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Picture the scene.

I am at my PC, on FS2004 happily flying Concorde out of Heathrow.
I can hear a conversation downstairs between bro and mum, about what he did today at school. I heard the term 'That's something you should ask your brother about.'
Oh no. He's coming.

I slam my door and listen to his footsteps disappear down the hallway. Now my mind forgot the conversation, and was trying to get Concorde into a level flight, when he burst in the door, Nintendo DS in hand.

Normally this scenario would involve me playing him on Mario Kart. Has done since Christmas. But not today, oh no.
I am prepared, like my family, to answer the question of 'Where do babies come from?', but imagine my shock when he asked 'Bro, what are people in Britain good at?'
He caught me so off guard I had the urge to shove his DS in his mouth to stop him finishing the sentance.
'Well, er.....'
What are we good at? Well, we had lots of famous serial killers didn't we?
'Mudering people. NO! wait, wrong wrong wrong.'
My mind wandered around the usual subjects, and I suggested sport. We're getting better at cricket and rubgy now, why not? Then British Innovation. We made the telephone, so I said talking. Trouble is our conversations usually involve the weather.
Apart from that, blank on innovation. Our Mars probe failed, the Eurofighter can't fly in cold weather because all the avionics seize up, and our trains never run on time, especially after they are named as species of Duck, such as the Mallard.
Our Navy is strangled by the government, most ships limping on one engine because we can't pay for the fuel for two. How silly is that?
But this is the symptoms of our country. Everything is half-done. For instance, have you ever one to the toilet in a shopping center, to inadvertantly walk through a staff only door? Miles of broken plaster, and notice boards for company events. 'Tick if you want to go!' I sure as hell saw no ticks.

A short while ago there was a program on the sewers of London. built in 1856 and barely had repairs since. there are 186,000 miles of sewers in Britain, and a couple of years ago only 241 miles were mended or replaced.
British Airways is run by an Aussie, and the England football team by a Swede. The back for the olympic bid in Britain was run by the Americans. It's everywhere.

To see the scale, next time you are in an airport look at what people can take home as a souvenier of England. Detroit has Ford and GM car toys for sale. In Iceland, buy a nice jumper or books on waterfalls. In Barbados, a nice selection of sauces. In Canada they'll sell you a cute dead seal. 'Squeeze it's tummy and real blood spurts out the wound on it's head!'
In New York my cousin bought a limited edition statue of a firefighter carrying a buddy through the wreckage of the Trade center, which was a fantastic gift.
But in Heathrow and Luton, all you get is what Britain used to be. Today all policeman wear bullet-proof jackets, and have belts bulging with tear gas. At the souvenier shop, all we have to offer is a plastic union jack. How poor is that? At the Louvre they don't sell you dolls wearing berets with onoins round their necks, or the Aussies selling you an Action Man in a safari suit, wearing cowboy hat with real dangly-corks.
Here you would expect to find status of Winston Churchill or Lord Nelson, but we have plates with the queen's face on them.
Where else in the world does that happen? A Bush plate? A Jaque Chirac teapot? I think not.

But if they wanted to keep things up to date, they'd have to sell you a limited edition Queen's head stamp, and an Action Man as a policeman, complete with functioning mustard gas canister.
Either that or a Jack the Ripper rubber knife.