h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If it all stands or falls on the purity of the genetic line, you'll be lucky. When I was at school, one of my friends was a Welsh nationalist. She was born there but her dad was German and her mum was English. She persuaded me to be a Welsh nationalist too (don't look at me like that - we were only 14 at the time) even though I was born in England. She thought I should be allowed because my mum was Welsh - never mind my dad was a Scot. If everyone has to go home to the country of their ancestors, we'll all need dissecting And just imagine the population chaos if all the Americans, Canadians, Australians and all the rest had to come back to England. There'd be standing room only. Oh, it would be murder!

I don't really want to be Cornish, or anything else -ish. I wrote this after reading some old posts from "Kernow Tinner" and hearing the same kind of ideas from my relations. My intention was to try and make fun of some people who take themselves too seriously.

I guessed from its tone that it was a tongue-firmly-in-cheek piece. Even so, I can't help having some sympathy. The people in the Lake District are having similar problems. It seems to be the rich folks buying second homes and pushing all the prices up for locals whilst contributing nothing to the community, that gets people's backs up. In Wales, they've been know to set light to English-owned holiday homes. Seems a bit extreme. But then people do tend to get extreme and behave unreasonably when they feel powerless to solve their own problems and ignored by their political representatives.