Icons of England

[Virgil]

henry the which???
only one I know anythig about is henry viii oh and the third if you count looking him up 3 days ago.
William the conqurer did not start it all what about Bod-bod whats her face, Aurthur, Alfred etc tc
? Churchill should be up thre too.

Henry the Fifth. Defeated the French at Agincourt. Before Henry V, the English were just the French living on the British Island. After Henry V, the english thought of themselves as english. Good point about King Arthur. He should have been on the list too. I guess you can say I'm an Anglophile.

[Nightshade]

Aurthur was an Angle. Post William the conquror are the Normans.
I think Alfred was the last Anglo-saxon king. COuld be wrong though havent looked it up in years.

[emily655321]

Alice in Wonderland, a cup of tea and the SS Empire Windrush, which brought 500 immigrants from the Caribbean in 1948, are on the list, which excludes real people.

I voted for the two-decker bus and Stonehenge. But I agree with Logos, Westminster Abby should be there. And I also agree about the red phone booths, although they aren't there anymore, are they?

The freaking Angel of the North! I remember when someone painted a referee's shirt on it. That was funny. I had forgotten about it until I saw it listed. For some reason, I think it's kind of a silly thing.

[Nightshade]

Well I want to see my grandmother who's home town is basically in the shadow of the thing thinks its one of the ugliest statues ever built, she hasnt seen the Bang or boom or whatever its called in Manchester though

[emily655321]

That thing is rather unsettling. Glad I don't have to look at it everyday. Poor Manchester-ites.

[Jay]

I had to google for the Angel thing. Why does it look like a plane with a bit weird aerodynamincs?

[Scheherazade]

How about Big Ben?

I think they have included the things which are easily recognised by most people like Henry VIII's portrait but I am not sure if many people would recognise Henry V or Wordsworth by sight.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I'd be interested to see how the votes split up between english & non-english voters. What do we think of ourselves, compared to how others see us?

I went for tea (of course - nothing is more english than this far-eastern drink!) and the FA cup (though cricket is probably more quintessentially a part of english culture - football is a far more global sport - even the yanks try and play it!)

Notable omissions:

Most of those stated already +
The full english breakfast (although I am mostly vegetarian, this is still a ritual & tradition to so many of us.)

Fish & chip shops (we love our cholesterol over here.)

John Constable (not a favourite painter of mine but absolutely english.)

A pint of bitter in an english pub (there is no beer quite like this in the world - and for the benefit of the American's out there, it is not served warm but at 'cellar temperature' (54 - 57F), quite a bit cooler than room temperature. There's also no bar in the world like a proper, english pub.)

Edward Elgar (the same applies as with Constable, not my cup of tea but could only be english.)

And, because this is the sort of forum it is, here's a few writers that sum up the essence of englishness (in it's many guises): DH Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling (I know where he was born, but still...), Charles Dickens, Jane Austin & John Fowles. (There are many others, but I tried to keep to well known names and selected on the grounds of their 'englishness quotient' before all else.)

[Virgil]

Aurthur was an Angle. Post William the conquror are the Normans.
I think Alfred was the last Anglo-saxon king. COuld be wrong though havent looked it up in years.

Nightshade, I'm wrong when I said William the Conquorer started it all. The anglo-saxons prior to 1066 had developed a what could be called a unified english culture. Sorry about that. However, as to King Arthur, the best we could tell historically, he was of Roman/Celtic (Britannia as a provence of the Roman Empire, but probably of local celtic ethnicity) background. So he was not an Angle but her has been absorbed into english folklore.

[emily655321]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but this very hour my best friend since I was 10 is landing at Heathrow! She's taking a semester abroad in England, and I'm so excited for her. Just had to say that!

[Nightshade]

How about Big Ben?

.

Giggles and points!!
Don't you mean Big Ben Tower Scher not Big Ben the bell inside the tower

[Jay]

Well I think if someone says 'Big Ben' they indeed do mean the tower and not the bell. If it was all about the bell there would be a pic of a bell and not of a tower on the prospects and other souveniers!

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I'm pretty sure the tower is actually named 'the west tower' - big ben is the bell. And the guys with the pork pie hats at the tower of London are Yeomen of the Guard - not Beefeaters. And captain Kirk never actually said 'beam me up Scotty'.

[Jay]

He didn't???

I wasn't trying to say that Big Ben was the tower. In short, my point: type 'Big Ben' into google and see what it comes up with
linky

[Sami]

I guess it depends whether you’re talking about icons within England, (iconic for the English), or whether you mean the reputation England has elsewhere in the world. In any case, I vote for “cup of tea”. Now that I am living in North America I’ve noticed that this expression seems to be the main one that inspires people here to try their hand at mimicking an English accent – seems to be some idea that the Brits are always asking one another if we’d like a cup of tea!