"Old Nick" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:52:29 +0000 (UTC), spitfire2
wrote something
......and in reply I say!:

My parents are English. I am not anti-English. (my parents aren't that
bad! G)

I think the problem lies in exactly what you say. The British have had
a lot of really good ideas, then as a nation they have treated them
with comtempt and have either chosen, or had, to give them away.
Snatching failure from the jaws of brilliance.

There should be no competition here. Ideally there are developers and
researchers, technologists, and mass-producers. Let everyone place any
nation where they choose in that lot! G. Unfortunately the research
is a once-off, and is often undervalued or forgotten, even by the
researchers themselves, in the fight for the final profit or glory.

We and the French designed and built the Concorde, while the Russians
had a stab at the same thing, but the poor Yanks, with all their money
and loud mouths, gave up, and then did their damndest to prevent
Concorde operating into the USA! Talk about sour grapes!
A little earlier, we GAVE the Yanks the know-how to build the first
atomic bomb, free.
We also gave them radar, and many other things, but all we get now in
return is sneering from present-day ignoramuses..

How about Canada and the Avro Arrow?
Now there was a puzzling situation. A country develops a fighter that is
about twenty years ahead of its time and 'somehow' it gets cancelled.
I still have a *lot* of questions about that one.

Regards
Ken.