This St David’s Day weekend, I devote this column to a celebration of the world’s most under-appreciated ethnic group. Under-appreciated, certainly, in the pages of The Spectator, whose editorial policy suffers from a Pictish delusion that its readers are eager to hear of the appointment of a new procurator fiscal in Ayrshire, or political divides on Pitlochry council, while having zero interest in the finer country to the west.
Sometimes mere exposure to Wales may be enough to inspire greatness, as in the work of Alfred Russel Wallace or Led Zeppelin
Now in celebrating Wales, we need some ground rules. Since the Welsh are much more agreeable than other Celtic tribes, they are widely content to have sex with people from other cultures and ethnicities. This is in stark contrast to the inbred folk north of the border (in Scotland the top search term on Pornhub is ‘Scottish’).
In short, Taffs assimilate fast. Consequently, in defining Welshness, we need to include people who are only partly Welsh. By ancestry, I am 50 per cent more Welsh than Tom Jones, who is only a quarter Welsh, but since the phrase ‘More Welsh than Tom’ is obviously absurd, we must account for the peculiar nature of Welsh genetics in compiling a list of great Welsh people. I therefore treat Welsh DNA as genetically dominant, like brown eyes. Indeed, sometimes mere exposure to Wales may be enough to inspire greatness, as in the work of Alfred Russel Wallace or Led Zeppelin.
The Spectator’s calumnies against the Welsh date to the late Jeffrey Bernard, who attacked us as the only nation in Europe not to have invented an alcoholic drink. This would have come as a surprise to the Jack Daniel’s family, who came to Tennessee from Swansea. I am not including Captain Morgan here, since he did not originate the rum that bears his name; nevertheless, the Cardiff-born Morgan, whose career took him from ‘pirate’ to ‘governor of Jamaica’, can legitimately lay claim to being the only man to have held the two coolest job titles in the world – though, as 25 per cent of the Velvet Underground, Garnant-born John Cale runs him close.
That’s not to mention Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV), Tammy Wynette (née Pugh), Dolly Parton, Kylie Minogue, Hank Williams, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Jefferson, Quincy Jones (no, seriously), Bob Marley (ditto), Warren Zevon, Richard Nixon, Abraham Lincoln and probably Elvis (Wales is the only country in the world to boast a church of St Elvis). Pi and the equals sign were both Welsh inventions, as was the hydrogen fuel cell, the ball bearing, the microphone, the NHS and money-laundering; Murray ‘The Camel’ Humphreys (parents from Powys) was known as ‘the nicest man in the mob’. And while the atom bomb was designed by a lot of skinny nerds in spectacles, it was a fat half-Welsh bloke who made it all happen: the great General Leslie Groves.
T’was ever thus. Even the Tudor Welsh dragon on the flag is a reminder to our Saxon occupiers that the Welsh Tudors were much better at running England than the English. Or, if monarchy isn’t your bag, there’s always Oliver ‘Cromwell’ alias Williams.
You didn’t know this, did you? Perhaps the Welsh should market themselves more aggressively, turning up at weddings in a contrived national costume, say, or insisting on playing an atonal musical instrument on otherwise enjoyable occasions. Nor is there an equivalent Welsh imperative to the urge to dress as a leprechaun on St Patrick’s Day before vomiting on the street – a compulsion felt by Americans with barely two strands of Irish DNA to rub together. And, for the record, St Patrick was Welsh.
It’s true that there is no Welsh Shakespeare. But then the English needed a first-rate playwright to experience what high-quality conversation sounds like. If you’re in Wales this Sunday, you can simply go to the pub.
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