This is what happened while I tried to write the last article - I got distracted, as I so often do.
The thing that began this tangent was, of course, that strange habit that French and American people have of making fun of England - for its food.
Of course its hard to make fun of us for our military history (by the French it's kinder just to walk away, but the Yanks have a fair call on that one; but it's not like we stopped talking after the war - I think level heads all across the Atlantic would agree it was a one-nil score to the Away team, but really it hardly mattered to the Home side) and certainly difficult to make jokes at the expense of British literature, British academia, British economics or British (we are a tiny island richer than 190 other countries on the planet - which places us as FIFTH richest in the world.
We even went ahead of France this year

As an aside, and I promise I won't do this again in this column, all those outlying territories do not count as countries; all the little islands not already part of old colonial nations are not recognised, Greenland isn't a country of course (it's part of Denmark, as I probably didn't need to point out) and neither is Palestine, nor Puerto Rico nor are, as resognised by the UN and everyone else apparently, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland official countries.
Frankly I think is stupid, unfair and erroneous, but that's the whole `United Kingdom` thing for you - http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/numbercountries.htm
On the major plus side, we don't need to mess around with passports when we go to Glasgow, although you do have to learn a new language

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Anyway these Americans and French, they say to me - at every opportunity and often apropros of nothing - that this state of bland culinary ineptitude exists in every home kitchen and food shop and restaurant in our country.
Well, at least we know how much food a dinner plate should have upon it before it becomes a life threatening activity and needs its own special kind of insurance, and no, you French types may not act as if the world owes you its eternal gratitude (as they often do) because quite simply you rolled over like a dead dog in 1940, and your `Empire` was frankly a bit shit in the global scheme of things (and wasn't even led by a Frenchman) so take your camembert to hell, yah big cheese-eating espece d'ordures!

Sorry; I'm just a little fed up with the idea that every country is allowed to take the piss out of the British ecause of our famous sense of humour and love of self-deprecation. They seem to have missed the `self` part of that because that means we can do it but you still need permission. Now I may be an angry and very silly man at times, but, unless provoked to a degree that has never happened yet I would not go around making fun of where anyone comes from, least of all because of some unwarranted allegations, especially those that are disproved daily in all parts of the world.
All cuisine, you see my central point regarding this, is now English because everyone from the whole world has a community there - we rather enjoy being able to get food from any nation in many of our big cities - and you certainly don't find us stocking up people we don't like the look of down near the coast, and then surreptitiously boating them 26 miles away from us in the middle of the night.

I welcome them - all people from absolutely everywhere and no they don't even have to `make a contribution` yet, because they all have something to teach us and us to teach them, and one country in the world has to lead the way when it comes to accepting every human being who wants a new life with better chances; it used to be America but now it is down to us.
And it should be - we are not all equal (not by a long shot) but we all deserve equal chances and if a country has to suffer (as ours is, oh woe is England, with all those pesky immigrants taking all our taxes - please. Fuck off. Until EVERY SINGLE BRITISH CITIZEN WHO IS ABLE, who is alive and does not need governmental assistance, and at home at the moment has a job themselves, then this arguement falls flat on its ugly, racist face.

We, as the British or English or UK citizens or whatever we get called, have a unique chance to once again show that a little sacrifice can make the world a better place. Better for more people more of the time in more ways; I am proud that Britain accepts Eastern Europeans and Pakistani deportees and Chinese people who have lived in terror or squalor or misery their whole lives, we are the one country who should do this for everyone, so that others may follow.

And why the hell not?

Back in the days when these things were more acceptable (and pretty much de rigeur for any European country who could hold a gun by the right end) we conquered one quarter of the land on Earth, we effectively had dominion and sovereignty over one quarter of all people alive - and then: we gave pretty much all of it back, with very little fuss, after winning a hugely demanding war and seeing suffering because of our efforts for years afterwards; very possibly seeing a little enlightenment in this as a result; and we backed off from everywhere that could manage itself having left a damned lot of quite wonderful things behind that improved the lives and prospects of the people under our administration.

They may not have been ours by invention - a Scotsman (*argument starts sigh*) invented the telephone and the railways were pioneered by a Northerner (only joking!) and lightbulbs and a great many other things were given to us by that consumate American genius Edison, but we proliferated all this, initially under the guise of Empire and glory and eventually in the manner of a pretty benevolent land developer of a scale never seen before or since, and apart from the tragedy that has become much of Africa, we left just about everywhere in a far better state than it was before we got all happy with the Navy and the flags and the pith helmets and things.
And what's one continent between friends?
(little too outre..?)

Now one brilliant thing the French HAVE given us are all those great little phrases, like `de rigeur`, `outre`, `c'est la vie` and so on. By the way I can't do any accents or inflections on my laptop, so you have to try and remember where they all go yourselves.
The best thing the French gave us, apart from a wonderful line in cutting repartee if they ever try to make fun of us, is that other phrase up there: `espece d'ordure`.

I got this from the excellent book "A Mad World My Masters" (John Simpson) when he met a French cameraman while crossing the virtually-lethal border from Palestine into Lebanon, and he used the term to describe the Palestinian militiaman who had stabbed Simpson in the cheek with the muzzle of a machine-gun. It means `a species of refuse/rubbish` but despite its seeming innoccuouness it was a phrase the Frenchman thought such a coward deserved for attacking his friend, an unarmed bystander, with a 6-foot piece of sharpened metal.
So I guess that's a pretty good insult if you want to start a fight in France *makes a note*