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.....)