But hey – you can’t have humour without some ignorance (and the suspense of disbelief), and you certainly cannot have it without crude generalizations.

As for the Ukrainians – as long as I lived there “everyone” either lowed the West and could not wait but to get out of their home country (for obvious reasons), or preached it as the cradle of culture and civilization (dating back to certain Ukrainian kniaz’es at the peak of the Kievan Rus).

“Russian” Ukrainians tend to to pretend that they are European while the West is much more accepting and proud of their nationality.

The love-hate relationship with the Russians is most definitely there, between the East and the West. You either love your rich and industrious neighbour having long signed up to join their union, or you curse at the Russian language, people, oligarchs, and communism who is responsible for the destruction of your land, famine, and the laziness of your neighbours. Russians, in general, are considered to be lazy. You would also passionately argue that Russia is a big fat liar because they claim the Kievan Rus to be the original Russian state, while it clearly belongs to us, at home, in Kiev.

Southerners seem to regard Northern English as quaint, a bit backward and that they speak funny using archaic English not heard in the South anymore and having strong dialects and different words for things.

The English as a whole tend to dislike the Welsh who, despite being economically and politically dominated by the English for centuries, still maintain a very seperate culture and language that is impenetrable to the English. The English are much more ambivalent towards the Scots although the Scots probably hate the English more than the Welsh do. The Scots and the Welsh would be likely gang up against the English. The Scots, Welsh and English are completely ambivalent towards the Northern Irish and really hold no opinion, other than the Protestants and Catholics should just stop hating each other.

The British tend to like the Irish, Swiss, Icelandics, Scandinavians, Finns, Dutch, Spanish, Italians and Portuguese (our oldest alliance). Brits tend to dislike the French on the whole (so much shared history, but most comments are not directed personally and are more tongue-in-cheek, typical British style humour). Brits also have an inferiority complex about Germany and never let the War drop, probably because Germany is now so much richer than the UK!!! British tend to think anyone from Eastern Europe is just coming here to take our jobs, but most other Western Europeans are more or less ok.

As an aside I grew up in Andorra and one people from outside Andorra tend to think of it as one big duty and tax free shop. A description that’s pretty apt it has to be said!

“any true scot would have a heart attack by being included here as British. They hate the english. And it is a different country (like Ireland).”

I absolutely detest this ignorance and arrogance! An American, telling us Brits how we should feel about things as though they, simply due to the accident of being born in the US, know more about us than we know of ourselves! Especially when it ultimately turns out they don’t know what they are talking about!

I’m a “true Scot”.

Guess what genius, Scotland is in Britain!! We ARE British! And no, we don’t really hate the English, it’s all friendly bantar and aggressive but good humour!

Many from American seem to believe that Britain = England. WRONG!!! NO NO NO!!! Britain is England, Scotland and Wales! The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the above countries plus, obviously Norn Iron!

Please stop involving yourself in things you have no idea about!

That said, I tend to think that people who keep saying that Brits are “stuck up” are missing something in translation. Brits are the most self depricative people on the planet. They are always making fun of themselves and that is often what they are doing when it appears they are making fun of other people, they are in fact making fun of being a daft Brit.

I could understand the stuck up bit if the only Brits you meet are from the south East, around London way and are upper middle class and upwards but I can honestly say, the most down to Earth and LEAST stuck up people I have ever met are the British every man!

all of this was learned from comments on youtube by the way so yeah, I have learned valuable things from youtube

You got your facts all wrong about Gibraltar… it’s been under Arab sovereignty the longer than either Spain or Britain’s (funny that!).

As to the Spanish – I think most of Europe resent them mainly due to their behaviour whilst abroad and the lack of respect to the local cultures. I personally however have had great experiences in Spain and most of the people there are friendly and welcoming.

I think it’s a positive thing to have European countries so comfortable with their ’stereotypes’. This goes to show that actually they’re pretty united. Maybe it’s the common shared landmass (with some exceptions) that’s keeping them together.

Here in SouthEast asia, we’re separated by channels and seas, so we’re more indifferent to each other than anything, which is sad. You Europeans should be lucky!