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

And it made for great inspiration to Roger Waters who wrote an entire opera based on that song.

Mathol, You mean to tell me you're not overly keen on the line of Victoria and Albert von Vindsor. Well you do surprise me. Bring back the Tudors of Anglesey! Where's Owain Glendwyr now that we need him?
I'd like to know why the Cadwallader flag isn't on the Union Jack. It's important. I'm related to this noble Welsh family. Hey, maybe I'm the real Prince of Wales?

Hi Lucky

My wife is of the royal line of Gruffydd, so .

You are correct, I am not very keen on Elisabet Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and her dysfunctional brood. There again England hasn't had an English King since Harold died on the ridge of Senlac Hill.

They've had:
Norman French,
Angevin French,
Plantagenet French,
Welsh Tudur,
Scot's Stewart,
A Dutchmen,
Then Germans ever since.

As for poor Owain, a flawed man of vaunting ambition, betrayed as much by himself as the perfidious albion.

We live still with his failure - an English chosen capital in Caerdydd for instance. The site of the Assembly should have been at Owain's last Parliament in Machynlleth. Perhaps then we'd have decent roads further north than Ebbw Vale.

We are not on the Union Jack because, despite English propaganda to the contrary, the Welsh people never accepted union. Technically we are the country in Europe with the longest history of continuous occupation by a foreign power. And when Eddie digs out the Treaty of Rhuddlan and other travesties of the English parliament I would remind him that the modern equivalent would be the US Congress declaring us the 51st state, and then invading to make it so.

You can tell the Six Nations has begun can't you!

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Hi Elentari

I do like someone with a positive mental attitude

As for PSE classes, well it began OK, but based on having two children enduring them now and bringing back their course and homework, they seem to have been hijacked by the Islington crew.

Most of my kids' work seems to be based around the multiculturism agenda of New Labour. Precious little about learning and celebrating our shared British values, and much more emphasis of teaching kids who they are not allowed to upset and why...

Tolerance is a perception of those being tolerated. For example, recent legislation means that the definition of a racist 'attack' is that the person being attacked believes it to be racist.

I'm not overly keen on the myth of tolerance. If we create and promote a society about shared values and social responsibilities we would not need to be tolerant.

In my mid-Wales idyll, immigrants of all types from pole to bangaldeshi, are in such small numbers that they, and especially their children, integrate fully into the local community. By accepting and sharing our values they become accepted in their turn. Thus where they differ no-one minds, indeed their diifferences are often celebrated in local schools etc.

Our shops and public services do not have special services for people who only speak Urdu, or Hindi, or Turkish, or Cantonese. You have to learn English or Welsh, and so the immigrants do. In my mind this is as it should be.

Setting up such services to support immigrant communities just allows them to remain separate, and so begins the friction and confusion that leads to racism.

There are moves amongst my peers to remove all English road signs. Not as a snub to the saesnegs, but to encourage the many English immigrants to begin learning the first language of the communities they are moving into.

It only seems fair...

Blessings,
Matholwch the curmudgeon .

So, how many generations does a family have to live in England to be considered English? I'm not being facetious. I'd genuinely like to know.

Tudor, Windsor, Plantagenet, Orange, Brunswick...I never voted for any of 'em.

btw, Math...Have you changed your mind about The Human Rights Act yet , or are you still going off at half male chicken?

That's what I was wondering, Hypatia.

Mathol,
By "first language" I see you live north of the line!
I'm quarried from Snowdon slate myself - or at least half of me is. The rest is Geordie. I luv 'em both.
David Greenslade the poet, God bless him, surrounded the Dosbarth with a circle of salt, a symbolic burning, so I reckon that will do for now.

Well - speaking as a Scot of English Ethnic Origin - sometimes my Englishness will be refered to, but it's never been a big deal. According to the Scottish National Party, the definition of a Scot is 'Someone who lives in Scotland'. They're a non-racist nationalist party. When I'm abroad, I refer to myself as Scottish. I get a better welcome than if I say I'm English.

The Welsh situation has its own complexities, and i leave others to comment.

>>I'm quarried from Snowdon slate myself

*My* great-great-grandfather owned the Blauneau mines. (But disinherited my great-grandma when she ran off to Liverpool with a sailor).

"When I'm abroad, I refer to myself as Scottish. I get a better welcome than if I say I'm English."

Any idea why?

Because people haven't gotten over stuff that happened 50 years ago or more depending on where you go.

Blimey Ed you must be a millionaire! My grandad slaved nearby at Rhyd Ddu. He lived in a tiny tumbledown cottage, a shack really, with no water and no back door but lots of kids - about halfway up Snowdon. Some other ancestors probably 'worked' at Blenau.
Your ancestor must have lived in a big house, probably the biggest house in North Wales.

>>"When I'm abroad, I refer to myself as Scottish. I get a better welcome than if I say I'm English."

In fairness, Tony2...it might be partly the legacy of colonialism, but there's other things going on to. Firstly, there's the perception of Scotland as a quaint little plucky nation where the men wear skirts and speak in an incomprehensible growl. So much more interesting than England. Then there's the football context. The Scots abroad are jovial party people, not like the violently drunk, arrogant English. I say this latter not out of sporting patriotism - I have no interest whatsoever in sport - but as a general observation. And in general the Scots are regarded as egalitarian, without the English baggage of class.

I believe you'll find, football hooligans granted, the Scottish are perceived as fowl mouthed, violent drinkers or crack addicts. Now yes they are egalitarian, the crack is supposedly so cheap it is for everyone but still. The plucky nation of men who wear skirts tends to be regarded by people who have no real knowledge of Scottish history beyond a certain date some time ago, and these people probably consider England to be full of bowler hat wearing tea drinkers, save the cockney shoe shine boys who work in the poorhouses of London.

Edward didn't say it was accurate, he just said that's how they are perceived.

As I did too, living in Glasgow I know this not to be true.

Ah Ed,
I overlooked the romantic disinherited great grandma/sailor Port of LIverpool story.
The tight-fisted old buzzard of Blenau is probably haunting the old manor ruins even as we speak. Or is that the wind?