Patriotic?

I've never been patriotic. I'm not anti-America but I'm not all that enthusiastic about the country either. However, I've recently noticed a difference between patriotism in America and patriotism in England.

In America, the flag tends to be about things like supporting your troops. Sometime's it's more anti-everyone-else than pro-America. It's a lot of things, but more often than not the flag seems to be making some sort of political statement.

These past two weeks or so, there have been England flags everywhere. On people's cars. Hung on the walls of their houses and from their windows. On their t-shirts. Spray painted in their hair.

Why? The World Cup. That's right, patriotism here is all about sport. And I love that. I can't help but get pulled into it, and I don't even like football (or as you know it, soccer). I want to know who's knocked out of the tournament and how teams get to move on to the quarter finals. (I've decided to ask a student tomorrow.) I want to know which teams I'm supposed to hate ;) I'm referring to the England team as "we." The obsession is infectious and I just had to buy an England t-shirt.

Maybe I should give football another chance.


(By the way, this is the England flag. That other thing you're thinking of, the Union Jack, is the flag for the United Kingdom.)