I’m going to begin by saying that I live in the UK. I was born in the UK, and I’m not that well-travelled, having visited the US, France, Belgium and Ireland. But I wanted to provide some patronizing education about the UK. About what it is, and what it isn’t. We are pretty much unique (that is, we stand alone with Israel and New Zealand) insomuch as we don’t have a written constitution embodied in a single document. But discussing that will lead to complex issues that I’m certainly not qualified to educate anyone on.

So, the UK. Or, to give it its full name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Let’s break it down geographically. Great Britain is the big chunk of land just north of France that looks like an old man riding a pig. It does, honestly, if you stretch your imagination. Great Britain comprises that large island, together with lots of smaller islands dotted around its circumference, close to the land mass. Northern Ireland (the other part of the UK) is a small piece of land (six counties, to be exact) on the island mass of Ireland (Eire, or the Republic of Ireland), which is a couple of hundred miles to the east of Great Britain. So, one nation of the four nations comprising the UK, is separate from Great Britain. Great Britain is divided into three nations – England, Scotland and Wales. So England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are the four nations that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the other part of the island of Ireland is nothing to do with the UK. It’s Eire or the Irish Republic.) Usually, we’re just called “the UK”, or, less accurately, Britain. And confusingly, as a people we are called Britons, or British, though most people within the UK are more likely to describe themselves as English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish (or sometimes, for political reasons, just plain Irish). If you’re not sure which part of the UK someone comes from, refer to them as British. As an insult (and nationalists within the UK would consider being called British something of an insult), it’s nowhere near as bad as really messing up and referring to someone from Scotland as English.

If you’re a celebrity of some kind, and you come to the UK to do a publicity tour, don’t say that you’ve come to England. Say that you’ve come to Britain. And get to know your audience. Staunch nationalists from England might baulk at being called British, but staunch nationalists from Scotland may contemplate hitting you for calling them British. If you do refer to someone from Scotland as English, you should start running before you’ve even completed your sentence.

Now, the UK is governed by the parliament in London, which meets at Westminster Palace. That’s the thing erroneously referred to as Big Ben, when you actually just mean the tower. And, in fact, the tower is not Big Ben. Big Ben is merely the bell within the tower. Each of the four nations of the UK has MPs (members of parliament), who represent constituencies consisting of one or two towns and a number of villages. England is, by far, the largest part of the UK, with the largest population and the greatest number of MPs, but unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which each have their own form of parliament, separate from Westminster, England does not. By far the most powerful part of the UK is London – which can lead to some very London-centric views cascading down to the masses, leaving those in the north feeling marginalized and ignored by the government. But now I’m getting involved in discussing politics, and that’s not what this article is about.

Basically, we are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Ireland isn’t part of the UK, Northern Ireland is on the island of Ireland, but is part of the UK, and Scotland, Wales and England are on the island of Great Britain. We are English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish, but we are known at British, or Britons. Even those from Northern Ireland, which doesn’t form part of Great Britain. Now, I hope that’s cleared things up a little.