoyed this film despite the depressing story line, it made me think a lot about how things must have been for my grandparents during WWII my grandfather before becoming a radio operator in Africa, would sit ontop of a building in liverpool and have to call into the fire department and let them know which streets the bombs had dropped on during the blitzes, he said that it was a very scary thing not knowing whether or not you would be coming home to your family and house missing in the morning.

In this film though we don’t see too much of this side of the war, what we see is how when locked in prison James McAvoy is given the option to either serve out his time inside, or he can join up with the services and get deployed over seas for the remainder of his sentence, and ms. Knightley takes a path I did not initially expect but I thought was a good place to take the film.

Over all this film is a great piece of cinematography and will definitely make you look at and think about the way that you live your life and what is important to you, I would recommend everyone see this atleast once, but keep in mind this is not a “feel good film” infact it is what I have come to call a very european style of film, meaning it doesnt have the typical american “everyone lives happily ever after and everything smells like sweets and roses” spin to it.

Songs Of Home

2010-03-10T16:32:00Z

Are you British and living abroad? STOP Reading any further!

Here are some songs from home that will make your stomach turn and a tear in your eye. As a British expat I tend to forget as much about living in England on purpose, otherwise the patriotic inside me could take over an I would crumble to my knees in tears. But every now and again I will accidently catch a song that can turn my head into a spin about moving back home. Oh why cruel world do you do this to me.

What songs set you off on a emotional mood? Is it a TV show or a film or something else?
Surely you don’t start weeping at the sight of beans on toast?

Ok grab some tissues, here are the songs that get me:

The theme tune to Vicar of Dibley:

Land Of Hope and Glory at the Proms:

For the Summer time – World Cup England Song – ‘Vindaloo’ by Fat Les:

And of course God Save The Queen at the Proms:

Nuclear Bunker sold for £20,600 on eBay

2010-03-10T06:43:57Z

A War bunker in Derbyshire, England has been sold on eBay for £20,600.

The bunker located in the Peak District has attracted over 4o bids from potential online buyers.

Some 700 of these bunkers have already been filled in, but a number have been offered for sale to the public.

The war bunker, built in 1959, sits on a 2,756 sq ft piece of land was describes by the seller as “rare opportunity to acquire a valuable piece of Cold War history”. The bunker itself has lighting and a phone line and could be used as accommodation.

The building was built for monitoring mail by the Royal Observer Corps, during the threat of a nuclear attack, but closed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The bunker is accessed by a metal hatch and a 15ft ladder that leads down into two rooms. One has a toilet and the other was built for housing military monitoring equipment. There are two ventilation shafts and the original military equipment comes with the deal.

The online eBay seller said “The bunker can continue to be used as limited living accommodation for short periods or adventure holidays.

This could be an ideal and unique hotel room to for any would be backpacker travelling through the Peak District area. Just don’t expect any Wi-Fi or 3G cell phone coverage while underground.

British Pages Magazine

2010-03-09T06:21:20Z

Coming soon…

A bi-monthly online british magazine created by a team of writers, bringing you a host of cultural British topics: tourism, news, entertainment, expatriates, business, food, fashion and a ton of other features.

Click here for a sneak peek sample from our first edition of the british pages magazine

Also contact us for your press releases, advertising and contribution opportunities.

History of Saint Patrick’s Day

2010-03-08T16:21:19Z

Born in Cumbria, England. Captured as a slave in Wales and embraced in Ireland.

Patrick was born to a family of local dignitaries at Banna venta Berniae located in Cumbria, England.
March 17th, popularly known as St. Patrick’s Day, is believed to be St Patrick’s death date and is the date celebrated as his feast day. Patrick died in AD 461, a date accepted by most modern historians, although some others beleive it to be AD 420.

St Patrick’s Day has now evolved to a global celebration from Ireland to USA, Australia, New Zealand Uruguay and even Glasgow, Scotland. Even with history between irish and english people, the english still use this day as a good excuse to drink Guinness and get drunk on what english people call ‘Paddy’s Day’.
Corn beef and cabbage is amongst the most popular irish food to be eaten on and around this date. Most people usually celebrate at the closest weekend to March 17th, assuming heavy drinking sessions.

Saint Patrick was a Roman Britain born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken from his native Wales as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the church, he later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of Ireland, although little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.

The available body of evidence does not allow the dates of Patrick’s life to be fixed with certainty, but it appears that he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the fifth century. Two letters from him survive, along with later hagiographies from the seventh century onwards. Many of these works cannot be taken as authentic traditions. Uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he lived from 340 to 460, and ministered in what is modern day northern Ireland from 428 onwards.

Green colors and shamrock
St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. The wearing of and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the saint’s holiday.

St. Patrick’s Blue refers to a blue, often but not always dark blue. Although St. Patrick is often depicted in green chasuble and episcopal mitre today, before the 20th century the saint was more often shown wearing blue garments. This same blue can be seen on ancient Irish flags and in some modern contexts associated with Ireland.The change to Ireland’s association with green rather than blue probably began around the 1750’s

The Legend of Saint Patrick
Pious legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes. One suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and place, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul or that it could have referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism, symbolized as “serpents. Legend also credits Patrick with teaching the Irish about the concept of the Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a 3-leaved clover, using it to highlight the Christian belief of ‘three divine persons in the one God’.

Some Irish legends involve the Oilliphéist, the Caoránach, and the Copóg Phádraig. During his evangelising journey back to Ireland from his parent’s home at Birdoswald, he is understood to have carried with him an ash wood walking stick or staff. He thrust this stick into the ground wherever he was evangelising and at the place now known as Aspatria (ash of Patrick) the message of the dogma took so long to get through to the people there that the stick had taken root by the time he was ready to move on. The 12th century work Acallam na Senórach tells of Patrick being met by two ancient warriors, Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín, during his evangelical travels. The two were once members of Fionn mac Cumhaill’s warrior band the Fianna, and somehow survived to Patrick’s time. They traveled with the saint and told him their stories.

Running

2010-03-08T15:55:44Z

I decided it was time to get out and start running, so at 5.30am I donned my tracksuit bottoms and a hoody and leaped out into the dark Worthing streets and heaved my overweight lardy body up the road. I used to be quite fit, buffed up and toned. I use to have to take off my shirt and lie on a bed of nails, so needed to look fairly good for that. But in the past three years with the eye problem I haven’t been exercising and the body’s definition has gone saggy.

I am quite convinced that it will not take too much effort to get back into shape, but thanks to the horrid steroids that I was on to assist the eye recovery, I have put on a few pounds and they need to come off.

So, there was I this morning puffing and panting and I had only gone about 50 yards when my lungs and heart were complaining and ready to give up. It was a very uncomfortable feeling indeed. I am very unfit, I thought as I slogged on down the road my legs already turning to jelly.

The one thing I did right was to get up early before the rest of the world, when it was dark, so no one could see me and my pain, or indeed hear my laboured breathing as I desperately sucked in the cold crisp Spring air.

I knew that I could stop and then walk for a bit and then start again if I wanted to, but in the past when I had been running I never gave in to that feeling and I wasn’t about to now. I thought, go just down the road, up towards the sea, back along the bottom road and down towards the pink house and I will be fine. It wont be long.

So I flogged myself to complete the run. I have never enjoyed running, but I know it is a way to get the weight off and increase stamina and for that reason alone I will keep doing it. I cannot imagine ever looking forward to it or wanting to get out for a run. I never have. But as a discipline and exercise regime I am happy to to follow it and get fit again.

I am so disgusted with my body shape, and it isn’t really that bad, but I hate to see the spare tyre when I have never suffered with that, so I will continue to fitness again. I owe it to myself for my own self esteem.

English as a second language

2010-03-08T06:51:45Z

I received the following e-mail the other day. The header is heavily edited for obvious reasons, but the body of the letter is word-for-word:

From: Bert Mckinnon: AssholeWithTooMuchTime@OnHis.Hands
To: NotMyEmailAddress@ButIGotItAnyway.Dammit
Subject: Hello
Attachments: (Brunette.jpg) – the sort of photo that comes in a new wallet
——————————————————————————-
Hello!!!
How your mood? I very much would like to know you better… I would like to write to you a little about myself… To me of 28 years. I the brunette, very cheerful and beautiful woman… If you wanted me the nobility better can write only to my personal Email.
I hope you to me will write about myself.

Aside from the obvious (this person is tragically in love with ellipses) I’m guessing English is not the native language of the sender. And I have to wonder at the point of such a letter.

How lonely and desperate do you have to be for “If you wanted me the nobility better…” to sweep you off your feet?

And “Bert McKinnon”? What sort of name is that for an Internet temptress? I don’t know about you, but Bert screams “I’m a man” in my world, unless you are a Roberta. But anyone out for a cyber-snog with the name of Roberta McKinnon would do well to adopt a more appropriate nom de plume, such a Sally Cyberslut or Julie I-want-To-Send-You-Naked-Photos-Of-Myself-To-Gain-Your-Trust-So-I-Can-Empty-Your-Bank-Account Smith.

At least she didn’t mention the size of my penis (how do they know?) like many of the mystery women who write to me do. You know, things like “Make your man-tree hard grow so women laughing at you will stop.” I made that up, but it isn’t far off of the mark.

Unfortunately, these are the types of communications that make up the bulk of my e-mail these days. I can’t complain; it’s my own fault.

A few years ago I naïvely thought I could defeat spammers by changing my e-mail address on a regular basis. So I changed my spam-ridden e-mail address to a new one and told all my friends. Many switched to the new address. Some did not. The spammers used both. Not one to give up on a bad idea, I tried this about five times before I admitted defeat. By then I had thoroughly confused my friends and provided a huge target for the spambots.

My supposed saviour, Yahoo Spam Filter, didn’t help. There is a button you can click to notify Yahoo that the letter is spam and the filter will “learn” what is and is not spam and filter out all the bad stuff. In my experience, all the button does is alert the spammers as to where I am because whenever I undertake a campaign to eradicate spam, I generally end up with ten times more.

Worse yet, the Yahoo Spam Filter also sends all my blog comments, which are specifically tagged to go into my IN box, into my spam folder. So I currently enjoy the irony of having to go to my spam folder because, if there is any mail for me, that’s where I’ll find it.

So I am reading a lot of letters from Bert and his buddies these days. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but on the bright side it is often a revelation to discover the extraordinary and starling ways desperate third-worlders with an internet connection and a penchant for larceny can torture the English language in their attempts to woo the gullible and, one has to suppose, functionally illiterate into revealing their bank details in exchange for virtual titillation.

So until Bert and his ilk discover they can make more money robbing liquor stores, or I become wealthy enough to develop my own, effective spam filter (or at least have enough money to hire people to read my mail for me) I’m afraid finding relevant communications will continue to be a scavenger hunt through spam hell.

But those days may be over sooner than you think: I just received a notification from The National Lottery Board informing me that I have won $87,674,287.37 in the National Lottery. I can’t wait until they deposit the money in my bank account!

Website: http://postcardsfromacrossthepond.blogspot.com

Fish Tank

2010-03-05T17:31:45Z

So last night I went to go and see a new film that has been given a limited release here in the states called Fish Tank.

This film was first brought to my attention by a coworker who told me he had been to see it and asked if it was similar to what I remembered. I went to see this film with BRITISHDUDE who is also an expat who is also from ESSEX and we both agreed, that we remembered things that were similar or exactly how the film depicted ESSEX but that were not the exact experiences we each had.

The interaction that this girl shared with other teenagers her own age reminded me of school, the aggressiveness and language used toward one another was reminiscent of things I experience in and out of school. As I watched this film and looked around me in the cinema we were in it dawned on me that this was the first impression that many of the American couples in the audience were getting of ESSEX and I almost wanted to stand up and say ” look I grew up there and that dull broken down landscape and muggy weather is not all that ESSEX is!” Also I realised there were certain slang terms and words and phrases used in which the American audience members would turn to one another and ask “What did she just say?” or “What does that term mean? do you know?” and it made me realise that although this was a film they clearly felt the need to see, there were things in it that were wasted on the audience.

Over all I thought the film was an incredible piece of work, I just wish that people here in the states who go to view it would be able to relate to it more. After seeing this film I still want to go back and visit my friends and family, there’s nothing that will ever change my mind on that. Also the pride that I do carry from being born and raised in the English culture is also something that I know will never leave me, but I do now have a slightly greater understanding of why my parents pulled me out of there and have me where I am now. Although it was just a film I was starting to head down a very slippery slope myself back home, and I have made my mistakes here in the states but I haven’t ended up where I think I could have gone if I had stayed back home, and for that I definitely have a new level of respect and a new outlook on my current situation.

I would urge any anglophile or expat who hasn’t been home in a while to go see this film, although it’s just a film and obviously not completely true to life, there is definitely something there that’ll grab you by the throat and make you think about your situation and whether the complaining you do from day to day is really as significant as it seems, or whether like a friend said to me recently ” You just have to get on with things and enjoy them in the moment, you could be gone tomorrow, so chin up and make the best of it!”

see you all soon – EnglishTom

British Phrases – Letters G to J

2010-03-04T15:49:30Z

Have you ever visited Britain and wondered what Brits are talking about. Maybe you need to brush up on British language for your future visit. Or maybe you just want to impress people with your knowledge of the British language, how hard can it be, after all it’s only English right?

This week we are covering British phrases beginning from G to J:

Gagging means desperate for something. Used like “i’m gagging for a cup of tea”

Gallivanting means mesisng around and playing about.

Gander means to browse and look around “i’m having a gander in this shop”.

Get stuffed means the same as bugger off!

Getting off means making out with someone, kissing etc. More of a teenager term.

Give us a bell means to call my telephone. “Lets speak later about that, give us a bell”.

Gobsmacked is when you are shocked and you would put your hand over your mouth ” I cant beleive you lost all that weight, i’m totally gobsmacked”.

Goolies means testicles “I got kicked in the goolies”. Not to be confused with Ghoulies which is ghosts.

Gormless is someone who just looks uneducated by appearance of their face.

Grub is a term for food. Like the online USA British Food Shop called ‘Jolly Grub’.

Gutted means totally upset by losing out on something, as if your guts were ripped out “I’m totally gutted I lost my dog”.

Haggle means to argue or negotiate about the price of an item. This was used in a great sketch from the Monty Python ‘Life of Brian’ film:

Hanky panky messing around and to have sex.

Have a Banana is cockney term from a song, but is now used to be used if someone got what they wanted or you give it to them, instead of saying “there you go, have that” some say “Have a banana”:

Hiya is short for Hello There.

Horses for courses is expression of meaning each to there own.

How’s your father? is an old fashioned expression for having sex “fancy a bit of how’s your father”.

Hump means fed up “got the hump” or also used to explain people having sex ‘Humping’.

Hunky Dory means that everything is all OK and no worries.

Jammy means the same as Fluke, to be lucky ” You won a prizze…You jammy git”.

Jimmy or going Jimmy Riddle (Rhymes with piddle), means to get to the toilet and urinate.

John Thomas means a penis, as used in the Penis song from Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life film:

Jolly is to be happy and everyone is have a good time “it’s a jolly good party”.

Just Not Cricket is said when something is not being fair. Cricket is a game for gentlemen and no cheating should never exist and all would be fair. If somone had eaten more cake than rest then you could say “Hey c’mon that’s just no cricket”.

EPL Talk Podcast

2010-03-04T04:17:28Z

Founded in 2005, EPL Talk has quickly grown to become the number one Premier League-related blog in the world.

With more than 300,000 unique visitors a month, EPL Talk provides daily news and analysis to football fans in 210 countries. The mission of the site is to provide readers with intelligent and interactive content focused on the world’s most popular sports league, the English Premier League.

To complement EPL Talk’s daily news and analysis, the web site also features more than 100 podcast interviews with some of the top names in football, an online store featuring the widest selection of Premier League jerseys for all 20 clubs, and quality content such as a free 30-page travel guide for Premier League fans interested in learning how to plan their trip of a lifetime to see football in-person in England.

EPL Talk is the brainchild of internet entrepreneur Christopher Harris, better known to readers as The Gaffer. Born in Wales, Harris is a former journalist who has been a football fan for more than 30 years and now spends his time analyzing the influence of the Premier League around the world from his home in South Florida.

In addition to EPL Talk, there are eight other soccer websites in the EPL Talk Network including Major League Soccer Talk, La Liga Talk, Serie A Talk, World Cup Buzz, Bundesliga Talk, Championship Talk, Champions League Talk and Soccer On Dish.

Website: http://www.epltalk.com/epl-talk-podcast