‘As a country what are we still the absolute best at, no questions asked?’ – 24 deeply British things that will make you feel strangely proud
It’s fair to say that, since Brexit, the UK has been having something of a crisis of confidence. Or perhaps a complete nervous breakdown.
Either way, as a nation, we appear to be unsure of ourselves and our place in the world. However, it’s not all bad and there are still some things we can be proud of.
Over on the AskUK subreddit, Whosentyounow asked ‘As a country what are we still the absolute best at, no questions asked?’ and followed it up with this:
‘With all the Post Christmas doom and gloom and with the dark cold nights I have been trying to bring some positivity to my thoughts. Any answers would be very welcomed please.’
And lots of plucky Brits weighed in with the things that they think still make us the best in the world.
1.
‘Universities. Based on our population, we have a completely disproportionate number of the world’s top universities, and so many international students want to come and study here that higher education can be regarded as one of our most successful export products.
‘The sheer level of soft power wielded by the UK due to leaders having fond memories of studying in the UK is an added bonus. At last count, a quarter of countries worldwide have a leader educated in the UK.’
–PetersMapProject
2.
‘Music. Our music scene is incredible for such a relatively small country with a great number of pop, rock, rap, etc stars.’
–Personal-Listen-4941
3.
‘Cheese. The range, variety and quality of British cheese is remarkable. Other countries are renowned for cheese, but they have two or three big hitters, but don’t have the variety that we have in this country.’
–Comprehensive_You42
4.
‘A boring one but the government website .gov.uk is easy to use and consistent throughout the different departments so much so that some other countries are starting to base theirs on ours.’
–arnie580
5.
‘Real ale.’
–CoffeeNoSugar6
6.
‘I get weirdly patriotic whenever a Brit lands a leading role in Hollywood or in an American show. And I feel like it happens a lot. So I’m going to say actors.’
–Redsimmy
7.
‘Humour – witty, sarcastic, dry. It’s just not the same anywhere else.’
–ExtremeYesterday7153
Separate but very much related …
‘Sarcasm and just generally taking the piss out of anyone and everything.’
–Biggsy1984
8.
‘We make the best whisky on the planet by a country mile.’
–KingPing43
9.
‘Pub sports: Darts, snooker, quizzes, drinking. World beaters are we.’
–Top-Initiative7668
10.
‘Public broadcasting.’
–factualreality
11.
‘Breakfast. We are great at breakfast.’
–mr-dirtybassist
12.
‘Inventing things.
‘A selection of British inventions: The World Wide Web (invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, while working in Switzerland, at CERN), the telephone, the hypodermic syringe, the reflecting telescope, the steam engine and steam turbines, carbon fibre, the pneumatic tyre.
‘The light bulb, float glass, the electric telegraph, the marine chronometer, television, synthetic dye, passenger railway, military tanks, linoleum, the automatic kettle, the modern torpedo, the glider, the jet engine, cement, tension-spoked wheel, seed drill, stainless steel, the Bessemer process for steel production.
‘The electric motor, photography, hydraulic press, sewage system, electronic programmable computer, hovercraft, tin cans, waterproof material, vacuum cleaner, inc. the bagless type, ATM, disc brakes, the toothbrush, cat’s eyes, the modern fire extinguisher, DNA profiling, digital personal assistants, ARM processors.
‘Hawkeye technology, text messaging, cloning, the supersonic car that holds the world land speed record (held by a British racing team), viagra, graphine, gene editing therapy, holographic TV, iris recognition, fundamental theorem of calculus, penicillin, the screw-down tap (spigot, faucet), MRI scanner, refrigerator, disposable contact lenses, flushing toilet, finger printing, the vacuum flask, dolly the sheep, the first vaccine.’
–WoodSteelStone