Thursday 8 October 2015

Pax Romana


Today, so the BBC tells me, is National Poetry Day here in the UK. I'm also on a little holiday to London.

I have learned something this morning over coffee because of it, and I am amazed that I did not know this before, although I think I have always suspected it: There are no such people as the 'Welsh'.

Apparently, 'Welsh' is an Anglo-Saxon term meaning something like, 'those strange people over there'.

The earliest poem ever to be written in the English language was read out beside the very subject of it, and it was another Anglo-Saxon poem about the ruins of the Roman Baths, when they were ruins even then, in the 9th century AD.

The good old Anglo-Saxons had such a way with words, and Rachel's blog would be lost without the choicest four-letter ones which she uses on a daily basis.

It seems that up until the Norman invasion and right through the Dark Ages, we were a series of island tribes united by a common dislike for each other.

Then as soon as we became the Untied Kingdom, we started treating each other as foreigners.

The first King of all England was crowned at Bath Abbey in the 9th century. That must have been when the Welsh were born as the Welsh. Divide and rule.

15 comments:

  1. Love jjustification for Rachel's 4 letter words Tom - I am sure she will be pleased by that - although on second thoughts I am sure she wouldn't care one way or the other - she is a free spirit!
    Enjoy London - weather should be lovely today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I won't be around for the reaction, one way or another. Yes, I'm not taking a raincoat.

      Delete
    2. Free spirit Weave, but a sensitive one.

      Thank you for the mention of my use of language TS. I am catching you up. Watch out without a raincoat, I wouldn't want you to get caught out.

      Enjoy F.A.

      Delete
    3. Enjoy Fuck All? That's not very nice, Actually, he didn't turn up anyway, se we had to enjoy it without him.

      Delete
  2. I'm going to go straight away and tell my colleague she's the strange one over there. Then i think I'll hide.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can come out now, she's gone back to Cardiff.

      Delete
  3. Good to know that St John of Trelawnyd doesn't really exist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would like to have known that last night.

      Delete
    2. I do exist! And am as perky as ever!

      Delete
    3. Shouldn't you be clearing up dog shit.

      Delete
    4. I mean, WHO WILL CLEAR UP THE DOG SHIT IF HE DIES????????? (sob...)

      Delete
    5. The poor bastard left holding The Note.

      Delete
  4. Apparently the word Maori means 'of the normal type'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really? I have heard that 'Eskimo' means 'the raw meat-eaters from the North'.

      Delete