hi will i pronounce Caomhan ?is it kevin ?

[Snin]

[Classic Jorge]

I've got an anglicised irish surname and I've had to put up with people the world over struggling with it all my life anyway.

Seriously, it's vitrtually impossible to check into a hotel in most countries in europe if your surname begins "Mc..". I have had to write it down countless times, and even once I've had to take the keyboard off of the person at the front desk.

I hate to think how bad it would be if I chose the gaelic spelling

[Luis Anaconda]

despite it being spelt exactly as it sounds

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/irish-name-pronou nced-how-its-written-2014071888688 (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/irish-name-pronounced-how-its-written-2014071888688)

[Classic Jorge]

Also, she was a bit fit for a fictional, illustrative character shot.

[Witharby 2-3 weeks]

[Luis Anaconda]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

It's a rather pathetic, attention-seeking thing to do. It used to be a surefire way of spotting a provo or an extreme culchie, but sadly, during the 'Celtic Tiger' years, it became increasingly popular among the Irish middle classes as a rather pathetic way of sticking two fingers up to the brits.

[Snin]

[Classic Jorge]

Weirdly my Grandad's Irish passport is in gaylick. I may have no choice when I come to renew mine.

I imagine that'll be a long day at the irish embassy. I presume, much like any other irish institution, they'll have some form of guinness dispensing machine handy so it'll at least be convivial.

[Berni]

that hardly any of them actually speaks. Says a lot about the childish pantomime of gestures that bedevils so much of Irish political and cultural life.

Just make your life easier and f**k the Irish pisspot off imo. What's the point? It's not like you're Irish, ffs.

[Classic Jorge]

Not to mention using the desks with shorter queues at airports

[Berni]

shouldn't worry about that if I were you.

[Classic Jorge]

Actually, neither Eire or the UK are signed up to Shengen, are they?

[Berni]

minded. Blimey. :clap:

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Who knew you were such a fan of empire, j.

[Classic Jorge]

Growing up it was always made very clear that we were Irish, which explains my affinity - or possibly O'Finnerty - with blacks and dogs.

[Classic Jorge]

Not to mention a Fourth Internationalist.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

It pains me.

[Berni]

thank the good Lord for every single day.

[Classic Jorge]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

way to do it. At least there's nobility in that. Better that than the Frogs, who lost theirs through cowardice and incompetence and didn't even have the sense to realise they'd lost it until losing two extremely bloody and unnecessary colonial wars rather drove the point home.

[Classic Jorge]

I do wish they had the capacity for irony sometimes.

[Berni]

have English tastes and an English outlook, you're English. You most certainly are not Irish. There are few things more pathetic than the second generation Irish immigrant running around telling people they're Irish. Actual Irish people laugh at them - and quite rightly.

By all means point out that you are of Irish extraction and allow what insights that heritage affords to inform your weltanschaung, but never mistake that for being Irish.

[Berni]

Indeed, we were about the only country to whom they offered absolutely no relief on our war debt to them - let alone cancellation. We paid every f**king penny back.

That's something it's always worth pointing out to Americans when they start giving it their 'we saved the world' schtick - that they made an absolute f**king fortune doing so and removed any international competition in the process.

[Classic Jorge]

I'm also aware that I wouldnt be accepted as english by most english people. Neither would I want to be. I'd never fight in a war for them and I've never supported england teams, or sung or stood for the anthem.

I find the whole idea of nationality to be a bit of a folly to be honest, and even more so in a global, and increasingly devolved, age. It's interesting from a cultural, anthropological, ethnographic angle, mind.

The whole passport thing is just a figurative reinforcement of an otherness that has, as you say, informed my weltanschaung.

[Classic Jorge]

It's almost as if it were negotiated by some sort of double agent

[Berni]

non-conformist contrariness is quintessentially English :hehe:

Even your attempts to define yourself as not English simply confirm your Englishness, I'm afraid. There's no getting away from what you are.

[Berni]

the Americans or making a defeated peace with Hitler. What would you have done?

[Classic Jorge]

And, as far as I'm aware, the bloody mindedness and refusal to be compliant come almost exclusively from the wholly irish side of my family.

That said, they're largely from dublin so it might explain some of the latent englishness.

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

Indeed, I can't remember the last time I sang the national anthem - it just never comes up, really, does it?

And actually, nationalism in this country is some of the least overt anywhere. Very few countries in the world spend quite so much time slagging themselves off as we do. Indeed, someone once said something to the effect that the English are comfortable praising any country other than their own, which I think is about right.

You want puffed up, chauvinistic national pride? You're much more likely to find it in Paris than in London. We are generally not a very nationalistic people. We are monarchists, but that's different.

[Berni]

And don't give me the old European horse****. Europe only existed because American military and financial muscle kept the Russians out - never forget that. And people forget that France had to do as it was told at Suez just the same as we did. There was no alternative. The US paid the piper and it called the tune.

[Ashberto]

My contrariness in this may have come from my English family who were the only ones on our road not to have Jubilee bunting up in 1977.

[Classic Jorge]

Being as it is based on solid, communal principles which you dont need me to repeat here. Our nationalism comes with an unhealthy dollop of deference and forelock tugging which I have never, ever been comfortable with in the slightest.

I have been twice compelled to sing the anthem and twice refused to, once was at Headingley and the other was - oddly enough - in Cardiff. I had a small fracas with the chap in cardiff.

[Classic Jorge]

We gave it a bloody good go, mind.

[Classic Jorge]

[Luis Anaconda]

[Berni]

liberal behaviour to try and ingratiate yourself with the foreigner by decrying your own country. Textbook stuff - even down to the deliberate ignoring of quite how much the French have to be ashamed of (this is a country, remember, where hundreds of Algerian citizens were murdered by police and dumped in the Seine in the 1960s and which essentially underwent a military coup in the same decade - but never mind that, at least they're not English, eh?).

You're a cliche of Englishness. :hehe:

Clearly your decision not to stand for the national anthem was designed to be provocative and - guess what - it provoked a reaction from someone. Job done imo. Everyone else just sensibly ignored it.

[Classic Jorge]

I wont tolerate or patronise that, I'm afraid. It isnt done to be provocative, it's just antithetical to me and I refuse to. If, as you say, it was a very english trait then you wouldve thought that the englishman starting a row with me wouldve been a bit more understanding and eased off with the kicking and the punching.

Also, I have nothing to gain from ingratiating myself with the french beyond the admiration I feel for the priciples of the foundation of their country.

[Ashberto]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

meathead kicked off at you? Among thousands of people? And from this you conclude what? That the English are all intolerant nationalist scum? :hehe: You were being deliberately rude to make some adolescent point and you got called on it. I would - and have - stood for the national anthems of other countries out of respect for those around me and good manners. It means nothing more significant than that - a degree of respect for those around me and their feelings. To have done otherwise would have been damned rude - which is what you were being.

And I didn't say 'nationalism coalesces around the monarch'. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said we are more monarchistic than we are nationalistic. The two are different things.

[Ashberto]

was something to be proud of, and why the attempt to take over Europe was a good thing?

[Classic Jorge]

I'm not standing for it, literally. I'd have no problem standing for an anthem not representing something I fundamentally disagree with. The spanish have very much got the right idea with their won.

So talk me through how monarchism and nationalism are two distinctly separate things, precisely how is it markedly different?

[Classic Jorge]

You've got to love that anthem though, no?

[Berni]

Algerian wars in which torture was actually used as policy; the Vichy government and its regrettable ability to put Jews on the trains faster even than the Germans did; the Dreyfuss affair, the Franco-Prussian War (fought under an Emperor, of course - so much for France's republican princples, eh?); the popularity of Le Front National; the sinking of The Rainbow Warrior and all manner of other good things Jorge files under 'Yes, but at least they're not English'?

Dear God.

[Ashberto]

And I think it was they that established the concept of secularism, republicanism and democracy as the basis of the original 'left'.

[Classic Jorge]

wd Jacques

[Berni]

all about monarchy and everything? How very ill-mannered of you.

[Ashberto]

They were hippies.

[Ashberto]

[Berni]

boulevard, but decided that, on balance, blowing them up is a bit strong.

[Classic Jorge]

Though you're right, that's a tricky one.

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

What about the Thai Royal anthem? Would you stand for that? Do you really want to upset all those lovely smiley Thai people just because you have some half-baked ideas about monarchy? Shame on you.



Quote:



We, servants of His great Majesty,
prostrate our heart and head,to pay respect to the ruler,
whose merits are boundless,outstanding in the great Chakri dynasty,
the greatest of Siam,with great and lasting honor,
(We are) secure and peaceful because of your royal rule,
the result of royal protection(is) people in happiness and in peace,
May it be thatwhatever you will,be done
according to the hopes of your great heart
as we wish (you) victory, hurrah!

[Classic Jorge]

You need to make friends with an edam botherer and have him explain it to you.

[Berni]

No getting away from it, I'm afraid. It's monarchist. Also, you haven't answered my Thai question.

[Classic Jorge]

I've more of a problem with the british monarchy than some sort of blanket hatred of them all.

[Berni]

Thought so. :thumbup:

[Classic Jorge]

Which, in fairness, I struggle to do as much as most people