Some people might argue that it’s our culture that makes Britain great, but I can find no evidence of that! English is the most widely spoken language in the world, so much so that few English people will bother to learn a foreign language, but that’s a result of colonialism. Americans speak a sort of English because the original thirteen colonies were established by English settlers. Having established their independence the newly established nation started to invite immigrants from other European nations, and welcomed reluctant immigrants from Africa while expelling indigenous peoples.

We study “English Literature” at school but how many English children get to read Robert Burns or WB Yeats? We might read Jonathan Swift as a children’s story without knowing it was written as a political satire by an Irishman. We can acknowledge that Shakespeare as the greatest playwright ever but those who’ve come after him have been mostly Irish – Sheridan, Wilde and Shaw to name but three. I’m only considering those who write in the English language and resident in these isles so I have to exclude Molière, a favourite playwright of mine who wrote in French.

When it comes to prose I would have to exclude several writers I admire, who write in the English language although they’re were once dismissed as “colonials”. Henry Lawson was the Australian master of the short story and Jack London, an American, was his strongest competitor. When we venture into the realm of Journalism we have to compare Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling with Andrew Barton Paterson – Australia’s greatest poet of Scottish ancestry. I believe they all met each other at different times. In the 21st Century we can include Julian Assange and the late John Pilger.

From a literary perspective it took me a long time to get into appreciating Dickens, mostly because I was obliged to read Great Expectations at school. My sister had Far From The Madding Crowd as her set book, I borrowed it and enjoyed reading it although she hated it! I later got into reading Jane Austen and Fielding but, to my regret, the only novel I’ve read of the Brontë Sisters is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

A pedant might argue that these were of greater literary merit than than Treasure Island and Kidnapped, which I read as a child and again as an an adult, but I believe Robert Louis Stevenson deserves a place alongside Sir Walter Scott among Scottish authors writing for a British audience. Across The Pond Mark Twain and Jack London were writing excellent prose in the English language.

Strictly speaking Great Britain is a geographical term for the largest island in an archipelago off the northern coast of Europe that has been known since Roman times as the British Isles. It includes most of England Scotland and Wales but it not only excludes all of Ireland but also Anglesey, Isle of Man, Hebrides, the Scilly Isles and the Isle of Wight which are all geographically separate from Great Britain. It could be argued that Scotland north of the Caledonian Canal is a separate island, but I don’t think anyone really wants to take the argument that far.

The full name of the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which acknowledges the geographical realty although Northern Ireland is still a member of Team GB in the Olympic Games.

The empire on which the sun never sets is now part of the US empire, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sycophantic collaborator! I prefer the geographical definition: Great Britain is the largest of a group of islands, and it’s getting smaller! Hemsby in Norfolk is suffering from houses falling into the sea due to erosion and rising sea levels mean that many parts of England around The Wash, some of which were reclaimed from the sea in the distant past, will be inundated if nothing is done.

It’s happened before, St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall is only accessible on foot at low tide and legend has it that the Scilly Isles were once as connected to Cornwall geographically as they are politically today.