I just tuned in the telly to watch the news, and caught the last few minutes of the last night of the proms; while the orchestra and singers were well separated, the audience (?prommers?) seemed to be crammed in like sardines in a tin; another ?super-spreader event?, or ?get real, we gotta live with it??

(Incidentally, and off-topic ? am I alone in thinking that all the flag-waving bullshit, the pure arrogance of 'God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet' etc. is, to put it mildly, inappropriate in the UK of today?)

You're not alone. There's not that much to boast about in that regard. And yes, I saw about ten second of the Proms tonight and turned it off - there's been some fabulous music over the last month (one orchestra did Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with no score, from memory, which was amazing), but the patriotic stuff I can't stand.

Many of the public are in total denial and in suicide mode on Covid, whilst others are still petrified - it depends on where and whom you are. But if folks want to live with it they're just going to have to get used to spending a lot more money for hospitals and a lot more staff. I still keep thinking of that emergency hospital bed in a strange town that saved my life three months ago, and how lucky I was to get it in a Covid trough instead of a peak.

Fulk said:

(Incidentally, and off-topic ? am I alone in thinking that all the flag-waving bullshit, the pure arrogance of 'God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet' etc. is, to put it mildly, inappropriate in the UK of today?)

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That sentence sums up what's wrong with the country; no pride 

Being patriotic and waving a flag for one night of the year doesn't make anyone a racist or "inappropriate" or whatever else you were implying....

Fulk said:

.. am I alone in thinking that all the flag-waving bullshit, the pure arrogance of 'God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet' etc. is, to put it mildly, inappropriate in the UK of today?

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No

So, sinker, what do you make of the following 5 words:

                                          'GOD  WHO  MADE  THEE MIGHTY'?

I obviously don't know what the writer had in mind when he or she (probalby the former) wrote them, but the inference is  that the British Empire was somehow ordained by god.

If that's not arrogant bullshit, then what it it?

The majority of those at the last night of the proms are not actual, or potential, national front members...

Fulk said:

So, sinker, what do you make of the following 5 words:

                                          'GOD  WHO  MADE  THEE MIGHTY'?

I obviously don't know what the writer had in mind when he or she (probalby the former) wrote them, but the inference is  that the British Empire was somehow ordained by god.

If that's not arrogant bullshit, then what it it?

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I refer you the Moderator's request to "keep it on topic".

Wow there are some precious snowflakes on here 

Pitlamp said:

Yes; I read this just after reading about talk of gongs for some tennis player.

Ponder on who the real heroes are.

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Tennis players and nurses can both be heroes....it's just the context that changes.
If it cheers a few people up and restores a bit of national pride then where's the harm?

mikem said:

The majority of those at the last night of the proms are not actual, or potential, national front members...

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I refer you the Moderator's request to "keep it on topic".

Majority? National Front? FFS??!

I give up!

Come on guys - hand bags down -

Sinker, as per your own words - "keep it on topic" or start a new one. Please stop rising to the bait. Calling people snowflakes is equally derogatory name calling.

And I actually think MikeM was agreeing with you.

"the majority of those at the last night of the proms are not actual, or potential, national front members"

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Just on a point of order it was Stravinsky's Firebird Suite not the Rite of Spring although no doubt the Aurora Orchestra will have a go at that extremely difficult piece next year. The Rachmaninov Paganini Variations was stunningly played by Pavel Kolesnikov.

We loved the glass harmonica in the Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals. How talented are the Kanneh-Mason siblings!

The pianism has been superb - Kolesnikov,Vikingur Olaffson, and Kirill Gerstein

Fwiw Elgar didn't like Benson's words to Pomp & Circumstance No. 1 (imho 4 is better) .  Rule Brittania is of its time - the War of Jenkin's Ear and is an exhortation not a boast.

SamT said:

Come on guys - hand bags down -

Sinker, as per your own words - "keep it on topic" or start a new one. Please stop rising to the bait. Calling people snowflakes is equally derogatory name calling.

And I actually think MikeM was agreeing with you.

"the majority of those at the last night of the proms are not actual, or potential, national front members"

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Yes, agreed, if MikeM was being genuine then I agree; I took the "?.." to be sarcasm.
Apologies all round if I mis-read that; sorry. 

Regarding "snowflake"; I don't know what other term to use as it was meant to be taken the way it was said. Maybe derogatory is a bit strong but then it certainly wasn't meant as a compliment. People need to toughen up, become more resilient and stop looking for things to complain about.
I'm patriotic about my country (Wales firstly, then Great Britain) but there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism. The wording of 'Land of Hope And Glory' is just semantics these days.
Empire?
Commonwealth?
Great Britain?
UK?

Semantics and old history.

I was reminded of an old Spitting Image take on the Last Night of the Proms which might be a bit more to the taste of those that object to the flag-waving, where the song was "Land of Hopeless Tories" - I had hoped it might be on YouTube somewhere but if it is, I can't find it.

One remark I would make, having watched LNotP myself, was the number of audience members who were waving union flags while wearing blue berets with a ring of stars on them - participation in that is rather more nuanced than some would suggest. Likewise, if you know your Blake, then you'll know that the words to "Jerusalem" are a lot deeper and complex than just saying "England is _special_"....

If you don't like flag waving, stay in the UK. Seriously. I have lived in European countries where you could be fined for not having a flag out on national day, and severe opprobrium otherwise. England is, by some distance, the least nationalist country in Europe. But not everyone knows that, and certain media like to allege the opposite  - it's just crap.

With regard to nasty diseases, it's all over for sure. There is nothing else to be done. It's not going away and everyone will be exposed eventually, so only things like vaccines will make a difference to you personally. If you want something more techy here is PHE's latest vaccine effectiveness report:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1016465/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_36.pdf

My GP thinks I've got long covid, but I'm not convinced (no real impact on going caving). Lost several parents in the last couple of months, not to covid. Life goes on and we bury our dead.

Fjell - a realist attitude.
But I still think political and culture war stuff should be kept off sites like this. Plenty of others out there to offer battle on, and plenty of takers. But I have a life.

Fjell said:

If you don't like flag waving, stay in the UK. Seriously. I have lived in European countries where you could be fined for not having a flag out on national day, and severe opprobrium otherwise. England is, by some distance, the least nationalist country in Europe. But not everyone knows that, and certain media like to allege the opposite  - it's just crap.

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My family is half Norwegian and we are (were) backwards and forwards all the time (pre-covid?.).
There is not a single house in our village without flags out on Constitution Day and I don't remember the last time I saw someone who was NOT in national dress that day. The flags and dress also come out for weddings, christenings, birthdays and more. Bear in mind that your national dress, hand made, could cost you a month's salary and they are STILL popular only makes you realise how important tradition and national pride is.
I only wish the UK was more like Norway. You don't see carparks strewn with beer cans and McDonalds wrappers there. We have no pride in our country and therefore we have no respect for it. Result is the country spiralling downwards out of control copying everything that we think is good about America.
I feel like I'm the "last man standing" on this....

I'm rather proud of being English Firstly, & British secondly.

Village fetes, urns of tea, Spitfires, sitting on the beach wrapped in a blanket with a flask and some damp egg sandwiches in a light drizzle, mumbling disapproval at queue jumpers, quiet mocking of authority but ultimately toeing the line, a neatly cut lawn, p*ss taking as the only acceptable form of compliment.

The next couple of decades are going to be tricky I suspect, we may just need these things.......

sinker said:

I feel like I'm the "last man standing" on this....

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I don't think you are. The problem is that the rest of us are running scared of wokesters with a rolled up copies of The Guardian.

Chris.

There's some rather simplistic conclusions being made here, about litter and national pride for example, which are about as unrelated as one could get. I don't like nationalism and I don't leave litter. I don't really agree with the way the US does its business either. And I'm not remotely 'woke'. So it's a bit more complex than the cases laid out. Isn's it even possible that the social problems here are caused more by poor education and relative poverty than a lack of national pride? The poor parts of most places in the world are full of litter, whilst the rich ones aren't. Nowt do with national pride, just money.

I agree that we're probably the least nationalist (and racist) country in Europe, and I'm glad about that, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else as a result. But if I walked down the street seeing Union Jacks everywhere (or even worse, that bloody red cross), I would think the world had gone insane. Nationalism proposes that someone from a certain tribal group is 'better' than someone else from a different tribal group, when they're clearly not - they may have more money, but that's about it. That's hardly good for the collective in the long term. The Scottish independence campaign, for example is a classic example of small-minded parochialism overriding common sense and economic stability. And it will create an equivalent English campaign of vehemence as its natural bedfellow. And we really don't need that. We are also 'ruled' by a 'royal' family who seem to be pretty corrupt now, when examined with a clear head, and were always corrupt in the past. The peoples of the world are ideally coming together to solve our collective problems better, not splitting apart into a million Trumptons.

I do accept though that it was The Firebird Suite and not Rite of Spring

I hate the kind of fake patriotism that involves waving flags and people feeling superior to those from other countries or races while putting nothing back into their community or wider country. I also hate the way many British people behave in other countries. This actually makes me ashamed of being British or rather being associated with such people.

If people are willing to contribute something positive to the community without financial reward or seeking recognition then that does make me feel proud. I'm lucky enough to know people who do this and they seem to be able to do this without feeling smug or superior to others or waving flags.

Perhaps citizenship should be earned by what you do for others rather than where you are born.