Excuse My Icon.

Patriotism.
Once upon a time it was possible to feel an unalloyed respect, admiration or even 'love' for Britain.
Today, fewer and fewer people have less and less reason to feel anything but disgust or contempt for this benighted land.

And the politicians and the BBC go on tugging at imaginary heartstrings, playing on the emotions that they presume still exist, using cynically paraded totems of what used to induce patriotic pride;
the truth is we have next to nothing to feel proud about.

Every day is a struggle for survival(diving for dear life when we could be diving for pearls-Elvis Costello), with any joy we do achieve the target for the legions of the disapproving, if they can find us, which they can't always; in any case the victories are small and personal, and to confuse them with any Britishness for which we could be grateful is an grotesque inversion of the truth.

But hey. It works for our masters, eh?
Now, as ever, it is our mates and family that we seek out to share this alien land with, when we are allowed.

But the parade goes on. 'Royal' Ascot; Henley Regatta; Wimbledon.
All excuses for pretentious fools to 'aspire' their way to being permitted onto the hallowed ground, there to wave their little flags for the cameras and contribute to the noxious delusion, so inducting more generations of the young into the service of the blank-eyed zombies of approval.