@fkamiah17 🤔 Well, I believe it was the Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Normans. Who all came from ... Europe. So yes, it was Europe who did all that. In a manner of speaking.
I'm (at least) half Welsh and that is where my core socialist influence comes from. English by birth but my heart is always with Wales and Michael is one of the greatest living Welshmen. When he speaks I'm ready to storm the barricades ✊
@Twoclownseating@fkamiah17
🤗🤗
I'm Scots Irish on my dad's side
Welsh English on my Mum's side
The English is the bit I'm least happy about,
I'm honourary not English, if that's a thing 🤣🤣🤣
@Twoclownseating Right? Sadly I'm 100% English but I've been adopted by my Welsh community here and would take a Welsh/European passport in a heartbeat!
Remember that improptu speech to the Welsh footie team on that TV show? Anyone would walk through fire with that kind of inspiration.
Strangely he doesn't seem to draw nearly as much flak as other dissenting voices from the right wing headbangers. Gary Linekar can't tie his shoelaces without creating a shit storm
@Twoclownseating I think Lineker being on MoTD and a football hero paints a bigger target on his back. Plus Englanders think Wales isn't a separate country 🤬
Being 100% English isn't something to regret, it's a great country (albeit without a discernible identity of its own).
The real regret? The iniquitous UK electoral system, the Gothic constitution and the right wing xenophobic curtain twitching pearl clutching Little Englander diddies who've allowed the country to be hijacked by the likes of Farage and Gove.
An excellent thread, highlighting that "nationality" isn't about "blood", but about a "state of mind". Like Mia, my direct ancestry is "English" (possibly my mother's family has Welsh roots) but I feel so much more in common with the ideas of Welsh social justice.
Incidentally, Sheen's poem refers to the "Laws of Hwyl Dda". One I wouldn't resurrect is that your family must go back 8 generations for you to be "Welsh"...
I had an "Uncle" Billy (he wasn't blood family), my Grandads best friend from the war. I saw him every year, he'd come and stay for a few weeks, he eventually lived with us until he died
He was the most Scottish man I've ever met, accent, turn of phrase, porridge for breakfast every day
On his deathbed I learnt he was actually Polish, came after the war to join his sister who was a refugee in Glasgow
@Twoclownseating@Henrysbridge@MadeyeTheCarnaptious AFAIK there are a quite a few Polish families who stayed in Scotland after they trained and flew missions for the RAF in the war.
There's a brilliant film about that (the RAF bit, not the Scottish bit) called A Dark Blue World.
@Twoclownseating@Henrysbridge@MadeyeTheCarnaptious Not to mention the Commonwealth soldiers. Their whole idea of WWII is a jingoistic fiction.
There's a Scots-Polish character in the very brilliant drama about Bosnia called Warriors too - it makes a very interesting counterpoint with how he's treated by the Bosnian Serbs.
@fkamiah17 TBH, with the persistent failure/acquiescence of the SNP, the growth of Welsh Awareness and the edging dramatically towards a United Ireland I'm beginning to think #Scotland will be last to be free.
I used to think we'd be first. But the letdowns THIS side of the border are our biggest problem.
It's been a DECADE since the first, and very dodgy, #IndyRef and we are demonstrably worse off than we were then.
W'minster isn't taking our legislative power, ScotGov is LETTING them.
@Penguinflight I don't know enough about it to comment with any accuracy but I can understand why you might think that. Ireland's going to beat both of us to it, I think, now that Stormont's up and running. I think that'll be the tipping point for the rest of us.
@fkamiah17@selzero Loved him in Masters of Sex, Prodigal Son, Good Omens, Interview with the Vampire, Frost/Nixon, basically I just love him. I think he might be the best actor alive.
@CommonMugwort@selzero I've never seen him be bad in anything. He's got a new TV drama that he wrote and directed coming out soon - I imagine that'll be brilliant too. It's filmed in his home town of Port Talbot (also the home town of Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins).
@fkamiah17@MadeyeTheCarnaptious on a personal note, while I support independence for Scotland, Wales etc. There is a strand of exclusionary Nationalism that comes with it sadly (not Mr Sheen).
When it happens I become homeless in many ways, being a mutt of English, Irish, Italian, Romany (and yorkshire, but we don't mention that bit, prefer the Hampshire side). I am not and have never felt English, and UKIP et al, made it clear they didn't consider me it either.
@BashStKid@Thebratdragon@MadeyeTheCarnaptious On a personal level, I've found that civic nationalism - as regards accepting non-native Welsh residents as Welsh - is alive and well here.
Add comment