What makes something an icon? Is it to do with being famous or important? Is an icon beloved or somehow symbolic? Why for instance in England is a cup of tea iconic and not a glass of orange juice? What are the things that make you think about life in England, or what is it that has made your visit to England so memorable?
Now, thanks to a new on-line project at www.icons.org.uk, you can have your say, by nominating your favourite icons of England!
But what are icons?
For the purpose of the project, they have to be uniquely important to life in England and the people who live there.
- Icons are symbolic - they represent something in English culture, history or the English way of life.
- Icons are recognisable in a crowd - if no-one has heard of it or knows what it looks like, it cannot be an icon.
- Icons are fascinating and surprising - they have hidden depths and unexpected associations.
- Icons aren't however people. Churchill and Darwin may live on as historical figures but they won't be included as icons in this collection. They won’t be ignored either, it simply means that Shakespeare’s plays rather than the man from Stratford, and Stephenson's Rocket rather than Mr Stephenson himself, will be included.
So what will you be nominating?
A cup of tea? Have a nice sit-down with a cuppa, maybe a chocolate digestive too. What could be more quintessentially English? - The most normal thing in the world. Yet the tea we drink isn't English at all. There's a good chance the tea cup isn't either... But wherever you go, right across England, you'll find cups of tea being served from your everyday greasy spoon caff to the Ritz. The story of tea takes in all sorts of aspects of England's history, many of them unsavoury. It's the story of trade and clippers and empire, the story of medicine and hygiene and bone china.
Alice in Wonderland? 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland' is probably the first real children's novel. Until Lewis Carroll came along, it was practically unheard of for a publisher to release a book that aimed to give pleasure and entertainment to children with no secret educational or moral motives.
But Carroll and 'Alice' changed all that. - But who was he, this Oxford mathematician, and how did he come to write this classic work? And what is its legacy? If there had been no Alice, would we really have no Winnie-the-Pooh, no Roald Dahl, Peter Pan? Would we ever have met Frodo and Gollum, or had exciting adventures at Hogwarts?
The Routemaster Bus? The Spitfire? England’s favourite hymn – Jerusalem? Stonehenge? …the first twelve nominations can be explored, their stories told with words and pictures, with sound and film and 3D imaging at www.icons.org.uk Browse through the nominations and vote for or against an icon, or simply post a comment. Have a look to see whether your favourite has been nominated. And if you don’t see your own favourite on the list, nominate it yourself!
Related Links:Culture UK - Traditional British Food & Drink Culture UK - Traditional British Sport Culture UK - Literary Giants |
