Homepage Update: Scouse or English?

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Hmmm. Well. This isn't going to be a popular opinion. It'll involve Brexit too.

I'm Scouse not English.

Born in Liverpool, went to university in London, worked there for 30 years before recently moving back. And I've had a lot of opportunities to see different parts of the country.
Liverpool is different. To understand that you'd need to spend a long time away. Then come back on a train and be greeted by a hen party, with the bride dressed up in a huge plastic Penis and giving everyone a hug. Then walking through the city, surrounded by music and people determined to have a good time. It's a city where women own the streets.
It's a city that has more than its fair share of poverty and destitution. But there's a sense of community and generally covering each other's backs.
Recently, spending time in Lincolnshire, I looked around and saw a prosperous county with little in the way of problems. No begging in the streets. Well maintained roads. Well-kept houses.
And yet I kept thinking these people wouldn't do one thing to help me if it hits the fan. There was no kinship. They were not a diverse community and in voting for Brexit demonstrated fear of others and of change. If others suffered, well that's too bad for them. It's the land of the Sun and Daily Mail, putting up with lies because it panders to their prejudices and makes them feel safe.

That's England. Look at any electoral map.

I'm Scouse and an Evertonian, I'm not English.
 
Hmmm. Well. This isn't going to be a popular opinion. It'll involve Brexit too.

I'm Scouse not English.

Born in Liverpool, went to university in London, worked there for 30 years before recently moving back. And I've had a lot of opportunities to see different parts of the country.
Liverpool is different. To understand that you'd need to spend a long time away. Then come back on a train and be greeted by a hen party, with the bride dressed up in a huge plastic Penis and giving everyone a hug. Then walking through the city, surrounded by music and people determined to have a good time. It's a city where women own the streets.
It's a city that has more than its fair share of poverty and destitution. But there's a sense of community and generally covering each other's backs.
Recently, spending time in Lincolnshire, I looked around and saw a prosperous county with little in the way of problems. No begging in the streets. Well maintained roads. Well-kept houses.
And yet I kept thinking these people wouldn't do one thing to help me if it hits the fan. There was no kinship. They were not a diverse community and in voting for Brexit demonstrated fear of others and of change. If others suffered, well that's too bad for them. It's the land of the Sun and Daily Mail, putting up with lies because it panders to their prejudices and makes them feel safe.

That's England. Look at any electoral map.

I'm Scouse and an Evertonian, I'm not English.

Just shed a tear reading that.

Well played.
 

Hmmm. Well. This isn't going to be a popular opinion. It'll involve Brexit too.

I'm Scouse not English.

Born in Liverpool, went to university in London, worked there for 30 years before recently moving back. And I've had a lot of opportunities to see different parts of the country.
Liverpool is different. To understand that you'd need to spend a long time away. Then come back on a train and be greeted by a hen party, with the bride dressed up in a huge plastic Penis and giving everyone a hug. Then walking through the city, surrounded by music and people determined to have a good time. It's a city where women own the streets.
It's a city that has more than its fair share of poverty and destitution. But there's a sense of community and generally covering each other's backs.
Recently, spending time in Lincolnshire, I looked around and saw a prosperous county with little in the way of problems. No begging in the streets. Well maintained roads. Well-kept houses.
And yet I kept thinking these people wouldn't do one thing to help me if it hits the fan. There was no kinship. They were not a diverse community and in voting for Brexit demonstrated fear of others and of change. If others suffered, well that's too bad for them. It's the land of the Sun and Daily Mail, putting up with lies because it panders to their prejudices and makes them feel safe.

That's England. Look at any electoral map.

I'm Scouse and an Evertonian, I'm not English.


Lincolnshire, a prosperous county maybe, but trust me there will be begging , drinkers on street corners and antisocial behaviour on their streets as much as there is in every single town and city in England.
 
It's not really an either/or question is it. Fine to be both.

I'm not Scouse but my parents are and they don't seem to feel being proud of Liverpool means you can't have some pride in England or the national team. My grandad with who I was the closest lived in the city all his life, was as Scouse as anyone I've met, and still never seemed to think you had to choose between one or the other.
 

Liverpool is by far and away the best city to come from.

It's going back that presents the problem. Unless going to the game.

Born and bred there, left a long time ago and travelled the world, now more than 40 countries. Experienced many cultures, Liverpool has a unique culture, but much of it self destructive. I have a real love/hate relationship with the place, it spawned me and my many siblings, it taught me to be independent and feisty, it showed me I never want to be poor or reliant on state handouts, it taught me humour and a little humility, but it has never drawn me back and it never will.

Except to see Everton of course.
 
If anyone asks me where I'm from, I say and always have said Liverpool. That's what I regard as my identity. If I'm asked my nationality, I say British. I've never had any emotional attachment to the England football team, dating right back to when I was a boy, although that's not the case with the England cricket team. While generally speaking, I'd rather they (never we: that's Everton) won, I've never been bothered when they've lost, although I've felt warmer towards them at certain times rather than others - this current World Cup, Euro 96, Italia 90. At no point did I decide that was the case - it's simply what I feel. That's one objection to the way the issue has been treated on social media - a nuance-free insistence on the part of some that anyone born in England should support England. No-one can decide what another feels or what allegiances they should hold. The other thing I can't abide is the hijacking of the matter by some Liverpool fans who have used it as yet another mystical expression of their complete specialness.
 
Exactly
Just because you were born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse lol

Funnily enough, that's what Wellington said when it was suggested he was Irish because that's where he was born. Turned out he was a big England fan and went to all the away games, too.
 

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