Two nations

We are strange nation. On the one hand we have this obsession with football, well at least a fairly large section of the public do whilst, on the other we collect to watch the Trooping of the Colour in which the pomp and circumstance of another era are on display. Two worlds, far apart each with there adherents who probably have little in common and wish to keep it so. As a child I was brought up on the pageantry it meant something special something symbolic about our nationhood and we were proud watching the Guards Regiments in their fine tunics and outrageous hats, parade about the ground doing complicated drill movements to the orders of the Regimental Sargent Major, a man on whom the Regiment pivoted in terms of discipline. 


This is a 'word'(discipline) almost unknown on the football field where the testosterone filled ranks of horrendously overpaid young men are are in action. They, also drilled to perform but who, when things go wrong display the worst sort of petulance and gutter language to the Sargent Major, better known as the referee. Tonight is the first match that England play and one hopes they have a little more luck than their rugby counterparts who came within a single point of matching mighty New Zealand. 
Worlds apart in virtually every aspect society shows how diverse we are and reminds one of the folly of issuing opinions regarding some imaginary collective when describing a nation.