Olympinonsense

[Anna]

OK, here's the thing, this is where we are, OK, Right, this is the thing. I am so, well absolutely into this, you know, in those terms of diversity and inclusivity? Right, well, opening ceremony, Danny Boyle, Indian, knows about that stuff. Classic. It's so like Slumdog Millionaire, cool. It's like, so unbeliveable, like, he's got Welsh, English, Scottish and even the English sort of, jumping to some really London-centric vibe, like, absolutely classic, Mods (oh, they've honed in on Bradley Wiggins and Paul Weller) and there's some, well, toe curling carp about National Health linked to a Dr. Who episode. Wouldn't surprise me if it were all filmed in Cardiff and transmitted virtually.

[scottycelt]

Oh, right Lats. Bluddy Scots causing trouble again!! Kick 'em out of the EU. And, Braveheart was probably a wuss!!!

A 'WUSS' ... ? ... Braveheart's antecedents are believed to have emigrated from Wales, Anna ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I'm catching your drift now Lat. You are not being ant-Scot, anti-Welsh, anti-Irish, etc., but you are are concerned about the obscene amounts of money being spent on the Olympic Games. With that you have my full sympathy.
Worse still is David Cameron cashing in on the games for political reasons; mind you, he's tried just about everything else - and failed. The only thing he can be satisfied with it that he has hoodwinked the Lib-Dems into supporting him for 5 whole years. And that, so far, he has got away with stealing the money from public sector pensions.

[Anna]

A 'WUSS' ... ? ... Braveheart's antecedents are believed to have emigrated from Wales, Anna ...

Yes. So that makes all Scots Welsh? And, St. Patrick was also Welsh, so hello? I'm just going to enjoy the opening ceremony of Britain and, quite frankly, leave nationalities behind, because, when push comes to shove, we are British, flawed mongrels that we are, and proud of it.

[scottycelt]

Yes. So that makes all Scots Welsh? And, St. Patrick was also Welsh, so hello? I'm just going to enjoy the opening ceremony of Britain and, quite frankly, leave nationalities behind, because, when push comes to shove, we are British, flawed mongrels that we are, and proud of it.

No, we Scots claim St Patrick as well!

To be British does not mean the Scots or Welsh becoming English as Lateralthinking and the Daily Mail seem to demand.

I agree that all UK countries benefit from unity as do all Europeans, but that, in turn, does not mean all Europeans must think and behave like the dominant Germans.

[Lateralthinking1]

I think I'm catching your drift now Lat. You are not being ant-Scot, anti-Welsh, anti-Irish, etc., but you are are concerned about the obscene amounts of money being spent on the Olympic Games. With that you have my full sympathy.
Worse still is David Cameron cashing in on the games for political reasons; mind you, he's tried just about everything else - and failed. The only thing he can be satisfied with it that he has hoodwinked the Lib-Dems into supporting him for 5 whole years. And that, so far, he has got away with stealing the money from public sector pensions.

Just about Eine. Plus my philosophy since the 1960s has effectively been "we should all be in this together". Ideally the "this" would be about positives but it applies equally in good times and in bad. I have always tended to get very grumpy when other people do not have this outlook, quite irrespective of any direct involvement of me, but of course when it is felt to have impacts on me as well as others, I am grumpier still. Perhaps the worst kind of context in which to find acute symptoms of division is one that is presented as everyone being all in it together. These Olympics are such a context and consequently I find them hard to accept. There is then almost a moral duty to show up any inequalities and indeed how conflict can escalate, if necessary graphically.

I am not anti-Scottish, anti-Welsh, anti-Irish or anti any other nationality. Unusually, there have been long periods in my life when I have been for such cultures above English culture which with hindsight wasn't a good thing. My current position is that I have very little feeling around any specific culture, including the English. That has arisen from all the obvious downsides. Promotion of a culture on its own is good, as is a joining of cultures, but promotion of a culture combined with an attack on other cultures is bad. There has been rather too much of that lately. When people are becoming less rather than more harmonious, I think it leads somewhat regrettably to more of a necessity for basic cultural rules to be enforced. Still, I can never quite understand why people don't place the most emphasis on individual traits for it seems to me that those are pretty automatic and matter far more.

[Richard Tarleton]

Listening to vox pop interviews on the TV news I'm starting to think there can only be two adjectives left in the English language - "amazing", and "massive".

[Anna]

No, we Scots claim St Patrick as well!

We'll share him!! OK? Patrick (Patricius or Padrig) was born around 386 AD to wealthy parents. Patrick's birthplace is in fact debatable, with many believing that he was born in the still Welsh-speaking Northern Kingdom of Strathclyde of Romano-Brythonic stock, at Bannavem Taberniae. Others consider his birthplace to be in the south of Wales around the Severn estuary, or at St. Davids in Pembrokeshire, the tiny city of St Davids sitting directly on the seagoing missionary and trade routes to and from Ireland. His birth name was Maewyn Succat.

[Anna]

I am not anti Scottish, anti-Welsh, anti-Irish or anti any other nationality. Unusually, there have been long periods in my life when I have been for such cultures above English culture which with hindsight wasn't a good thing.

But the point is Lat, being Welsh I am also fiercely pro-British (and that includes the Scots (blessm 'em) and the Irish. I still fail to see where you are coming from, we are alll one (British) but
we pull together. Or, how do you define English? The Angles, Danes, Goths, Visi-Goths and the Vandals? There is a rich mix. Whilst the true Britons were pushed Westwards.
Oh well, back to Olympic Park now. Should be fun! See others much later on re verdict.

[Lateralthinking1]

But the point is Lat, being Welsh I am also fiercely pro-British (and that includes the Scots (blessm 'em) and the Irish. I still fail to see where you are coming from, we are alll one (British) but
we pull together. Or, how do you define English? The Angles, Danes, Goths, Visi-Goths and the Vandals? There is a rich mix.
Oh well, back to Olympic Park now.

Anna, I salute you for that position. I would also salute you if you were a Welsh Nationalist who hated the idea of being in Britain so much that you hoped climate change would soon turn Wales into a separate island.

My problem would be (a) if your love of Wales was such that you were not simply content to promote its culture and any independence but were also strongly anti-English and/or against what remained of Britain without Wales or (b) you hated Britain and yet were prepared to use it to your own personal advantage. Giggs and Bellamy might appear to be in category (b).

Defining Englishness is one of the challenges of our age. British is easier - you don't have to sing the national anthem to be British but you do have to sing the national anthem when required if you decide to represent Britain, otherwise you aren't representing it.

[Anna]

My problem would be (a) if your love of Wales was such that you were not simply content to promote its culture and any independence but were also strongly anti-English and/or against what remained of Britain without Wales or (b) you hated Britain and yet were prepared to use it to your own advantage. Giggs and Bellamy might appear to be in category (b).

No, none of those apply to me. England is of course, the peninsular attached to the mainland of Wales!
Lighten up Lat and enjoy the opening ceremony! It'll be fun.

[Richard Tarleton]

Most people are probably more of a mixture than they realise. I've done an amazing, not to say massive, amount of work on my family tree, going back 400 years. Of 8 great grandparents, 3 were English (back to 18th century, but one from Huguenot origins), two were Welsh (and Welsh speaking at that), one Scottish (of Highland Jacobite stock), one American (from Founding Fathers stock) and one French Canadian (from Guernsey a couple of generations back). Basically, when someone says they're English, Scottish etc., I'd want to know more.

[Lateralthinking1]

Most people are probably more of a mixture than they realise. I've done an amazing, not to say massive, amount of work on my family tree, going back 400 years. Of 8 great grandparents, 3 were English (back to 18th century, but one from Huguenot origins), two were Welsh (and Welsh speaking at that), one Scottish (of Highland Jacobite stock), one American (from Founding Fathers stock) and one French Canadian (from Guernsey a couple of generations back). Basically, when someone says they're English, Scottish etc., I'd want to know more.

Yes, actually I am officially the only person in Greater London whose ancestry is wholly located in Greater London. Well, probably. Both parents and all four grandparents were from Central London and the oldest goes back to 1889. That's rare in the capital. The irony is that I look like a Jewish Spaniard, neither part of which I am. There was a memorable evening on a railway platform. After an England football victory I was interrogated by a number of England supporters on why I was wearing an England shirt when very obviously I wasn't English supposedly. You might see in this how I was open to non-English cultures from an early age.



Anna, I will have a look at the opening and try to enjoy it as an artistic spectacle. I won't half be glad though when it is all over. There is something about these games. I feel that they will need have ended before I can begin to put 2010 in the past.

[Beef Oven]

Yes, actually I am officially the only person in Greater London whose ancestry is wholly located in Greater London. Well, probably. Both parents and all four grandparents were from Central London and the oldest goes back to 1889. That's rare in the capital. The irony is that I look like a Jewish Spaniard, neither part of which I am. There was a memorable evening on a railway platform. After an England football victory I was interrogated by a number of England supporters on why I was wearing an England shirt when very obviously I wasn't English supposedly. You might see in this how I was open to non-English cultures from an early age.



Anna, I will have a look at the opening and try to enjoy it as an artistic spectacle. I won't half be glad though when it is all over. There is something about these games. I feel that they will need have ended before I can begin to put 2010 in the past.

My grandad on my English side was born in 1882 in Hoxton, which was then in Middlesex.

[Lateralthinking1]

My grandad on my English side was born in 1882 in Hoxton

which was then in Middlesex.

- Are you quite sure? Isn't Hoxton east?