The Welsh Blind-spot

[Godwynn]

Why? It already has been btw, but on what basis is this the "right" thing?

England > Wales, Scotland, and Ireland

Germany > Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark

 

[JZ_UK]

Wales has a population roughly the size of the North East... why don't we hear more praise for the North East?!

Face it old boy... The United Kingdom is some fluffy concept attached to London, somewhere in this outer fuzz is a place where people speak like Grounds Keeper Willy... thats about it... oh, and its very small, about the size of the average american car

 

[woody60707]

Wales is to the UK what the deep south is to the US.

but here we say goat jokes.

 

[luiz]

Not much, admittedly. I know it was founded by Spain, probably some time in the 17th or 18th century, probably gained independence in the 19th century (possibly aided by Bolivar). Didn't they then engage in a series of wars with their neighbours over their borders? They won the first ever football World Cup

It was actually founded in the 16th Century, and indeed gained independence in the 19th Century; Bolívar had nothing to with it, he liberated the northern south american countries (you should be thinking of San Martín, who also had nothing to do with it becaue Uruguay gained independence from Brazil, who had invaded it when they were still a spanish colony).

I do see your point, though

 

[Arwon]

The difference between this and racial discrimination is that it's just a lighthearted joke, as they are when directed towards the Irish. My friend is at Aberystwyth university, so we have to crack the sheep joke at least every now and then. I also have another friend in America (coming back this week, woo!) so I make fun of her for that, in a lighthearted way

I'm not sure Irish is a good comparison because anti-Irish sentiment used to have genuine sting and real consequences to it. Quite recently in England, especially.

 

[skadistic]

Catherine Zeta-Jones is the best thing ever to come from the Welsh

 

[JZ_UK]

...look what she married... still thing the same?

 

[Pasi Nurminen]

Skadistic wins this thread.

 

[skadistic]

...look what she married... still thing the same?

Indeed I do.She married a rich, handsome (40 years ago), successful, good actor. I wouldn't mind being him for a fortnight. ( With 2 of those Viagra 6 shooter promo packs)

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Well Wales is a small country. What do you know of Uruguay (much bigger than Wales)?

I know that Paraguay managed to take it over for a short period of time before getting bushwhacked into the Stone Age by the Triple Alliance, and that it denies Paraguay the right to travel its portion of the Rio de la Plata

 

[Figaro]

England > Wales, Scotland, and Ireland

Germany > Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark

I'm sorry, how on earth is this justification for the statement

It [Wales] should be annexed by England along with Scotland and the entire island of Ireland.

?

 

[Verbose]

Maybe the Welsh should stop being so wussy and stand up for themselves! Blow up some skyscrapers kick some third world country into oblivion, then you'll get some friggin' respect.

Have they caught the "Sons of Glendower" yet?

(Figaro might know.)

I have an old interest in Wales, and I'd say not even when the Welsh, well if not blow up, at least burn down stuff, they still don't get attention, obscured behind the broad English backside as they are.

They could have gone for an IRA style campaign, but didn't. Considering what Northern Ireland looks like, that would seem to have been a wise decision. Besides, the MI5 infiltrated the IRA on everywhich level possible. With the Welsh nationalists, to the very great consternation and shame of the British secret service establishment, they have drawn a complete blank, despite decades of attempts.

To quote Dafydd Iwan, who back in 1992 I got to ask about the fact that outsiders tend to regard the Welsh nationalist campaigns as somehow small-minded, he replied: "That's because we are being subjected to a small-minded persecution."
I think that's a fair assessment of how Wales tends to get treated.

As for kicking third-world countries into oblivion, anybody seen "Zulu"?

Other than that, the peculiar Welsh historical fate has been to fight the English. It took a cool millenium or so to subdue the people in what is today's Wales...

 

[Figaro]

Meibion Glyndw^r is, as far as I know, dead, though I don't think they were "caught" per se. There are some crazy types who want to resurrect it, but they're a tiny minority - most people have realised, as they are beginning to do in Ireland, that the attention drawn to such activities is not worth the loss of political credibility.

And yes, I've seen Zulu. That's a film that makes mild jokes about the Welsh too.

 

[bathsheba666]

One of the problems is that:
- people who hate each other make jokes about each other, and the meaning is vicious.
whereas
- people who like each other make jokes about each other, and it's called banter.

Same jokes...so you need to know the motivation behind the comment, because the comment itself generally doesn't help.

 

[Brighteye]

For example - it still seems to be OK to make jokes about Wales... by now even Irish jokes are considered quite dubious - so why is it still OK to knock Wales? ...just wondering why they seem to have slipped through the PC net that has (rightfully) discouraged other such jokes.

... Even were it the Scots there would have been an uproar.


Welsh history is almost never taught in schools - growing up in Barry, Glamorgan, in history lessons we learned about Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King, JFK, and even Nikita Kruschev but we were never taught a thing about our own history.

Many English people I meet in Wales seem to regard the locals as unfriendly or even hostile; well, can you blame them when this is the way they are looked upon by the outside world?

I disagree that the Welsh have a hard time in jokes. The Scots love their money at least as much as the Welsh love their sheep. The Irish are often called mad drunkards.
Welsh history seems to be mostly about being beaten by the English. We learned about it.
The difference between the Welsh, Scots and Irish is that the Scots and Irish are actually friendly and welcoming: the Scots in particular are never less than helpful and charming when I go up north.
The Welsh act more like an inner-city geordie: they feel obliged to be rude to the strangers. I have met welcoming Welsh people, especially in hiking shops, since hikers have a reason to like each other. In Welsh pubs, on the other hand, I've had hostile stares, and unfriendly service. If you want people to like you, perhaps you should try being likeable?

But don't you see, that's my point! You know nothing about Wales beyond the beautiful landscape. There's nothing wrong with beautiful landscapes of course, but you can get them anywhere; there's nothing intrinsically Welsh about them.

Personally I find Snowdonia to be some of the best terrain in the British isles. I've been many times, and it's distinctively Welsh.

 

[Arwon]

I disagree that the Welsh have a hard time in jokes. The Scots love their money at least as much as the Welsh love their sheep. The Irish are often called mad drunkards.

Whereas the English are just wankers, yes?

c

You're all just Brits from here!

 

[Figaro]

The Welsh act more like an inner-city geordie: they feel obliged to be rude to the strangers. I have met welcoming Welsh people, especially in hiking shops, since hikers have a reason to like each other. In Welsh pubs, on the other hand, I've had hostile stares, and unfriendly service. If you want people to like you, perhaps you should try being likeable?

Can you blame them when half the world seems to believe they don't exist?

 

[North King]

Well, speaking from an average American perspective, I have ancestors from both Scotland and Ireland, but none from Wales (that I know of, but I'm pretty sure, my genealogy is pretty well documented), so it's fairly natural that I know more about both of those nations. Additionally, you have the fact that Scotland and Ireland, as noted in the thread, resisted much more heavily being integrated into the UK.

But despite all this, I do know a bit about Welsh history--not saying much, considering I'm a history nerd, but still... Unfortunately, most of what I know about it is its conquest, but that is the last time it was on the world stage.

Still, I fully intend to travel there whenever I get the chance to go to the British Isles; the only reason Scotland and Ireland would be higher on my list is because of the ancestry business. It's not because I think that Wales is less interesting than other nations in the British Isles: if anything, the mere fact that it has been so quiet where all the other British nations have been so loud is intriguing.

 

[Verbose]

Well, speaking from an average American perspective, I have ancestors from both Scotland and Ireland, but none from Wales (that I know of, but I'm pretty sure, my genealogy is pretty well documented), so it's fairly natural that I know more about both of those nations. Additionally, you have the fact that Scotland and Ireland, as noted in the thread, resisted much more heavily being integrated into the UK.

Um, the final pacification of Wales by Henry V required the largest army ever assembled on the British islands.

Wales is also the part of Europe most saturated with Medieval Castles. The biggest castles on the British Isles are all in Wales.

Some of the are absolute monsters. They would seem to indicate simultaneously the size of the problem of the English conquerors and the extent of their paranoia with regards to the Welsh population. (Like building an entire town around the castle in Caernarfon and settling it with Flemish imigrants, to give the English king at least one safe base in northern Wales.)

Wales might have been quiet in the last 600 years, but before that it was considerably more fought over, for much longer than any other part of the British Isles. Historically it was only when the English finally managed to get on top of he Welsh that they could turn their attention to the Irish and Scots, and then they were brought into line considerably quicker than the Welsh.

I'd say Wales is the harder fought over place. It's just less recent than Ireland and even Scotland.

 

[JZ_UK]

Sounds almost like a rallying call... "T3h Wales Will Rise Again!" and cap a long bow in yo ass...