The Men of Britain and Ireland.

I wonder whether it was ungracious of me to speak unkindly of Daniel O’Donnell as I did in a recent post. But I was a little drunk at the time, and if you can’t insult an Irishman when you’re drunk, when can you insult him? As long as you’re drunk, he’ll still be your friend after he’s punched you on the nose.

And I wasn’t insulting Irishmen in general anyway(s.) That’s the point; Daniel O’Donnell isn’t much of an advert for the men of Erin, is he? Even Aled Jones, bless his barrel-chested, manly-voiced, I’m-a-wholesome-Christian-and-my-hair’s-very-clean smoothiness, represents his fellow Welshman just a tad better. And those Scotsmen they wheel out at Hogmanay – the ones who stand up very straight and move their arms stiffly in a Military Manner, keeping time with their swinging kilts while grinning inanely through piggy eyes and giving rousing renditions of songs with ambiguous titles like Donald, Wheer’s yer Troosers – have something engagingly bizarre about them. As for the English; well, we don’t really count. All we seem able to produce these days are anaemic little plastic doll-like things that win TV talent contests.

I wonder if the Solomon Islands are taking émigrés.