British and proud of it

[spot]

I think a thread of great British notions is in order.

This is the Fairey Rotodyne and the world would have been a more amusing place if it hadn't been scrapped. It worked perfectly well.

[Galbally]

One word spot.


Nah.

[spot]

It doesn't even scare you they actually got that far? A drawing in a Dan Dare strip maybe, but that's a full-scale working prototype.

Here's another. Built by the Canadians but the designer was British, John Frost, chief designer on de Havilland's supersonic research during WW2.

Ladies and Gentlemen - the Avrocar.

[911]

I knew there was no such thing as aliens. It was the government all along.

Your finances are not the only thing they like to probe.

[gmc]

Where we lead the Americans eventually catch up.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Ospr..._Iraq_999.html

then there's this of course

http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/ma...er/index.shtml

Not to mention the jet engine itself.

Actually in the interests making it more difficult try and think of things that weren't great British notions

[spot]

This is a slight momentary shift of pace but the thread title still applies. It struck me that there's a particular snapshot in my mind of the British at their best and I've actually found a copy of it on youtube as well, much to my surprise.

So, what it involves is a layering of messages between places and times. Once there was an odd song by an American group which may or may not have had an underlying meaning, it would take someone from that time and place to explain whether it had. It was titled "Go West". It was picked up by a UK band, the Pet Shop Boys, who turned it upside down into a coming-of-age requiem tying utopian idealism and HIV, not a meld that would normally spring to mind. I think bands offer a moment to a crowd sometimes, and the crowd takes it, and from then on the song carries those realized implications through the years. I can think back seven years to hearing them close their Glastonbury set with it That's one of the places and times.

The other was a couple of years ago and I wasn't there, I only saw the broadcast and that's what I've found on youtube. Of all places in the world, they managed to sing Go West in a Red Square packed with Russians who obviously knew it and belted it out enthusiastically. That's the "British at their best" moment I'm trying to get to. It's a song with huge resonance, Red Square is central to what it meant from the moment they adopted it, and here they are singing it in the context of a Live 8 concert. How so many things can manage to all come together into a single clip I can't imagine, it ought to bring tears to your eyes.

If you do watch it, there's a couple of bars focused on Dawne Adams' drumming. There are several drummers who can enthrall an audience and she's one of them - like Terge Isungset does, to name another. If she does a solo UK tour someday I'll try very hard to get to it.

[YZGI]

I figured this thread was started by Spot to bait Americans into starting a America and proud of it thread so he could prove that almost everything was invented by the British.
I'm going to help Spot out here, A British scientist has discovered a way to levitate small objects.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070806...n_070806132733

[joesoap]

Anyone remember Professor Laithwaite demonstrating magnetic levitation with a modle train on "Tomorrows world", in the late 1960s.
He was never supported and indeed his idea was scoffed at by many at the time. Now the Japanese have the "Maglev", train using that exact technology. What a shame no one here gave the inventor a bit of encoragement and support at the time. What a wast of fine British talent

[Richard Bell]

Originally Posted by YZGI

so he could prove that almost everything was invented by the British.

Close...but not quite ...

Here's the real story :


How the Scots Invented the Modern World: the True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9780609606353

[YZGI]

Originally Posted by Richard Bell

Close...but not quite ...

Here's the real story :


How the Scots Invented the Modern World: the True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/d...=9780609606353

Touché