Anyone reading this outside the UK, brace yourself for a shock announcement:

British people do not stop at 4pm for a cup of tea. British people do not live in castles. And most British people will never meet the Queen.

See above to launch a slideshow of Michael Johnson's campaign. Images © British Council

In fact these statements are unlikely to surprise many people. Yet when thinking of images of Britain, the traditional aspects of the country are what usually springs to mind.

Lucrative heritage

This was the problem facing the British Council in its efforts to fulfil its role of promoting the way Britain is represented abroad: how to show something of the modern day reality without trashing the country's heritage - which has, let's face it, proved lucrative enough in the past.

Penrhyn Castle in Wales: The sort of image of Britain used, until now, to promote the country

"We wanted to show Britain with great traditional successes, but also as a contemporary, forward-looking society," said the council's Chris Hickey.

Designer Michael Johnson, 34, who has been responsible for the look of some of Prime Minister Tony Blair's pet projects, started wrestling with his brief.

The series of 12 designs he came up with compare old images of Britain on the left hand side with new ones on the right, or as he prefers to put, images of Britain "then", and Britain "now".

English lessons

The posters are now being sent out to the British Council's 900 classrooms in 54 countries, where 130,000 students go for English lessons every day.

Michael Johnson says: "I wanted to make it easy to understand what has changed about Britain. But we discovered that wherever people had an idea about Britain, it was based on the heritage aspect.

"I really didn't want to do a series of posters about castles or changing the guard, but I came to the conclusion that you couldn't throw out the heritage. In fact you can't do one without the other."

Novelist Frederick Forsyth

The posters emphasise British achievement in sport, art, literature, music and even - with a fair degree of chutzpah - cooking.

Not everyone approves of Johnson's approach, however. Author Frederick Forsyth for one.

He said: "The tone of the whole campaign seems to be that by the grace of God, since May 1 last year [when Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister] Britain has been fizzing with talent, as if this is a completely new phenomenon and never been seen before.

"It's a remarkably conceited view, that all this British talent stems from the new self confidence which we got on May 1, rather like AD 1. And it's simply not true.

"The implication behind it is that there has been a 30-year hiatus, that we had talent then, and we've got it now, thanks to the influence of Mr Blair. In fact the talent never stopped."

Any similarity between John Lennon. . .

One poster which will not be appearing is one comparing John Lennon on the left and Oasis's Noel Gallagher on the right.

The reason, which will surprise anyone who knows about Gallagher's admiration for the former Beatle, was that Gallagher did not want to appear.

. . .and Noel Gallagher is totally coincidental

Johnson says: "Gallagher didn't go for it. I thought he'd like it, but maybe he thought the spin would be bad."

Also in production for the council's classrooms are clocks with British icons in place of the numbers - so England football captain Alan Shearer in his number nine shirt appears in place of the number, James Bond appears at seven, and Henry VIII at number six.

Wider theme

The place for number four had been allotted to the Beatles, but because no agreement could be reached with the Apple company, the newly down-sized Spice Girls took the slot.

World Service's new look

Although the poster campaign is only to have a limited exposure, the theme behind it is something being addressed by other British bodies, not least the entire Foreign Office.