Mongrel Nation (June 2003) [ TVRip (XviD) ]

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Mongrel Nation with Eddie Izzard (3 Parts) (June 2003)

Discovery Channel



Are the English a Mongrel Nation? Eddie Izzard aims to find out.



Call Yourself English?



Two-thousand years of invasion, immigration and the infusion of foreign ideas, and you thought you were English? These quirky facts are enough to pull the rug from under any Englishman!



More than 95% of us, who call ourselves English, are in fact descended from foreign people.



In 1750, when the slave trade was at its height, one in 20 Londoners was black. Due to multiracial marriages and children in the 18th century, it is probable that many of us have a black ancestor in our genealogy.



When we refer to someone as being an ‘English rose’, we could easily substitute the word ‘English’ with ‘German’ as we are referring to the genetic characteristics of the invading Saxons.



Genetic research shows that the Y-chromosomes of the majority of British males prove that ethnically we are about as Germanic as you can get.



Our patron saint – Saint George – is now believed to be a Turkish knight. In other words, he’s as English as a kebab!



Our Monarchy is German. From the coronation oath based on Anglo-Saxon traditions via the Hanoverians to the Saxe-Coburgh-Gothas (alias Windsors) currently ruling over us, our monarchy is about as English as the Munich beer festival!



The Bank of England is anything but English in origin. It was set up in 1694 on the model of the Bank of Holland, and its first governor was Sir John Houblon, a Dutch Walloon.



The English Sunday roast is in fact a Roman invention. If the Romans hadn’t invaded England, we could still be eating a lumpy soup-like slop cooked in one pot!



You may think that a Savile Row suit is a quintessentially English luxury. However, fine tailoring was initiated in England in the 16th century by the Dutch Walloons and refined by the French Huguenots.



The Irish virtually built Britain. When you travel on the London Underground, it’s worth remembering that every yard of tunnel is most probably the work of Irish navvies.



From ‘royal’ to ‘roast beef’, many of the words most associated with English traditions come from the French language.



What could be more British than the ultimate symbols of the monarchy, the Crown Jewels? Too many things to name actually, as almost all the gems in the royal collection were plundered from far-flung corners of Asia and Africa.



This June (2003) on Discovery Channel a new three part series being presented by comedian/actor Eddie Izzard, will argue that the English and their culture are perhaps more of a melting pot than they might think - that in other words they are a Mongrel Nation.



Key Customs



Travelling around the UK and mainland Europe, Mongrel Nation presents a fascinating historical investigation into some of England’s key customs, traditions and culture - many of which the programme discovers were adopted and taken up as our own over the centuries.



Covering everything from genetic and genealogical heritage, language, place names, buildings, culture, food, money, commerce, names, key institutions, humour, religion and art, the programme argues that many components of our national heritage and identity have been imported over the years.



The three programmes will take three distinct angles - Invasion, Immigration and Infusion - and argue that all three have had major influences on England and the English. ...



Our system of government which is a complete mongrel creation ? with a mix of influences from the Romans, the Vikings, the Saxons and even the Normans, all of who left their mark long after they invaded our shores. The English pound which is yet another thing that the Romans did for us, before which we had no currency of our own and bartered goods as a way of life.



English Institutions



Among the key English institutions that Eddie uncovers as ‘imports’ are:



The eponymous English Sunday Roast which was actually introduced to our diet by the invading Romans.



English cleanliness, which Eddie discovers, was imported from India.



The English Language which is in fact Germanic.



Our system of government which is a complete mongrel creation – with a mix of influences from the Romans, the Vikings, the Saxons and even the Normans. All of who left their mark long after they invaded our shores.

The English pound which is yet another thing that the Roman’s did for us, before which we had no currency of our own and bartered goods as a way of life.



Our patron saint – Saint George – who historians now believe was Turkish and, as Eddie eloquently puts it, as English as a kebab!



INVASION

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In the first episode of Mongrel Nation, comedian Eddie Izzard takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the four successive waves of invasion which swept over England. From the Romans to the Saxon and Viking invasions through to the Norman conquest, all these people brought with them a whole new way of life. Mongrel Nation shows that perhaps our culture is more of a melting pot than we might think.



Here are some ways in which the ‘invaders' left their mark:



If a place name includes the words ‘chester’ or ‘cester’, it is because it is on the site of a Roman fort. The word ‘chester’ comes from the Roman word for fort – ‘castrum’.



Many types of plants and animals, including sweet chestnut trees and chickens, were introduced to Britain during Roman times.



The word plumbing comes from the Latin word ‘plumbum’, meaning lead. In fact you can see the remains of flushing lavatories used by Roman soldiers used at Housesteads Fort on Hadrian's Wall.



The collective term 'Anglo-Saxon', by which these Germanic tribes are now known, was invented by the Normans, as a legal definition of the people they had conquered.



In 1939, archaeologists found traces of an Anglo-Saxon ship and many precious objects at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. It is thought that this was the grave of King Redwald, who died around 625.



The southern boundary of the Danelaw (the Vikings’ territory in the north of England) forms the basis of what we now call the ‘North-South divide’.

Our days of the week come from Viking gods: Tuesday is named after Tyr, god of war, Wednesday after Woden, the chief god, Thursday after Thor, god of thunder, and Friday from Woden’s wife, Frigga, the ‘mother goddess’.

Regions where Vikings settled can often be recognised by the endings of the place name: by denoted a village, thorpe a farm, keld a well, and thwaite a meadow. Hence, we have Grimsby and Scunthorpe.



Everyday words like freckle, leg, elm, giant, moon, sun, wine, week, berg, dale, land, island, sound, earl, garden, anchor, boat, steer, market, penny, shilling, skirt, bowl, hell, and law all come from the Vikings.



Our aristocracy is descended from the French since when William, Duke of Normandy became king of England, he appointed his own men as feudal lords.



Not dissimilar to the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Bosnian conflict, under the rule of William and the French, Anglo-Saxons became second-class citizens in their own country.



Considered by most as an architectural landmark of ‘Britishness’, the Tower of London was ordered to be built by the Normans (French) so they could show the English who was in charge.





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IMMIGRATION

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Lending The Nation Colour



In the second episode of Mongrel Nation, Eddie Izzard takes a look at the different influxes of foreign immigrants who have shaped modern British life – from Jewish businessmen and French Protestant craftsmen fleeing persecution to West Indians leaving their homes in the British Commonwealth to help rebuild England after WWII.



The following facts show that ethnic variety is indeed the spice of life:

Jews fleeing Eastern Europe in the late 19th century started businesses that have become high street names such as Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.



We have the son of a Hungarian immigrant to thank for our Odeon cinemas. In 1928, his ‘palaces for the people’ hit the high street.



French Huguenots escaping the persecution of Louis XIV in the 17th century helped found the Bank of England.



In about 1720, Lord Pembroke smuggled Huguenot craftsmen from France in empty wine casks in order to use their weaving skills at the Wilton carpet factory. Wilton is still a carpet-making centre and descendants of the original Huguenots live in nearby Dorset.



The first large group of Muslims in the UK arrived about 300 years ago – they were sailors recruited to work in India for the East India Company, and so it’s not surprising that the first Muslim communities were found in port towns.



By the end of the 1700’s, there were about 20,000 black people living in London. After a long struggle, slavery in the British Empire was finally banned in 1883.



The first recorded mosque in Britain was in Cardiff in 1860.



When the Empire Windrush sailed into Tilbury Docks on June 22 1948, it brought 500 Jamaican passengers who would be recruited to work for the National Health Service, London Transport and the British Hotels and Restaurants Association.



When immigrants came from Pakistan to the UK in the 1950s and 60s, they could earn 30 times as much in the UK as they could in their home country.



In 1972, 60, 000 Asians were expelled by President Amin from Uganda, many of whom were allowed to settle in Britain.



Over 66% of independently-owned ‘corner shops’ are run and owned by people whose families are from another country.



The majority of UK ‘Indian restaurants’ are run by people of Bangladeshi, not Indian, origin.





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INFUSION

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Ideas Worth Borrowing



In the third and final episode of Mongrel Nation, Eddie Izzard looks at the almost invisible cultural, religious, institutional and linguistic foreign influences that have ‘infused’ and shaped our ‘Englishness’ over the years.



From the Church of England, to rock ‘n’ roll and Vindaloo, these facts show that we are indeed a ‘mongrel’ nation:



The Church of England, established during the rule of Henry VIII, is in fact a European invention. It took as its basis the ideas of Martin Luther (German) and John Calvin (French).



British spaghetti know-how has come a long way since the late 1950s. In a brilliant April Fool’s Day stunt, Panorama showed Richard Dimbleby walking among ‘spaghetti trees’, while workers pulled the pasta off the trees and put it into baskets!



When the package holiday arrived in the 1950s, Britain began to adopt many of the characteristics of European living - al fresco eating, the patio, the bistro, pasta and air-kissing to name but a few!



Watching today's Brits enjoying the nation’s favourite dish – curry – would have delighted Warren Hastings, Britain's first governor general in India in 1773. During his rule he had dreamt of the eventual fusion of Indian and British culture.



Without the British Empire perhaps we wouldn’t scrub as well as we do today. The Indians brought us ‘shampoo’ (Persian for head massage), and the habit of using toothpaste and putting on ‘pyjamas’ before going to bed.



Some 900 words in the English language come from the Hindi language. These include dungarees, jodhpurs (named after their Indian town of origin), bungalow, juggernaut (meaning ‘lord of the universe’), dinghy, mugger and pundit.



Thanks to the Beatles’ innovative use of Indian music in their songs, the sound of the sitar became the staple diet of hippie culture in the 70’s.



When West Indian immigrants came to the UK in the 1950’s, they brought with them their music. In 1964, a group of mostly Trinidadian immigrants decided to throw an impromptu musical procession through the streets – this would become London’s Notting Hill Carnival.



During the war the GIs introduced a whole new style of dancing: the Jitterbug - a wild and acrobatic jive which made the waltz and the foxtrot look dull and conservative.



America gave us rock ?n? roll. It was Chuck Berry, Elvis and Bill Haley who inspired the rock music that The Rolling Stones and The Who like to call their own.



The Oxford English Dictionary now recognises over 3,000 American words. Thanks to the ‘Americanisation’ of our language and culture we have the USA to thank for the Big Mac, BLT, Apple Mac, chewing gum, gameshow, chatshow, and, of course, the cult of the celebrity.





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For further details, please go to:

http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/history/mongrel_nation/
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