When Evan Haga, my editor at Tidal, asked if I wanted to write something on Britain's out-size contribution to rock, I said: "That's my special subject! Just about the only thing I feel patriotic about!". (Well, historically - I wouldn't say there's a lot in recent times that stirs vicarious pride).
Here's the resulting essay on the British Rock Achievement and what its causes have been. And here's a Tidal playlist I made - it just kept getting bigger and bigger (wotta lotta achievement to cram in there)
Questions for the massive:
What special factors and conditions did I miss here?
What, if anything, could currently sustain a musical Brit-jingoism?
What else is there to be patriotic about, as a Brit?
As I note in the piece, I don't follow sports, so saying football or cricket (or tennis - or did the French invent that?) will not count for me. We'll leave out the political: things like parliamentary democracy, the jury system, etc. Anyway, they are offset by imperialism etc. English Literature seems like it belongs to the entire world, somehow. So what does that leave?
I might try to make an exhaustive list at the place where I do that kind of thing.
But right now, off the top of my head, I can only think of British comedy (the subject of David Stubbs 's imminent book Different Times).
Then there's our slender contribution to global cuisine: Yorkshire Pudding, Marmite, Gentlemen's Relish, and the sausage roll (I assume that's a British invention). Toast, the greatest comestible ever invented, feels British but it seems unlikely we came up with that first or alone.
Oh and Radio Four - something I gave little thought to as a youth, and never listened to at all as an adult when I still lived in the country. But on my visits back to the U.K. over the years, especially staying with my mum (who has it on almost constantly - sometimes even has it on in the background while the TV is on), it has become something that amazes and comforts in equal measure.