I know Daniel gets a little bit annoyed at me sometimes for being quite proud of my country’s secular ways, but I’m putting that down to jealousy over stories like this one:

“Answering questions from MPs on the Commons education select committee on Wednesday, Mr Gove [Michael Gove, UK Education Secretary] said: “One of the most striking things that I read recently was a thought from Richard Dawkins that he might want to take advantage of our education legislation to open a new school, which was set up on an explicitly atheist basis.”

It seems sometimes that the US and the UK, despite many cultural similarities [read: We're adopting big chunks of yours] have the exact opposite system of government when it comes to religion. To clarify: Ours is filled with pomp, tradition and religious ceremony and is even headed by the titular head of the Church of England – but in actual fact, religion has very little influence over us. We largely ignore it. On the other hand, the USA is explicitly secular by law, and yet you can’t seem to keep religion out of US politics with a crowbar.

Much as there are many things I really dislike about my own nation… Things like this make me happy and just a little bit smug :-)