Britishness

National Public Radio (NPR, from the US) is running a series on Britishness, and the five-part series is framed as a modern rendition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  The first installment is pretty interesting, focusing on multiculturalism:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102891832

Several years back there was a move to identify what it means to be British, or even just English.  I recall that the answer was that the British are a people that don't want to be classified!  The society is so multicultural, it's easy to see why they would be hard to classify.