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As doomsday draws near for the United Kingdom of Great Britain with Brexit due in about a month, it is the perfect time to take a look at some of the peculiarities of British culture and society that have played no small part in pushing what was once a ‘mighty Empire’ to the brink of the abyss. In this week’s article see how many humorous cultural allusions that you can spot. It will make for some more challenging reading, but the rewards of cross-referencing with Wikipedia, the Urban Dictionary and Google to find out the (soon to be in)significance of places like ‘the white cliffs of Dover’, and answering why long-dead Brits like Winston Churchill and Alan Turing still loom disproportionately large in British society today (hint: they come from a time when the UK was still a significant world power), along with the new insights you gain into this crumbling kingdom will be well worth the effort.
At the same time as alluding to many amusing cultural oddities, historical terms and anachronistic habits, the author, an Irishman, also has a more sinister intention behind his article. He makes the foreboding prediction that a ‘hard’ Brexit will presage an imminent collapse of the United part of the Kingdom, no doubt resulting in a not-so-Great Britain, and most likely leaving England all by its lonely self, surrounded by the vestiges of its former glory. He forecasts a united Ireland within only 5-6 years, and an independent Scotland not long after that. Some of the commenters below the article even dream of a sovereign Wales, although that seems a bit of a stretch. Admittedly it is easy to be cynical and enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude, however, it is quite justified in this case, mainly because Blighty may be about to get a taste of her own just deserts. Mixed metaphor anyone? 參考資料:If we're heading for a hard Brexit, then we're heading for a united Ireland |
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