Monday, April 23, 2007

On Ethnicity

On Ethnicity

On this, St George's Day, when large men with no necks roam around our towns getting very drunk, and abusing waiters in Indian restaurants in honour of some bloke who was almost certainly a foreign himself, I thought I'd take a good, hard look at where I come from.

I am, amongst other things in my mongrel-like genetic make-up, part English, part Irish and (if you've seen my nose, you'll understand) part Jewish.

This means I could turn up at your house at any time, tarmac your driveway, sell you a loan to pay for it, and then be too embarrassed to complain.

But then, with a Scottish name and distant relations from up the Welsh valleys, I could equally be wearing nothing under the kilt, making my sheep-worrying hobby that much easier. And my English side will, of course, fight anybody that disagrees with me.

It's handy coming from such a racial melting pot, as I can disown any part of me as circumstances permit, particularly when it comes to national sporting prowess.

Right now, for example, the England football team are a bunch of over-paid under-achieving arses as compared to the table-topping glory of Northern Ireland under Lawrie Sanchez, himself no stranger to racial confusion, I should think. That is, of course, until the next English sporting triumph, when I'm London-born and proud, guv'nor.

Everybody knows, deep down, that St George's Day is a bit rubbish, revolving in its entirety on the assertion of national pride through vast quantities of drink.

Some well meaning, superbly patriotic blokes with no necks organised a parade through the streets of Weymouth for this year's celebration, but, alas, forgot to tell anybody, and the whole thing bit the dust. With a bit of imagination they could just turn it into a massive Monday lunchtime pub crawl, and nobody would be any the wiser.

So, dear non-paying readers, what racial stereotype are you?

No comments: