I adore this map. It’s gorgeous, chic and proud. I’d love to have a full size copy for my office. You wouldn’t get any modern maps referring to Great Britain as ‘her’ – and I think they are less for it.

Via: Danielle who apparently lives in arable grain land.

With Britain tightening immigration regulations and the dreams of being an expat in Britain seeming to become far less of a reality for many, you are probably open to suggestions of how you can recreate the expat experience in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Recreating the British expat experience isn’t something I’d ever really thought about. But, if I ever did go back to my New Zealand birthplace then there would certainly be a few things I’d miss – and go to great lengths to recreate. Here’s my top four:

• Newspapers – I’d really miss the all the great newspapers out here. So, I totally agree with Lisa on this one. It’s just not the same reading it online. Devouring the Sunday newspapers over breakfast is a ritual.
• Beer – Nothing better than a pint of flat, room temperature bitter.
• Cheese – In particular, Stilton, the king of cheeses. For me, Stilton just doesn’t taste right unless you’re eating it in Britain.
• Humour – There’s something about the British sense of humour that runs through everything. Recreating that abroad (and getting your new your non-Brit comrades to get in on the jokes) might be the biggest challenge of them all.

What would you miss if you left Blighty? Have you ever felt the urge to recreate the British experience abroad?

The handbook that must be studied before taking the test has also been completely revised. Anything relating to sport, culture or history has been removed from the test. As the tag cloud below shows, the main topics in the test relate to government, laws, civic values and constitutional rights.

However the new test still includes some intimidating questions that I doubt most Australian born citizens would know.

• Which official symbol of Australia identifies Commonwealth property?
• Which arm of government has the power to interpret and apply laws?
• What is the name of the legal document that sets out the rules for the government of Australia?

This raises the first thorny issue:

Should naturalised citizens be expected to pass a test if that test can not be passed by a native citizen?

I don’t think this is reasonable. There are no classes of citizenship and all citizens are equal. In my earlier posts this seems to the consensus from reader comments. Whether you are a citizen by birthright or naturalisation, this is a test that you shouldn’t have to study for. This doesn’t mean making the citizenship tests easier, but I think there is a more tacit knowledge of a country that could also be used. I’ve received a number of great suggestions from readers for the British citizenship test.

Isn’t it odd that the new Australian citizenship test doesn’t require you to know the words to the national anthem? Nothing unites a country more than singing. Surely this is a more emotional way of bonding with your country men than knowing opal is the national gemstone?

Understanding the language is a critical part to being able to integrate within Australian life, so it’s disappointing that the classic Australian slang is not tested.

However, all credit to the department for their inclusion of mateship. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the committee were talking about the proposed definition of this one.

Mateship
Helping and receiving help from others, especially in difficult times. A mate is often a friend, but can also be a total stranger.
“When my car broke down, the other drivers helped to push it in the spirit of mateship.”

There were no questions regarding history, current affairs, how the country is governed, culture or politics. All the questions were related to Government policies: such as the preconditions for taking paternity leave or who has a priority in free housing. There were also lots of questions about the subtleties of Council Tax. When are children allowed to work? What is their minimum wage? The majority of questions were very specific about such topics as solicitors, credit and debit cards and property leases. In short, all about how to navigate through endless policies and rules, clauses and exemptions, it was all very instrumental; questions did not seek any understanding of what society is about, only how to obey the rules. I was quickly aware that I was in the power of the people paid to create these rules and I would not escape easily.

The government is running a consultation to see if the test should “made more difficult” by adding history and government questions. I’m doubtful whether such additions will make the test more difficult – however it might make it more relevant to what Britain is about and what makes it one of the best countries and democracies in the world.

Photographer Marsha Stewart writes about her delight and relief after passing the British citizenship test. However she’s a bit perplexed about the some of the questions in the test.

I had three statistical questions on the test. One was this: In 1971, what was the population growth of England ? I knew the answer – it’s 7.7% But how does knowing this, teach me anything about England or acclimate me into my new life here? Will the fact that 65% of all children in the UK, live with both parents, ever factor into a daily conversation?

This is a completely valid point. The test is completely sterile in terms of what it means to be British. It’s an English test on whether you can memorise rules and statistics. You can’t blame the civil servants who were tasked with writing the questions though. When you look through the materials that they had to use for the test; statistics are very tempting question fodder. Just be thankful they didn’t ask you for the telephone number for Energywatch or perhaps the website address for any of the numerous departments which are listed in the testable section of the study materials.

So what would’ve you liked to know more about?

I would have rather learned more about location of regions, cities, climate and geography of smaller islands that lie on the outer perimeters of UK. And although it touched on government – I wanted more details on how parliament actually functions

Good points. There’s actually nothing about geography in the test – which I personally think is missing a trick. Basic UK geography is easy to test and it’s really useful in day to day life. And as for the smaller islands surrounding the UK, why not? I’d love to be able to understand the Shipping Forecast. And although I don’t even own a boat or go sailing it would at least have a bit more relevance than knowing the percentage of ethnic minorities that live within the London area (another brilliantly irrelevant statistic).

I remember taking one of the online tests that immediately sprang up, to see if I knew enough to be truly British. I did fine on the historical questions. The other stuff was trickier. I couldn’t name the four national saint’s days in order (Saints David, Patrick, George, and Andrew). PG, I guessed, was one of the nation’s favorite brands of teabags. It is—but in the book, PG was the “Parental Guidance” part of the cinema classification system. I did guess right that if we spill someone’s pint in the pub, what we are supposed to do is offer to buy them another. (Although I had been tempted to plump for another option, which was to prepare for a fight in the car park. That might be more accurate, in certain pubs at least.)

Nick Clegg summed it up nicely,

People who are prepared to fight and die for our country should be entitled to live here.

I completely agree with him. If the government isn’t prepared to make good on this entitlement then perhaps they shouldn’t be asking Gurkhas to contribute to Britain’s wars.

The sci-fi film Starship Troopers has brilliant propaganda snippets on this very theme - Service Guarantees Citizenship: Would you like to know more?

A bit of Gurkha background and trivia

• The Gurkhas were initially enemies of the British Army during the Gurkha War.
• After agreeing a peace treaty, the British Army started recruiting them into their own forces.
• The Gurkha motto is, “Better to die than live a coward”.
• The Brigade of Gurkhas have been a part of the British Army for nearly 200 years.
• The brigade recruited a peak of 112,000 men during World War Two.
• Over 43,000 young Gurkha soldiers lost their lives during both World Wars.

If you’re resident in the UK then you will be able to listen to this on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Tue 31 Mar 2009 or on the BBC iPlayer.