That's Soooo English

England’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport today launched a program called “Icons – A Portrait of England” in which the public will be asked to help build a comprehensive list of national icons. Surprisingly, Big Ben did not make the initial list of 12 icons, which included a few surprises -- at least for this Yank:

The cup of tea

Spitfire fighter plane

Punch and Judy puppets

Stonehenge

SS Empire Windrush (which brought the first Caribbean immigrants to the U.K. in 1948)

Holbein’s “Henry VIII” portrait

Football Association Cup

“Alice in Wonderland”

Routmaster double-decker bus

King James Bible

Huge new “Angel of the North” sculpture at Tyneside

William Blake’s hymn “Jerusalem”

Nominations may be submitted to icons.org.uk, which apparently had crashed from too many hits when I tried to access it. A dozen more symbols will be announced each month.