A Song of Patriotic Prejudice - Flanders & Swann

The English, the English, the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours

We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers

Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot

You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware

And bony and blotchy and covered with hair

He eats salty porridge, he works all the day

And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best

I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now out contempt is beneath

He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth

He blows up policemen, or so I have heard

And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice,

And worth any other at double the price

Ah, iechyd da

The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can

And little and dark, more like monkey than man

He works underground with a lamp in his hat

And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much

Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch

The Germans are German, the Russians are red,

And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good

And clever and modest and misunderstood.

And all the world over, each nation's the same

They've simply no notion of playing the game

They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won

And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best

So up with the English and down with the rest.

It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad

It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,

And the flower of the English are Donald (Michael)

Donald (Michael) and Me!