Michael Flanders

- was an English actor, broadcaster, writer and performer of comic songs
- part of the duo "Flanders and Swann"
- born in London 1922
- attended Westminster School (there he met Donald Swann for the first time)
- studied History in Oxford
- left Oxford to join the Royal Navy
- 1943: gets poliomyelitis and has to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life
- 1948-1967: professional partnership with Donald Swann as the duo "Flanders and Swann"
- "The Hippopotamus" is a famous song
- 1975: death because of a stroke

2. There is a hyperbole in line 3 when the author describes the awful circumstances in Britain. “We cower in the economic gutter” shows how the whole situation is overestimated by the foreign countries. They expect the British to panic, because they themselves would do so, but that is exactly the opposite of British behaviour in times of trouble and crisis.

The author uses a simile in line 25 when he answers a question about the British working habits. The “rat race” is a comparison to the daily competition between people in their job. Rats are animals with a negative reputation and the British don’t want to be like all the other nations that spent their life by rushing every day to outdo their rivals maybe even in a deceitful way.

3. The British are very self-controlled people who don't show great emotions. They keep patient in hardly every situation, analyse the things that are going on and decide calmly how to handle it or just wait till problems are solved without their action. Their black humour helps the British in crisis because even the hardest problem creates an occasion for irony and sarcasm.

4. Tea

Tea plays an important role in British life. They drink it in the morning, in the afternoon an in the evening with milk and sugar or just with milk. There are various sorts of tea, for example tea of strawberries, apple, pepper mint, chamomile and other kinds of herbs. Very impressing are teas for the inner rest and relaxation. The best thing is that you just have to go in your garden and pick up some green herbs, cook them and enjoy your tea, but of course it is important to collect just things you do know, otherwise even tea can be bad for your health. Tea is not only the national drink in Britain it caused also a significant happening in America, the Boston Tea Party. One could think that the first ones drinking tea were the British but I think this could have also been the Chinese. The fact that both nations are such patient, calm and friendly ones could lead to the conclusion that it is caused by drinking tea frequently.