#british

Yer a good lad, Atticus, mowin’ me lawn and killin’ what Brits come around. ↗

— Kevin Hearne

#death #death

This historic general election, which showed that the British are well able to distinguish between patriotism and Toryism, brought Clement Attlee to the prime ministership. In the succeeding five years, Labor inaugurated the National Health Service, the first and boldest experiment in socialized medicine. It took into public ownership all the vital (and bankrupted) utilities of the coal, gas, electricity and railway industries. It even nibbled at the fiefdoms and baronies of private steel, air transport and trucking. It negotiated the long overdue independence of India. It did all this, in a country bled white by the World War and subject to all manner of unpopular rationing and controls, without losing a single midterm by-election (a standard not equaled by any government of any party since). And it was returned to office at the end of a crowded term. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#british-people #clement-attlee #elections #india #indian-independence-act-

Visiting the past is something like visiting a foreign country: they do some things the same and some things differently, but above all else, they make us more aware of what we call 'home. ↗

— John Arnold

#dangerous-games #home

Bicky rocked, like a jelly in a high wind. ↗

— P.G. Wodehouse

#comedy #english #humor #jello #jelly

True the greater part of the Irish people was close to starvation. The numbers of weakened people dying from disease were rising. So few potatoes had been planted that, even if they escaped bight, they would not be enough to feed the poor folk who relied upon them. More and more of those small tenants and cottagers, besides, were being forced off the land and into a condition of helpless destitution. Ireland, that is to say, was a country utterly prostrated. Yet the Famine came to an end. And how was this wonderful thing accomplished? Why, in the simplest way imaginable. The famine was legislated out of existence. It had to be. The Whigs were facing a General Election. ↗

— Edward Rutherfurd

#famine #ireland #potato #whigs #imagination

If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much. ↗

— Helene Hanff

#debt #england #kiss #please #writers

We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real. ↗

— Ruth Rendell

#dreaming #mystery #real #dreams

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime. ↗

— Antony Beevor

#beginning #bombing #british #close #crime

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be. ↗

— Kenneth Branagh

#appropriated #being #british #cultural #current

I never worked with a dialogue coach before, but I'd hate it if an American did a British accent and didn't do it well. It would be insulting. ↗

— Tracey Ullman

#american #before #british #coach #dialogue