Q: Andy Murray recently was talented enough to progress to a grand slam final, and the whole of Scotland was rooting for him, and rightly so as he is a Scot, and i'm sure that much of Scotland would agree with me when i say if he was a run of the mill player, the English press would be accentuating his 'scotishness', which would place a subliminal distance between himself and the english. My obvious question is what has the E.L.T.A done to promote tennis in Scotland in terms of funding. As my point is 'success is something you should buy into rather than talk your way into'. Or to ut it another way, success comes at a price, and it's important to have the best people coaching, what potentially are the best people.
A: Yes, I entirely agree with you. When it suits them, a non-English Briton such as Andrew Murray the world famous SCOTTISH tennis champ, is suddenly classified as British. The simple fact is that most young Scots today, see themselves as Scottish first and maybe British at some distant point like when the huns are about to charge up the beach or some such even. To paraphrase Noel Coward, "Don't be Beastly to the English" - the poor darlings. Their tennis hopeful Tim Henman, has not won the laurels expected of him, so now the all England Lawn Tennis Association are look about wildly in the hope of their being at least a British champ. Someone who might be mistaken perhaps for an English person! I'll bang on for hours, given a chance. Let's put it like this. The Iron Duke, the Duke of Wellington, was born in Ireland. I have spent many hours looking at assorted paintings [portraits] and even one photo of him taken in c1850s a year or two before his death in c1957 - I say this man was undoubtedly a Celt - and most probably Irish. His face tells me he was a Celt, the beautiful narrow jawline of the Celts ending in a slightly pointed chin. Bruce Forsyth has a similar Celtic face and chin - a Scot - okay, let's say a cor-blimey Scottish Scot. I have seen Andy Murray [no relation to Murray Walker, another Scot] and he is undoubtedly Celt in both appearance and mannerisms. What mannerisms? Forward, is the best way to describe him. At first he looks peaceful, but then you see the warrior. This is very Celtic. In my life I have paid a lot of attention to the Celts. I am a Brythonic Celt by race [Welsh] and according to DNA studies being carried out by a team from Oxford Uni, the Celts of Britain and Ireland have an ancestry going back over 15,000 years here in these islands. As for the English. Who are they exactly? Mostly a bunch of assorted Germans by the look of them and many suffering from dwafism and worse. Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3VJmQZ3l_I One more punch in the English nose. Half the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence were Welsh - there's revolution for you boy! Finally, it does not get any better than this. I watch it every year and am always thrilled by it. It is magnificent and it is Scottish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xgwRitTgU4