Oh! What larks! What larks we had! There we were, the other evening, the whole damn lot of us, drunk as lords on tankards overflowing with ale and cider, in our oversize comedy bowler hats, carousing down the streets singing verses from Jerusalem - 'And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England's mountains green' - alternating with the odd burst of Shakespeare - 'This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise ....'
Well, maybe it wasn't quite like that. I did drink a toast to St George on Monday, but it was Spanish sherry in a Moroccan-style tapas bar, so I guess I couldn't have been trying too hard, although maybe I can get away with saying I was 'celebrating our diversity' or some other sort of modish drivel that cascades constantly down upon us.
In fact, not only did I not try too hard, it seemed nobody did, or, in fact, to try at all. Perhaps, it is because, as a people, unlike the Welsh with St David's Day, or the Irish (and English, ironically) with St Patrick's Day, that the English are sufficiently self-confident in who they are not to need these overt public displays asserting our identity.
Or, more likely, it's probably because, if we started celebrating our Englishness, before you could say, 'That police horse is a poofter', Thought Plod would have you down the stairs at St Aldate's for racially aggravated something-or-other under the 1986 Public Order Act.
Indeed, we must always remember, when we think of the police as friendly, thief-knicking, honest-citizen-respecting Dixon of Proverbial-types, the case of 78-year-old George Staunton, from Liverpool, who was arrested and charged with racially aggravated criminal damage after writing on a wall - which was due to be knocked down - 'Free speech for England', ghastly racist as he must have been to entertain such a thought.
What they would to do to somebody who actually thought the racial fact of being born English worth celebrating, god only knows. All I can say is, keep your nails short - it's less easy for the pliers to get a grip on them.