The potato crop itself was. The fact that the British government refused to stop shipping food OUT of the country at the time? Not so much. Do a little research and then come back.
Tell you what, we’ll stop laughing at your country’s hilarious shortcomings when you lot, especially those born post 1945, stop telling us about how you “saved our asses in World War 2”.
Deal?
I’ll just get in my TARDIS and go back to when people said that sort of stuff and actually meant it.
Although, frankly, I am pretty sure the sun still never sets on the British Empire (well, the homeland and British Overseas Territories). Hint: “sun never sets on” doesn’t mean “will never end”, which Americans seem to usually think.
Don’t forget to return the Elgin Marbles.
To the Russians? 
No, to Seymour Elgin. He had never been really proficient with them, and while he admittedly should never have agreed to play against such an obvious hustler, he was an awkward lad, who was excited and grateful that he was being included, just like one of the boys.
Besides, no one told him until afterward that they’d been playing “keepsies.”
You have a point there. The Russkis deserve most of the credit for saving your asses.
No, they saved their own asses when Hitler broke the non-aggression pact he had with them - as he’d intended all along. We shipped them supplies, we’d already fought the Nazis in Norway and France, we carried on fighting them in Greece and Crete, we fought them in North Africa, we fought them in the air over our own soil (and with our own planes - the ones you were willing to let us have at the time were crap) and once we’d turned them back at the Channel we carried on giving them as much misery as we could while trying to get enough food and fuel into the country despite the U-boats.
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.
Flanders and Swann — A sing of Patriotic Prejudice
YouTube — A Song of Patriotic Prejudice
[ A bit fuzzy ]
And since war’s been mentioned, their adaption of a French song:
*There are certainly plenty of wars to choose from, you pick whichever one you please,
Like the one we’ve had all the news from liberating the Vietnamese,
Or those wars for God and country, be it Korean or Philippine,
Sir, if you’ll pardon my affrontry, give me the war of 14-18,
If you’ll pardon my affrontry, Sir, the war of 14-18,
*
Every war has it’s own attraction from total war to border raid,
Call it rebellion, police action,
War of containment or crusade,
I don’t underrate the late war we see so often on the screen,
But that wasn’t the really great war like the war of 14-18,
No, the late war wasn’t the great war like the war of 14-18
YouTube — The War of 14-18
And… Why not ?
Father, Mother, Son and Daughter,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Give us land and seed and water,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Children have no need of sharing-,
At each new nativity
Come the ghostly Magi bearing
Twenty tons of TNT.
YouTube — 20 Tons of TNT
After the glorious victory at Dunkirk, the Jerries were finished wot wot?
I believe it’s crassly Anglophobic to say the English are smug about healthcare and gun control—they are not. They are, however, smug about everything else.
I mean get a load of that pompous accent they have. You sure don’t hear people from other countries, like Germany, or North Korea, or Texas speak with that fancy-pants British accent, do you? No, you do not. In fact, I’ve been told the English only put on that accent in front of foreigners. Amongst themselves, they talk more like someone from the South Bronx.
And it’s not just the accent that’s affected; it’s the smug words and phrases they use, too. Case in point: here in America we say, “Hey, toots, get off your fat keister, throw some flapjacks on the griddle and bring me a hot cuppa joe, will ya, ma!” But over there in haughty ol’ England, they say, “Ohhhh, I say mumsie dear, may I trouble you for a spot of Twinings Lady Grey tea with a dollop of honey and a clotted cream slathered crumpet with orange marmalade? Pip pip, cheerio, tally ho, 1066 and all that, old sport” Yeah, you just want to slap them upside the head when they start saying crap like that!
Oh, and they are so shamefully smug about the precious tiny size of their silly country. They are forever bragging, “ohhhh, our country is so miniscule, yet we used to have the world’s biggest fleet of boats that we’d sail all over the globe, bullying other countries into submission.” Yeah, well, their britches haven’t grown big enough to bully America around anymore, that’s for sure. Their entire country would fit inside one of our amusement parks. Hell, Epcot Center’s “United Kingdom” was built almost to scale.
And, let’s not forget about the precious snowflake names they give themselves on the other side of the pond. You won’t find any “Joey Big Noses” or “Bertha Big Butts” over there, like you find all the time over here. I read somewhere that the top English girl and boy baby names every year since Edwardian days are “Percival” and “Persephone.” Yeah, they might as well hand their kids plastic pocket protectors and silk doylies at birth. And, all their pets are named “Rupert.”
And speaking of pets, you won’t find many dogs in England. Rover and Fido and Rex and Snotsie are much too uncouth for delicate English constitutions. All you find in English homes are cats. Nothing but cats. A few hedgehogs here and there, but otherwise nothing but cats. Everyone in England has a cat and usually many. If you do run into (or better still, over) the rare dog in England, It’ll be some cat-like sissy dog, like QE2’s corgis. *Barksie warksie… *
And boy howdy do those English people have a smug appearance! They dress up their boys and girls and cats to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy, complete with long curly ‘doos. English women look like Eleanor Roosevelt and English men all dress like Mr. Peanut. And, don’t get me started on those pretentious Nutty Professor upper central incisors that never fully fit inside their mouths.
Oh, and have you ever noticed the smug way English people look at you, particularly if you are American? It’s that typical “I smell Limburger cheese, I got a stick up my arse, look at my extended pinkie” pose they learn how to do at an early age (similar to the way French people look at us, substituting the va te faire foutre up yours gesture for the extended pinkie).
You won’t find any down to Earth American professions in merry ol’ England, either. No furnace cleaners, bakers, cleaning women or whores over there. Nope, over there you’ll find nothing but chimney sweeps, muffin men, chamber maids and harlots.
That’s all for now. But, please stop accusing the English of being smug about healthcare and gun control…that’s just mean.
I think we are being unfair to the Brits. The UK is the best comedy sidekick nation that the USA could ask for. Their smug stuffiness is part of their charm in that role. I picture them all, collectively, as being our Arthur Treacher.
Yes Scumpup, I agree that the British make an amusing American side-kick—maybe more Barney Fife, than Arthur Treacher, but why quibble. The English may be silly clowns, but they are our silly clowns and we love them for it.
It just slightly tans my hide a little that, although we Americans as a collective, have kept modestly silent about our heroic achievements in WWll, you’d think the Brits et al would at least give us a little “thank you”; a pat on the national back or maybe just a big virtual Cuban cigar, for winning the war for them, as we did so decisively.
I mean when America first crashed through the swinging doors into the smoke-filled European Theater (pronounced “thee-A-ter”) like John Wayne barreling into the Tombstone Saloon with six-shooters a blazing, gunning for Billy the Kidd, I’m sure it was more than a little embarrassing for the collective English citizenry to have us see Herr Hitler literally have Briton’s britches pulled down around its ankles and spanking it repeatedly on its bare, reddened bottom. We even tried not to giggle much when we saw their field marshal strutting around like a peacock in Bermuda shorts, a Green Beret hat and a dominatrix riding crop.
Indeed, it took America to go all “General Patton coward-slappin’“ on the 3rd Reich’s ass to extricate England and the rest of the zany allies out of the pickle they were in.
Is a little “thanks for baling us out again, America” too much to ask for???
You can’t have a Cuban stogie because Communism, remember?
That may be jest but there is a lot of truth in that. Not that they were finished, just that capturing the British troops at Dunkirk would have meant the government of the day probably suing for peace with Hitler. Had he trusted his battlefield generals more they would have wrapped up the British forces in short order. He did not.
So the Dunkirk evacuations ensured a willingness to execute and win the battle of Britain, no German invasion could then be possible and Hitler sealed his doom. Forced to fight on multiple fronts.
Past that point (Dunkirk) he could no longer realistically win. Not that he would definitely lose mind you, for that to happen we needed the assistance of the American allies (and all psuedo-pit snarkiness aside, the people of Britain and Europe are, and will always be, thankful for the sacrifices of the American troops)
By Jove, no! The plucky Brits had yet to give Jerry a bloody nose! And some nose, some bloody, it was!
When are we going to give Fritz a taste of our British spunk?
Hitler had bigger things to think about than the UK. Following The Miracle of Post-Retreat from Dunkirk Spin Doctoring, you were in a position to fight defensively from your island and little else. Germany’s concentration on the Eastern Front and goofy leadership decisions were your salvation.
But not the USA.
This is, at best, revisionist history. The retrieval of British troops from Dunkirk (and a large number of French troops as well) meant that Britain had a defensive ability for a land invasion. This immediately shuttered the nascent German plans for a seaborne invasion of Britain, and passed the ball to Goering’s Luftwaffe, with results known to all. Hitler did not invade the USSR until over a year later, after a possible invasion of Britain had proved impossible.