Oh, Those British!

They are so elegantly discriminating. They can be so sublimely aristocratic in their cerebral awareness of the world around them. Little wonder that Britain has gifted the world with a treasure-trove of world-famed literature. The propensity of the British to observe and to digest that which they observe and to reach stunning conclusions perhaps knows no equal anywhere else in the world. A wee tad arrogant? Heavens, no, simply discriminating. In the finer sense of that evocative word. Provocative word?

Surely Canadians needed to know this, that a former British high commissioner to Canada, Lord Moran, wrote: "Anyone who stands out at all from the crowd tends to be praised to the skies and given the Order of Canada at once". Imagine, Canadians have been taken with the illusion that out of the vast mediocrity of sameness, we occasionally breed some artistic talent that is deserving of recognition. And hence, those Canadians who strive to carry themselves well above the commonality to achieve some measure of personal fame and public acclamation, may be deserving of this honour.

For their successes - in representing Canada at its best in human achievement - does reflect well on Canada and the aspirations of its people. Not so, sniffs Lord (Richard John McMoran Moran Wilson) Moran; evidently he views nothing extraordinary in the achievement of Canadians in the social sciences, the public service, science, medicine, social services, theatre, the plastic arts to name but a few. For these are - sniff-sniff - paltry Canadian achievements measured by obviously inadequate Canadian standards.

Certainly not to be compared with, say, the Queen honouring British citizens who achieve great fame through popular celebrity in pop culture, or in earning great sums of cold, hard cash, or operating a venerable news empire as a winning enterprise. Those colonials really could learn a thing or two by emulating the mother-country.