Rule Britannia!

I'm feeling patriotic, which is a very rare occurance for me. In part it has been brought on by the experience of living in another country but its main cause was watching the Michael Moore film Sicko. The film is about just how bad the American health care system is and there are lots of examples of just how diabolical it really is (people dying because their health insurance refused to pay out for something that the patient really needed). That made me very glad not to be American, but it was only when Moore decided to go to the UK to see how good we have it that I felt truly patriotic. I'm so proud of the good old NHS.

It started off its Britain section very well with an interview by my favourite politican, Tony Benn, who explained exactly why it is so good. Hearing his crisp public school accent was fantastic and took me back to the home country. I couldn't help almost yelling "Tony Benn!!" the moment his face filled the screen, in all likelihood I was the only person in the cinema to recognise him, but they'll learn. I did spend part of the way home proudly telling some of my Dutch friends that he had refused his title.

As well as talking to Tony Benn Moore also went to actually see the NHS in action and I got to reminice about waiting times and MRSA (not that he mentioned either) as well as hearing some more British accents. The audience actually laughed at one womans accent, I was affronted. Moore (and the audience) were amazed to find that people got reimbursed for travelling expenses if they were too poor, it just made my chest swell with British pride.

To give you a well rounded picture of the film they also went to Canada, France and Cuba to see their wonderful free healthcare systems, I'm sure that anyone from those countries watching the film would feel similarly to me (except perhaps the whole Tony Benn thing).

After the film ended it recieved a round of applause (the Americans like to applaud everything) and I went home happy. On the way back I cycled (on my newly fixed bike) on the left hand side of the deserted cycle track and went around the cycling roundabout (I've only seen one motorist roundabout) twice, the wrong way. All in all it was a good night and almost had me singing Rule Britannia (or should it be Rule NHS?).