How British Are You? » Interviews http://howbritishareyou.com You may think you know everything about being British, but could you pass the British citizenship test? Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:17:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Celebrating British achievements and success http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/08/26/celebrating-british-achievements-and-success/ http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/08/26/celebrating-british-achievements-and-success/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:10:04 +0000 Henry http://howbritishareyou.com/?p=103 I gave a brief chat on BBC Oxford yesterday about my view of how the British celebrate their achievements. This was a few days after England beat Australia in the third test and won the Ashes. One of the points I wanted to make was how understated British achievements are in the citizenship test. There’s barely any mention of any what I think are remarkable achievements. Take for example Britain’s long history of inventors and scientists. From Netwon and his numerous theories to Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the World Wide Web. Culturally, Britain has made significant contributions to music, art, literature, fashion, film and theatre. There’s no mention of The Beatles, Elgar or Pink Flloyd in the test. One my personal favourite achievement is that British engineers (with the help of the French) built Concorde. An extraordinary achievement.

You can listen to my chat with Louisa below. If you’ve got a suggestion for a particular British achievement that we should be including in the citizenship test then please leave a comment.

]]> http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/08/26/celebrating-british-achievements-and-success/feed/ 0 English + Scottish + Welsh = British? http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/01/09/english-scottish-welsh-british/ http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/01/09/english-scottish-welsh-british/#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:26:51 +0000 Henry http://howbritishareyou.com/?p=14 I was recently asked on BBC Three Counties whether I think British people were selective about when they choose to identify themselves as British. For example – Scottish people usually recoil at the thought of being accused of being British. Poor Andy Murray was identified as being an English tennis player in much of the US press. An honest mistake but he strongly corrected reporters “I’m Scottish not British”.

What does the British citizenship test say about regional identity? The concept of regional identity is something that was touched on in the British citizenship test. For example some of the peculiar regional New Year’s traditions were included as questions such as “What might you be asked to bring to a Scottish home in the New Year?” the answer “Coal, bread and whiskey”… apparently!

Unfortunately these quirky yet charming questions were removed by civil servants in a later review of the test. Questions about regional differences in schooling and devolved administration now remain.

]]> http://howbritishareyou.com/2009/01/09/english-scottish-welsh-british/feed/ 0 How British Are You interview with Janice Long on BBC West Midlands http://howbritishareyou.com/2008/12/12/how-british-are-you-interview/ http://howbritishareyou.com/2008/12/12/how-british-are-you-interview/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:44:08 +0000 Henry http://howbritishareyou.com/?p=12 Henry Dillon, author of How British Are You?, speaks with Janice Long on BBC West Midlands.

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