Britpop
Germany's favourite insult to Britain is to call it a 'Land Without Music'. (It would annoy us more if they called us a 'Land Without Good Penalty Takers', but fortunately they haven't realised that yet.)
The Germans were thinking of classical music. While the Germans produce great composers, England only has pop music. Germany gave us Beethoven, Bach, Brahms; England has the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Oasis.
We think the insult is completely wrong. This is a 'Land With All The Good Music'. We honestly believe that - along with the best television programmes - we produce the world's best rock music. It's such a big business that since the 1990s it has had its own name: 'Britpop'.
We know that America invented rock and roll, and is very good at producing commercial, big-selling artists. But their music is as natural as Michael Jackson's nose. Ours is genuine. We know that Germany, France and Japan probably have their own pop bands - but who has heard of them outside their own country? Yet go down any street market anywhere in the world and you see Britpop on sale. So we believe, at least.
Britpop is our substitute for politics. It is rebellious, but only mildly; mostly for show. In Colombia, drugs barons shoot politicians they don't like. Here, it is different. Pop stars throw champagne-buckets of water. (Anarchist pop group Chumbawumba did that at the Brit Awards this year. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was the unlucky target. For many politicians, it was the first time they had heard of Chumbawumba. For many pop fans, it was the first time they had heard of John Prescott. And champagne-buckets.)
It is also our substitute for art or philosophy. Britpop's music is impressive, but the words are often very important. Or rather they would be, if you could hear any of them. You have to buy the CD or cassette to read the lyrics from the sleeve notes. Usually, a designer fresh from art school has made sure you can't read them either. If you can decipher the lyrics however, you will find they ask profound questions about life and society. They just never get round to answering them. This is very British. Let the French philosophise and look for answers; we'll just look for glib remarks and a good tune.
To anyone under the age of 50, Britpop is very important. Here is a guide to the things you need to know about.
Radio 1
The BBC's pop music station. Heard on tinny radios, coming from any car workshop or building site. There was only one time when it was any good. That was whenever the person you are talking to was aged 16 to 22. Before that it was too innocent and unsophisticated, and played the records that the record companies wanted. After that it became too cynical and wayward, playing an unfocused mixture of tuneless music.
Rock fashions
Like Britain, Britpop is a mixture of the traditional and the modern. Dip into any album and you hear sounds of the 1960s (mellotrons and electric organs) 1970s (loud distorted guitars) 1980s (synthesisers) and 1990s (samples). Many tunes and sounds are deliberately archaic, clumsy or artless. This is partly our ironic sense of humour. Partly it is our sentimental attachment to the past. But mainly, it's so we can claim any accidentally archaic, clumsy or artless bits were deliberate.
Eternal artists
While not Britpop, some artists go on forever and are worth knowing about.
Cliff Richard has been singing clean-cut songs since the 1950s. He is pleasant, honest and religious. So the newspapers hate him, because there is no scandal for them to write about.
David Bowie has always set fashion trends a year before they happen. If he ever predicts the end of the world, we will get very worried.
We joke about the Rolling Stones for their great age, and their lifestyle that makes them look even older. Is it possible to play the guitar on stage while holding a walking-stick?
Sir Paul McCartney was responsible for the song "Yesterday", and therefore for a million dreadful karaoke performances. Recently he has started to write classical music, using a computer. Many people welcome this, because his classical oratorios are less likely to be inflicted upon us in karaoke evenings.
Britpop groups
There are only three groups you need to have an opinion about.
Spice Girls: Only pre-adolescent girls ever admit to buying their records. Everyone else says they are rubbish, just a marketing creation. So it is hard to see how their records sell so many millions. Either the UK has a demographic anomaly, or a lot of people are lying. You don't need to be able to tell their songs apart, only the girls themselves. (Ginger, Sporty, Posh, Scary, Baby; do not confuse them with the Teletubbies.) More important is to know who they are sleeping with.
Oasis: The major Britpop band. Their raucous guitar-based songs seem to use words that happen to rhyme, rather than ones which makes sense. However, their tunes and chord sequences have that vital commercial quality: they sound like you've heard them before. Especially if you have any Beatles records.
Blur: Their songs use a wide range of styles, are intelligent and often witty. (In one chart hit song they rhymed the French author 'Balzac' with the anti-depressant drug 'Prozac'.) Therefore they lost the much-hyped 'Blur versus Oasis' battle for the marketplace in the mid-1990s.
Any other group: Say 'their last album wasn't as good as the previous one'. You will always sound right. Except Radiohead, whose albums get better as they get less likely to win awards.
Britpop and football
In Italy, opera and football go together. Here, it is pop and football. Manchester United's David Beckham, one of England's boy wonder footballers, is engaged to Posh Spice. It is a kind of dream marriage. They appear every day in the newspapers.
But here is an even better dream: if Beckham scored the penalty which beat Germany in the World Cup Final this year. That would mean Mr Posh Spice beating the land of Beethoven.
Going Native