Being British and that.

As you may or may not know, I hate being patriotic. I'm British, I'm not ashamed to be British, but I'm not one of those people to embrace my cultural identity. That said, I have nothing against those who do, I just think there are other aspects of your personality that you should embrace more: for example, I embrace my borderline OCD - at least it means I'm thorough. Or, rather, you could call it denial. Whatever. I embrace the fact I wear glasses. Geek chic baby.

Anyway, considering this time of year is a time to be patriotic, what with the Jubilee and the Olympics, I find it incredibly difficult to go into any shop and not be annoyed this time of year. Why would you want to buy all that crap with "Team GB!" on? We're hardly going to do well. And it's just an ugly reminder of the stupidly unholy amount of tax payers money that could have been better spent on the aspects of this country that have gone to shit in recent years. Look at all the other competitions we enter - Eurovision, the World Cup, it never ends well.

There is a reason why patriotism annoys me - the fact while there is some pride in being British, there are other things that just make you think "do I really live in a country with these types of assholes?" For example, the sheer pessimism. For example, we've had some lovely hot weather recently (admittedly, it was never going to last), but the second the temperature was a little bit raised, we had news bombarding us with "Heatwave won't last long!" and "Warm weather to disppear by end of week" - shut the hell up. What with it being Britain and all, we don't get a lot of sun, at least let us enjoy it without having the thought in our head "eeh, it'll be over this time next week - the news said." Admittedly, the thought "this time next week it'll all be over..." has it's benefits when referring to an exam, or an awkward meeting with an ex to give back their crap, but when referring to something that's actually quite pleasant, it just seems pointless.

Us Brits are selfish too, no doubt about that. It was revealed that more Brits today would rather have the perfect body than end all world suffering. Hows that for awesome? "There's a war going on in Iraq which thousands and thousands of people have lost their lives in, children in Africa are starving and dying of AIDS, there is a seemingly endless number of people suffering from so many horrible illnesses, but SCREW THAT! I want to look like Kim Kardashian when I hit the beach because then I'll look totes amaze. SHUT UPPP!" (Btw, I'm not embracing this, I genuinely think it's appalling.)

However, what I do like about being British is the fact that there are some people who aren't assholes. These are the people who I call at work for whatever reason and answer the phone cheerily and are genuinely greatful to you for calling, and those who make jokes that would typically be considered unfunny but you just have to laugh at them for making it, and the occasional person who restores your faith in humanity if you drop something, or who hold a door open for you, or give up their seat on the bus for you when you're not even elderly or pregnant.

I suppose it's these kind of people who take pride in things like the Jubilee and the Olympics. I won't be the kind of person who has a barbeque to celebrate the Queen, and I'm definitely not going to be the kind of person sitting and spending days on end watching the Olympics whenever the hell it is. But, I will possibly be buying some cute Union Jack merchandise from Accessorise. They have cute London bus necklaces.