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3. Royal Doulton will organise a British chamberpot week. Their products will be available in departmental stores. The pots will be externally decorated with prints of Prince Charles and internally decorated with those of Jacques Chirac.
Sid Field
British Week in Poulton-le-Sands will offer a cornucopia of tributes to ‘this island race’ and its cultural heritage. The menu of events includes:
Tea: Shared Obsession, Divided Opinion. Tony Benn and John Major kick off a debate on ‘tea or milk first?’, followed by a general discussion. Book early to avoid disappointment.
Forgotten Poet, Forgotten Patriot. A programme of readings from the works of Sir Henry Newbolt by members of the North Poulton Amateur Dramatic Society.
Cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys or What? Local standup comic Evil Weevil (‘The Alternative to the Alternative’) gives his sardonic take on those who flopped when Britain came good. A must for true Brits.
Crowned Heads. An exhibition of 20th-century British postage stamps, with many exceptionally fine specimens from the reigns of George V and George VI.
Blue, White and Red? Rose Kowalski’s water sculptures aim to ‘challenge the assumed naturalness of ethno-geographical cohesion’.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Households flying the Union Jack will receive a certificate. Further Education Colleges will offer courses in how to get it the right way up.
This year’s Proms will be devoted to native British composers. The season will take place on the afternoon of 20 August.
A commission has been appointed to discourage the use of words of foreign origin. A spokesperson said, ‘English is now the lingua franca. Why use an ersatz foreign locution when we always have the mot juste ourselves?’
A national shove ha’penny championship will be held. To save the expense of a special minting, 2p coins will be accredited. The event will be seen live on Sky Sports 3, with edited highlights of the early rounds on BBC4.
Trowell, Notts, selected as Britain’s average village in the 1951 Festival of Britain, will again be a magnet for tourists. Government officials have declared it to be ‘still average’.
Noel Petty
National Britishness Fortnight, commencing on the first rainy day in October, offers the widest possible selection of events celebrating national diversity, from the Queen’s recitation of the shipping forecast from Spithead to the nationwide re-enactment by the TUC of selected strikes from the Winter of Discontent. There’ll be an exhibition of overcast cloudscapes at the National Gallery, a service at Westminster Abbey recognising football as the national religion, a shufflepast of Britain’s five million incapacity benefit recipients outside Buckingham Palace and the issue of commemorative stamps featuring Alan Bennett looking embarrassed. There’ll be a sponsored cycle to Evensong by the massed spinsters of Huntingdonshire, a drinking contest to settle Ulster’s Troubles, a principality-wide search to find an aristocratic Welshman, and masterclasses in traditional British country skills from flytipping to the fabrication of crop circles. The fortnight will climax with the severing of the Channel Tunnel and war with France.
Adrian Fry
The Virtual Reality Climate Experience. Nothing makes us more consciously British than our special weather. It’s the first thing we notice on surfacing in the mornings, on planning each day’s activities, on returning home from foreign holidays. Polls invariably show it as our most frequent topic of conversation, outscoring football, cricket and complaints ‘against the system’. This Experience will let visitors engage in popular activities in unseasonable as well as seasonable weathers. Examples include climbing hills in blizzards, hitting golfballs in gale-force winds, swimming in the North Sea, picnicking in a steady drizzle, long-distance running in a heat wave, shopping in a hailstorm and taking scenic walks in heavy mist or fog. Additional variations allow the options of unsuitable clothing and footwear. Also, for the adventurous, there are chances to prove their mettle against tidal waves, floods and hurricanes, less usual but no less valued elements of our Great British Weather.
Alanna Blake
No. 2433: No prob.
‘If Shakespeare hadn’t written Ham./ Would he be called the greatest dram.?’ You are invited to supply a rhymed poem in which each line’s ending is a truncated word. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2433’ by 2 March.
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