Eh, I know a couple of hot British girls. More interestingly, I don't know any ugly ones. But anyways, that's kinda shallow. William of NORMANDY would have been French by modern borders, but it was a pretty different world back then, and yes, his lineage was scandinavian. Considering the fact that for a couple of centuries leading up to that point, wealthy landowners throughtout the 'french' region had more power than and were not accountable to the french royal family (whose demesne didn't spread very far at all outside Paris), it's hard to argue that he would have been called a 'Frenchman' at the time. He did speak french, though. It was the language of the court for most of the middle ages. So I guess it depends on how you look at it.
Anyways, PunkRider's anti-british bias is about as idiotic as he makes himself out to be. And by the way, your list was fairly pathetic. Rousseau, Aquinas and Descartes couldn't write. Their writing was terrible. They were philosophers. This means their ideas were what was valued, not their writing. Again, England wins that contest (Locke, Mill, Bentham, Burke, Hobbes and about 30 others I could name), but that isn't the point. The point is that you're totally wrong about literature. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser and Milton alone are better writers than any of those you've mentioned, but I can just keep going: Donne, Shelley, Keats, Eliot, Blake, Austen, Wordsworth, Ralegh, Wilde, Coleridge, Bacon... I could go on. Britain is the uncontested foremost nationality in writing, which is impressive, because the English language is not particularly amenable to good writing. I do agree that you've got the Americans beat, but then, they've only had 200+ years to work with.
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In a haze
A stormy haze
I’ll be around
I’ll be loving you
Always
Always
Here I am
And I’ll take my time
Here I am
And I’ll wait in line
Always
Always...
