How British are you?

Tomorrow is the Last Night of the Proms - that quintessential celebration of national pride. Would you qualify for attendance? Paul Vallely sets the quiz questions

On the eve of the Last Night of the Proms, the nation's annual indulgence in the dying art of jingoism, we present a questionnaire designed to gauge the level of your Britishness. This is particularly important now that the Proms director, Sir John Drummond, is banning hunting horns, whistles and klaxons, infringing the inalienable right of the British yeoperson to make as much noise as he/she wants in any public place. The first line of defence in all this, of course, is defining our own Britishness. Forget the Norman Tebbit cricket test with its simplistic insistence that you are who you cheer for. Life is more complicated than that. To find out how complex, tick the answer which most closely matches your own response, then, using the Independent's free Computer Extrapolation Nationhood Decoder, add up your score to discover whether you are a:

a. True Brit

b. New Brit

c. Hopeless Internationalist

d. Some kind of foreigner just pretending to be British.

Patriotism

1. Which of these is the most patriotic British song?

a. God Save the Queen

b. Jerusalem

c. Land of Hope and Glory

d. No Surrender to the IRA

2. When you see a Union Jack do you think first of

a. The Proms

b. Football hooligans

c. The Queen

d. The British National Party

3. How does the second verse of Rule Britannia begin?

a. Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers

b. Thy gracious gifts in store, on us be pleased to pour

c. Still more majestic shalt thou rise

d. Same as the first

Etiquette

4. When you meet people do you

a. Shake hands

b. Clap them on the back

c. Raise your hand in a vague salute and say Hi

d. Keep your hands by your side and fidget

5. When you're in a lift do you

a. Stare fixedly at the door

b. Engage strangers in trivial conversation

c. Talk in a loud voice about the new Conran restaurant

d. Talk in a loud voice about West Ham/Arsenal

6. When you have finished eating a fast food supper on the train home do you

a. Throw the debris out of the window

b. Tuck it discreetly under the seat

c. Get up to find a litter bin

d. You never eat fast food on trains

Language

7. As you raise your glass in a pub do you say

a. Cheers!

b. Bottoms up!

c. You drinkin' my beer?

d. Here's looking at Euclid

8. When leaving someone do you say

a. Bye-bye

b. Ciao

c. Good-bye

d. Byeeeee!

9. "You simply must come round for lunch" means

a. You must come round for lunch

b. It would be nice to meet again, but not just yet

c. I never want to see you again

d. Are you taking the piss?

Lifestyle

10. Where do you prefer to have sex?

a. In the bedroom at night (lights off)

b. In the Range Rover in a lay-by

c. In a four-poster once occupied by Mary Queen of Scots

d. In the controlled environment of a fertility clinic.

11. Apart from getting washed, what else do you do in the bath?

a. Perfect the Pavarotti/Julie Andrews impersonation

b. Phone people on the mobile

c. Massage someone's back with aromatherapy oils

d. Stand up and squirt yourself with the shower attachment

Food and Drink

12. Which of these drinks would you prefer?

a. Chivas Regal

b. Warm beer

c. Alcoholic lemonade

d. Jacob's Creek

13. After the pub do you fancy

a. Fish 'n' chips

b. A cheese sandwich at home

c. A vegetarian thali

d. A chicken vindaloo and another pint of lager

Clothing

14. What do you wear in bed?

a. Stripey cotton pyjamas

b. Jermyn St silk pyjamas

c. A T-shirt

d. Nothing but your jewellery

15. Where do you buy your suits?

a. Savile Row/Hardy Amies

b. Hugo Boss/Versace

c. M&S

d. Paul Smith/Nicole Farhi

Politics

16. The pounds 50m National Lottery grant to the Royal Opera House ...

a. Should have gone on cancer research

b. Was an appropriate donation to a great national institution

c. Reveals an elitist metropolitan attitude to funding the arts

d. Was a load of toffs looking after their own

17. What do you think of Greenpeace?

a. They seem a bit rough but are probably on balance a good thing

b. They are the environmental heroes of our age

c. Their news management techniques are very adroit

d. I like them frozen out of a packet

Sport

18. Who is Britain's greatest footballer?

a. Eric Cantona

b. Bobby Charlton

c. Gary Lineker

d. Gazza

19. What is the quintessential British sport?00

a. Cricket

b. Croquet

c. Darts

d. Fantasy Football

The arts

20. Your favourite TV comedy is

a. Monty Python

b. Dad's Army

c. Birds Of A Feather

d. Michael Moore's TV Nation

21. When you come home from the pub, drunk, you put on a CD of

a. West Side Story

b. Zairean guitar music

c. Pomp and Circumstance

d. Whigfield

Cars

22. If buying a new car would you choose

a. A German one, because they are most reliable

b. A Rover, because even if the bits are all made elsewhere it has a British name

c. A Nissan, because at least the gear box is made in England

d. A Pontiac Le Mans - not because it is made up of parts produced in 18 different countries - but because it is seriously flash

Leisure

23. With an afternoon to spare in London which do you visit?

a. Harrods

b. John Lewis in Oxford Street

c. Lakeside, Thurrock

d. Brick Lane market

24. Where do you go on holiday?

a. The Dordogne

b. Orlando, Florida

c. The north Norfolk Coast

d. The Yorkshire Dales and James Herriot country

25. Who is the most embarrassing Brit to meet abroad on holiday?

a. A lager lout with a lobster red chest

b. A man with too-short shorts, socks and trainers and a Boots carrier bag

c. One who speaks the lingo loudly

d. One who speaks the lingo badly

How to score: using the following Nationhood Decoder, add up your total points.

1. a. 7 b. 1 c. 5 d. 3

2. a. 5 b. 1 c. 7 d. 3

3. a. 1 b. 7 c. 5 d. 3

4. a. 7 b. 3 c. 1 d. 5

5. a. 5 b. 7 c. 1 d. 3

6. a. 3 b. 7 c. 1 d. 5

7. a. 5 b. 7 c. 3 d. 1

8. a. 5 b. 1 c. 7 d. 3

9. a. 7 b. 5 c. 1 d. 3

10. a. 5 b. 3 c. 7 d. 1

11. a. 5 b. 3 c. 1 d. 7

12. a. 7 b. 1 c. 3 d. 5

13. a. 7 b. 5 c. 1 d. 3

14. a. 5 b. 7 c. 1 d. 3

15. a. 7 b. 3 c. 5 d. 1

16. a. 5 b. 7 c. 1 d. 3

17. a. 5 b. 7 c. 1 d. 3

18. a. 1 b. 7 c. 5 d. 3

19. a. 5 b. 7 c. 3 d. 1

20. a. 7 b. 5 c. 3 d. 1

21. a. 5 b. 1 c. 7 d. 3

22. a. 5 b. 7 c. 1 d. 3

23. a. 7 b. 5 c. 3 d. 1

24. a. 5 b. 3 c. 1 d. 7

25. a. 5 b. 1 c. 3 d. 7

THE BRITISHNESS INDICES

More than 125 points

Where have you been hiding? Of course you may not be a real Brit at all (check your family tree for miscegenation - perhaps you are descended from the German spy who was arrested during the Second World War after parachuting in wearing plus-fours in emulation of his favourite author, PG Wodehouse). Or perhaps you have been on some kind of Rip Van Winkle exercise and still think that civil servants wear bowler hats and everyone has egg and bacon for breakfast. Either way, you are either totally out of touch or a completely unreconstructed Edwardian.

125-76 points

You are a True Brit, one of that breed which is still in possession of a stiff upper lip, even if it is now inflicted with the occasional palsied quiver (where it is not actually crumbling). In your head you know that the days of world power greatness have gone for ever, but in your heart there is something which hankers for it. For you, the clock will always stand at ten to three, even if the village green has been sold off for a hypermarket development and the golf club has been infiltrated by entryists from the New Britain (see below).

75-35 points

You are a New Brit. You have embraced the world of global warming and economic permafrost energetically, if not enthusiastically. And you are doing very nicely out of it, thank you. You may be an advocate of shell suits and Estuary English but it is probably a bit more subtle than that. Yes, you know BSkyB is naff but who gives a bugger so long as you get the sports channel. And there may be a lot of stuffed-up old gits in the golf club (see above), but you've got to admit they've done some nice work on the greens.

Under 35 points

You are a bit of a wimp - an irredeemable European, a wet new internationalist - but you are quite capable of leaving the alternative culture on one side from time to time to engage in a little post-modernist (leavened with the appropriate irony) money-making. You may still have all the badges of spiritual correctness but you knew when to stop eating polenta and when to trade in Cambodia for Cornwall and the Arvo Part for the plainchant. Cynical? Toi? Being plugged into the Internet makes you a hopeless non- Brit citizen of the world, which is, after all, where the money is.