"everybody should be proud of where they come from. Identity is that what roots us, and every person in the World deserves that dignity afforded them."

lots of us don't feel we came from anywhere. our parents moved around for work, and they had no great feeling about where they came from, or where they were at present. and for us - patriotism is a bit puzzling.

i used to think I was partly Irish, til I went to Ireland.

I always think artists like the Dubliners and the Yetties are lucky because they did come from somewhere. sort of Martin luther stuff - Here I stand!

I didn't like it when a GUEST(typical bloody GUEST!) in a recent thread expressed the thought that every English soldier who had been killed in Northern Ireland richly deserved it. But I don't like homicidal thoughts directed at anybody. Nothing to do with the justice or otherwise of the English cause.


That Hoyt Axton song - Never been to Spain - says it quite well. Or the Chritopher Isherwood book - Down there on a visit.

A character in the book says derisively, You're one of life's tourists - I bet you're always sending cards saying Down here on a visit.

And I think that's how a lot of us feel. we aren't interested in being a geordie, or a tyke, or whatever. we don't want to be defined by place.