Little 'old Britain, like most of the western world is suffering a so called 'Credit Crunch', which is just a way of avoiding the word recession.

Truth is we are not in a recession, In the UK we have seen prices rise like a well prepared soufflé recently, with a warning that the soufflé s about to be loaded on to the space shuttle.

The latest warning is from energy suppliers that prices are to rise more than 60% over the next year. All prices, food, energy and fuel is mainly caused by the oil price doubling in less than a year, I say mainly because some food prices have risen due to grain issues, but hey! let's not get all analytical here!

The latest news came the other morning with a radio WM item outlining most Britt's are holidaying inside the UK this year to save costs. This comes just as I had posted a cheque (yes, I still have some of those paper paying things) for a week's holiday in Wales – No I'm not Pinocchio, that's Wales not Whales.

We had decided this when, looking at finances found flights during the school holidays were more than £1000 for me, wife and youngest kidlett virtually anywhere in Europe. Yes, we have a tunnel to get to France but really........France..........It's full of French people, need I say more? So I am depending of the great British summer to break it's habit of raining the second I push the key in the car's ignition.

While watching Wimbledon yesterday (the sport event, not the film), I was reminded of a question posed by an American friend when she came over for a holiday recently:

"What's the difference between being English, British or coming from The United Kingdom?"

Obviously as it may be to me, which indecently may be different to my fellow country men, I gave a very short and concise answer:

English is being born in England, as apposed to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland – That was the easy bit……..

The United Kingdom encompasses England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (not Southern Ireland).

Brittain is the same thing really – I did not want to bore my American friend senseless about Brittain (or Britannia) which was the Roman name given to our largely conquered isle, apart from a few rebellious Scots – hence Hadrian's wall. Or that the United Kingdom was a reworking of 'The British Empire'………Sorry, are you losing interest now?

Being part of a mongrel breed like America it should not matter but, getting back to why that question came to mind months after the Texan beauty had graced these shores, Andy Murray was winning at Wimbledon and he is British, no, not Scottish but British. Tim Henman was English, when he played and of course Lewis Hamilton is an English racing driver with David Coulthard being British.That's before we even get regional, West Midlands, Birmingham, Black Country.......

Our Army is British as in 'The Best of British' but really, I don't mind being 'The United Kingdom' in the Eurovision song contest – lets all fail together huh?

Football is a whole different ball game -literally in America.

England are the superior footballing team of course, despite failing to qualify for the last championships. That's because we had an Englishman managing the team and not a Swedish or Italian Manager (who looks remarkably like Tommy Cooper) – maybe we should have had a Scottish manager – they manage better than they play……

The stupid thing being we can not enter a football team in the Olympic games because in the games we are The United Kingdom and don't have a 'united' football team.

That reminds me of: An Englishman, Scotsman, Irishman and Welshman all walk in to a Birmingham pub - because there was no football on that night! (But they did argue the fact that most of the best players for each nation came from a West Midland club at one time.....) 

I don't visit my doctor very often, does that make me typical man? Well if I'm not ill why bother him?

But, I recently received a letter inviting me to a man's health check, which was inconvenient for two reasons; it was on at 9.30am Sunday morning, which is when my body understands it can rest a little more than usual and (as I discovered on arriving at the surgery) 30 other men had the same appointment time as me.

Block booking also involved block waiting, now I'm a patient man, I can happily wait for most things, good food, sex, death, sex, Guinness and sex, but having to read a well thumbed 2004 copy of Woman's Own magazine while waiting to be called for an examination can be a little testing.

Luckily there were more that 6 nurses carrying out the examinations so we moved swiftly along.

I was called in to a smaller room that had 5 other men having their heath checks done (I was most relieved there was no prostate check taking place) and we were all able to nod understandingly to each other when our height and weight checks revealed we were all a little over weight – BMI I'm sure that is an invention of a svelte Swedish doctor wanting to strip us of our 'love handles' so we look more acceptable in the sauna.

I was given a seat by a 'nurse' understand I use that term lightly here, who proceeded to prick my finger (without the aid of a spinning wheel) and extract blood to test my Cholesterol, glucose levels etc, (which can out fine by the way), while the machine was testing this she proceeded to take my blood pressure.

Now, this is where the fun starts, she took my blood pressure on the same arm she had extracted the blood from, why then was she so surprised that my pricked finger began to spurt like old faithful when she pressed button on the blood pressure machine?

To add to the fun after a few cotton balls had been soaked in my precious vamp juice, she looked at the machine giving my blood pressure result and said "Oh!"

"Oh? Oh what's Oh mean?"

"Oh!"

"Yes, I caught that bit, but Oh what?"

"Did you drive here?

"Yes"

"Oh!" - There is was again! – WHAT?

"You reading is a bit high, let me take it again"

"Wait, Wait, let me put some pressure on this finger prevent and spurting"

Reading number two and three can back similar, which prompted the stupidest question of the day; "what job do you do?" (No, not that one)

"Sales, I'm in sales I am an Area sales manager"

"Is it stressful?" (yes, that's the one!)

"Not any more than having your blood pressure taken then followed by an OH!" She sensed my sarcasm.

"Well I would recommend you drive to A & E and explain the situation and get them to check you over"

"Really, Is that bad?"

"Well, not great but go anyway"

"And drive there, despite you having concerns when you knew I drove here?"

"Mmmmm, well you should be ok"

"Thanks for the reassurance" And off I went, with all the other guys nodding sympathy my way.

I found the Accident and Emergency department of my local Hospital completely empty – result, quick service! I gave my personal details again explaining I thought I was neither an accident nor an emergency but was told to attend by the 'nurse'.

The receptionist agreed with me (where upon I did remark that some people had commented I was an accident waiting to happen), she directed me around the corner to the 'Walk in centre'. There I found a waiting room full of people with various states of problems, the problem I had was five minutes in to the wait discovering the receptionist was re-entering my details that had been printed off by A&E less than 5 minutes ago (have they not heard of data file transfer?), add to that she was training another person (on a Sunday?) and it took them 20 minutes to complete the task (good old NHS huh?).

During that time another man came in with a similar form I had given over, so I asked "Have you just been to the health screening?"

"Yes"

"High Blood pressure?"

"Yes, are you a doctor?"

"No, mind reader……No, I've had the same thing"

"Was it the blonde nurse in the white blouse?" He asked,

"Yeeess, now YOU'RE the mind reader"

It turned out no coincidence, on getting to see the doctor he asked why I was there, I wondered that but followed 'nurse"Oh's" instructions. He took my blood pressure and informed me that it was only a little above normal, there was no worries and with an air of 'I've got more important people to treat" advised me on ways of getting it to lower. I had a few ideas myself; avoid men's health checks for one!

As if you didn't know, April 23^rd is St. Georges day – the patron saint of England (and Moscow oddly enough), famed for slaying a dragon (yep, another believable story that one!) and was killed for refusing to fight against the invading Christians during the Holy war and consequently was made a saint.

Work this one out: He was Turkish (yep George was not his given name), he had never stepped foot on our great land we call Brittan, was killing dragons but not fellow Christians, was canonised by the pope the head of a religion that was not recognised by Henry VIII when he wanted to move along the conveyor belt of wives and yet St. George remained up there!

So England has St. George, Scotland St. Andrew who at least made it to Scotland - well in his tomb apparently, Wales St. David (at least he was a local lad) and Ireland St. Guinness…..no Patrick (another yarn there with snakes insted of dragons).

Today is also William Shakespeare's birthday or Billy Waggledagger to the locals. He would have been 444 - just, considering he died on his birthday too, which, would have put him in the Guinness book of records were still alive………...... 

I've never found his work very easy to get along with, yes, he was a talented man, but so was Vincent Van Gogh and……..hold on…..I see a connection: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears". Where was I? Oh yes, - talented -but dose that mean you have to like it?

I remember many a boring lesson in school discussing meaning, hidden meaning and the literal flow of Mr S's work:

Teacher: " The love of Desdemona for Othello appears at first such a violation of all probabilities that her father at once imputes it to magic , what impact dose this have on the relationship between the three……….You boy?"

Me: "(mmmm Alison's hair is so shiny today, I wonder if she's up for a snog behind the bike sheds?) ….....Errr, dose he hire those three witches that caused Macbeth to talk to skulls sir?

Teacher: "GET OUT!"

And I never did get that snog!

Happy St Georges day!

I know I live in a country with a lot of history and culture but I guess I needed reminding of this.

Last weekend saw the arrival, all be it delayed due to weather and Heathrow airport’s incompetence, of two American friends.

Tina flew in from California and Jenna from Austin, both ended up jetting off from Chicago and landed three minutes apart, but had an hours wait on the tarmac at Heathrow in snowy conditions.

My plan as chauffeur for the day (including driving on the wrong side of the road for them!) was to take them to Stratford upon Avon to show them Shakespeare’s birth place etc, but got ’Persuaded’ by Jenna after a brief chat, to head for ’Waw-Wick’ "No, that’s pronounced Warick" Castle.

During the drive up, which would take about 1 ½ hours (driving at a sensible speed of course) we caught up on the gossip and discussed interesting things about the UK and American politics too.

I started to realise when pointing out various landmarks, towns we passed, relationships with fellow European counties etc, that we in little old Brittan have a bloody lot of history (of course comparing it to America we would) but its’ amazing how you take this for granted.

While touring Warwick castle, we walked through a ’Royal Weekend Party’ set in 1898 including wax work figures, I pointed out to Jenna and Tina that that was the same year my house was built, which they found difficult to comprehend because many properties (not including the Alamo!) across all states would not be that old.

Discussions on history included Roman roads (yes, we did drive down one and it felt like it hadn’t been resurfaced since Roman times), War time bombings by the Germans, our ’United’ or not Kingdom with the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish and the commonality with Americans of being a Mongrel breed, oh and our dislike of the French.

I was starting to get the reason why we see so many (well not as many since 9/11) American visitors here, History, heritage, friendly people (take note Frenchies), oh and speaking nearly the same language! I even managed to teach Jenna a few new English swear words. Tina choose to take up on the clean words offered and added to her ’Queens slang’ vocabulary "Cheers" and "Mate", which they will no doubt use on the second leg of their UK trip, which they are now on, in London.