#DrummondPuddleWatch is the most British thing we’ve ever seen

When you think of what it means to be British, what comes to mind? Talking about the weather a lot, sure. A sarcastic sense of humour, of course. But nothing, nothing, is more British than enjoying the misery of others.

This goes some of the way to explaining why over 19,000 of us tuned in to watch a livestream of a puddle on Periscope.

In case you’re wondering what you’re seeing here, it is literally just a quite big puddle in the middle of a busy Newcastle footpath. Even as I write this in the afternoon day of the puddle, 19,000 people are watching online.

On top of that, actual people have actually gathered around the puddle. It’s a Wednesday, don’t they have jobs to go to? Don’t they have families to spend time with? The point is, this puddle is Britain. Britain is this puddle.

Where else in the world would people watch a livestream for several hours on the off chance that they would get to see someone get their feet wet? Nowhere, that’s where. Where else would anyone even think to start up a livestream of a puddle? You guessed it, nowhere.

Your eyes do not deceive you. Someone even went to the effort to find the puddle, go to it with an empty bottle of water, fill up said bottle with water from the puddle, and list it on eBay. Furthermore, in what we can only hope is a pisstake, someone has bid £65,900 (plus postage) in order to own this. This bottle of puddle water. Water from an actual puddle.

The puddle being the epitome of Britishness doesn’t simply extend to enjoying the pain of others. There’s a slightly less morbid undertone to it, one of hope and of humour.

The puddle is a throwback to the days of the Blitz during World War Two. Buildings were tumbling every night, but the ‘stiff upper lip’, ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude got us through. The last few months have been pretty rough, but we’re making the best of it. York is flooded, but people are getting their feet wet on the way to work a few miles away, and that’s pretty great.

A man turned up with a surfboard, another turned up with a lilo. Approximately 135,623,358 parody twitter accounts chipped in with their poorly photoshopped efforts in an attempt to gain followers in a hashtag smash and grab.

When William Blake wrote ‘Jerusalem’, our unofficial national anthem, he somehow managed to omit a line about a puddle. This is a tragedy, as it encapsulates Britishness. Would it be too much to use a picture of the puddle on our currency instead of a portrait of the queen? Absolutely not.

Nowhere else in the world would it be acceptable for someone to watch a puddle online for several hours, but that’s ok. Keep up the good work, Britain.