Talking of my book

Talking of my book (did I mention my book?), I noticed when creating the link to Amazon .co.uk in the last blog that they had run out of copies.

Not to worry, however, because it lists 23 copies "used and new" from 96p. Ninety-six pence! That's about 1p for every 1,200 words, good value for all these quotes. I'm worth more than that. Mind you, so is the Bible and that's all on the internet, as are the complete works of Shakespeare.

It's really time that I wrote another book and I do update my outline on the future of work (mentioned here on the dullest page of my website) quite regularly as I get there (the future, that is). Besides, I said much of what I had to say in the last book and it it really hasn't dated.

That ludicrously cheap copy is to be found at somewhere called Warehouse Deals UK. I bet it's a place that treats books badly: uses them as door stops, table wedges and fire-lighters, that sort of thing.

Now the dealer I really like on that list is Speedybookseller offering a new copy for £28.68, still remarkable value for money. But that's quite a price spread. I cannot begin to understand pricing mechanisms in the publishing industry. If you wish to retain some humility in life, write a book.....and wait for the returns.

What is it to be English?

Gordon Brown, the chancellor, launched his debate on the meaning of Britishness at the very time that a few of my friends had been pondering their sense of Englishness. I sometimes think it is tougher to be English than it is to be British.

The English don't have the same identifying props that the Scots have. We don't have tartans, kilts or sporrans. We don't have leprechauns or shamrocks like the Irish. We don't have Eisteddfods like the Welsh.

I just can't get excited by Morris dancing or mumming. Our patron saint wasn't English and, as a Yorkshireman, I have divided loyalties about our national flower that doubles as my county flower.

Is it a matter of cuisine - roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? No, that's Yorkshire pudding, not English pudding.

We don't have our own national anthem, just the British one they sing for the British monarch of German descent. We don't have our own parliament although we're fortunate to have the services of plenty of Scots to run it for us.

So what do we have? We seem to have an enormous sense of fair play, tolerance but also diffidence. We have a sense of our history, although even that lets us down when we recall the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and our subversion under a feudal system controlled by an enduring bunch of French aristocrats, some of whom continue to cling on to their ancient privileges within the House of Lords.

We are also saddled with an insipid London-centric imagery of red buses, beefeaters, friendly policemen, black taxis and the underground map. In cinema we have never quite cast off that Mary Poppins stereotype of Dick Van Dyke-style chirpy cockneys and bowler-hatted bankers walking to work past little old ladies feeding the birds at St Paul's.

There must be more to England than that. It cannot simply be about Cambridge straw boaters or hedgerows, village cricket or John Major's warm beer. It has to be about something more than the Archers, the Women's Institute, the White Cliffs of Dover and the National Trust.

I'm happy with the Oak tree and the Elizabethan legacy of Shakespeare. I suppose that's the answer: Englishness, real Englishness is expressed through our wonderful literature and our language. When Wordsworth and Coleridge were wandering the Lake District, when the Brontes were picking bilberries on the wind-swept Haworth moors, when Jane Austen was observing society in the west country and Chaucer was describing his Canterbury pilgrims, each of them was laying down a rich English legacy for future generations.

That we English share this legacy with our neighbours and the rest of the world is something about which we should take pride. But Englishness is not something we should take for granted. If it still matters to be British, as I hope it does, there must still be room for the place we know as England. It's not dead yet.