What will Britishness mean to Prince George? In July 2031 Prince George will turn 18: the same age that I am now. He will be embarking on a very different kind of adulthood to mine - one that's unobscured by the haze of endless possibilities that greets my every attempt at crystal ball-gazing. The future King George VII won't be concerned by career fairs and work experience. But he will, like me, be coming of age as a British teenager - a great joy, unless you're asked to write about it. The idea of Britishness evolves with every passing generation. My own understanding of what it means to be young and British is slightly different to Boyle's, and many of the traditional tenets of British nationalism leave me cold. I don't know the words to Jerusalem, I couldn't umpire a cricket match and Earl Grey makes me feel a little nauseous - as does One Britain One Nation's definition of Britishness as "the shared values of tolerance, respect and fair play, a belief in freedom and democracy." As a soon-to-be History undergraduate, much of my sense of national identity is rooted in our past. Elizabeth I's Golden Speech makes classrooms go as quiet as they no doubt did in my parent's generation, and the spine-tingling effect of Chapter 40 of the Magna Carta - "to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice" - defies any youthful nonchalance. But it wasn't history that got me out of bed in time to be on the 6am train to London on the day Prince George's parents married, a face of intense concentration beneath my patriotic facepaint as I finished off the union jacks on my fingernails with Tippex and a toothpick. "Kate 'n' Will" captured me and my friends' hearts not because they are part of an ancient institution but because they embody the informality and energy that is at the core of youthful Britishness. Despite the world's image of us as a nation of middle-aged men with starched shirts, stiff upper lips and a surplus of snobbery, our sense of nationalism is about exactly the opposite - something far closer to Boyle's burning, clanking uproar of an industrial revolution. It's the things that are real and restless and equalising that are to me the most intensely British: the tube map, not Buckingham Place; tipsy students at a kebab stand, rather than Shakespeare. It's a dynamic brand of patriotism that's curious, irreverent and accepting. Constantly evolving, thanks to its openness to new ideas and cultures, and refusing to be easily committed to paper, Britishness is an audacious way of looking at the world, rather than a burgundy passport cover. Baby George has much to look forward to in the next 18 years: it's still true that to be born British is to win first prize in the lottery of life. Carola Binney has recently taken her A-levels