I truly hate it when I see my opponent nimbly push his queen bishop pawn two squares forth (1. c4). I'm often at a loss as to how to react particularly against the Bremen system where white fianchettoes the KB. My problem is there doesn't seem to be any hope of making the game remotely interesting after the English is played.I need something more aggressive than 1...e6 which is what I've been playing lately.

Anyone have a recommendation?

you could try the e5 f5 g6 bg7 ne7 setups. This setup against the english promises quite good chances for a typical KID pawnstorm. goodluck :)

maybe you should search youtube to find some good vedios on english

You can try 1...b5!?, playing more or less like the Benko without the white pawn on d5 (which I find very annoying) and with more flexibility (there are no fixed pawns on c5 and d6).

Since you play the open sicilian try the reversed one.

 Oh God, oh God, we're going to to die (Firefly anyone?)

You must be one of those English players... -wink-.

Thanks all for the advice. Think I'll start looking for variations that involve f5 and a pawn storm similar to the KID!

Interesting enough? The openings don't play themselves. If you want a game to be "interesting" then you need to do something about it.

I would throw out e6 unless I was going to play a stonewall since 1.c4 e6 2.e3 is really dry. Now that position would be a problem.

maybe try c6

In my little experience, it's usually a backdoor to try for a double Tarrasch.

1...c5! is my suggestion which usually leads to exciting and interesting strategical struggles with equal chances for both sides.

Not very often leading to those boring messy positions which you have to clean up by calculating dozens of lines concretely.

My standard answer to 1.c4 is d5 => the Vector Gambit

2.cxd5 c6 3. dxc6 Nxc6 and then you have kind of Smith-Morra-Gambit from the black side.

Clyde Nakamura wrote an article on Chessville about this interesting gambit.

Only makes sense for tactical players of course...

something like this is interesting