My name's Lucy and I've been clean from twiglets for 5 minutes now

Well, good evening.

A few random things to mention, really. First, it's raining. It was perfectly sunny this morning, but it is Wales after all. No one told me when I applied here for university that when people say that it rains a lot in Wales, it actually does. They're not kidding! And of course it was the one day I didn't have an umbrella with me, as I happened to be carrying a different bag to usual. Though on reflection I realised that I have left my umbrella in someone else's bag anyway.

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In Cultural Criticism yesterday we watched a copy of 100% English, which was on TV as a single episode a while ago. I can't find it on the internet, but there's a clip of it on YouTube here and an article about it in the Telegraph here. The programme involved interviews with 8 participants who all considered themselves to be 100% English. They spoke about what they feel makes one English, and generally harped on about how English they were. They all agreed to have their DNA sampled, and tests were done on the samples to find out where their genes came from across the world, and also which bits of Europe they were from in particular. Of course, they all reckoned that they'd be 100% European and 100% from Northern Europe. Not so!! The look on Carol Thatcher's face when she was told that she has quite a lot of Middle Eastern ancestry was just priceless.

It was a really interesting insight into how widespread your gene pool can be, and was certainly a laugh when it came to some of the reactions. But, most of all, it was

painful. One woman in particular, an older lady from Kent, bordered dangerously on the outright racist side of things. A number of the participants implied - or stated - that they felt immigrants are undermining the English culture and should not be allowed to consider themselves English, and neither should their descendants be allowed to call themselves English. The woman from Kent used the analogy of 'well if you came into my house and started changing things around, I'd be most upset.' Much as I understand that people are entitled to their own opinions, some of what was said just made me angry. I mean, I consider myself *English*. But to be honest this is mostly because I was born in England and lived the first 18 years of my life there. I still count it as home and although I like to feel an affinity with Wales (being in the capital and all) I wouldn't say I'm Welsh, for instance. But it doesn't get much more complex than that. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to consider yourself to be English then you go right on ahead. And yeah, plenty of people from other countries end up settling down in England. If they want to think that they're English then I'm cool with that. I mean, I imagine for some of them that they've left countries where they don't feel they can identify with some of the values that are upheld. I'm not going to deny them something else to identify with.

It's funny though, how worked up people can get about it. One of the women on the programme actually threatened legal action after it was revealed that she probably had Romany Gypsy origins.

Personally, I'd love to take the test. It'd be nice to know what parts of the world I come from. The fact that my pale skin burns in minutes probably suggests somewhere not that hot, but who knows? I'll watch out for future programmes!

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Don't think I've got anything else to waffle/rant about, really. I've had a quiet day or two and am feeling decidely blessed over the fact that I am going to have time this weekend to catch up on some errands and have a go at starting a piece of coursework. Not much happened today - had a seminar, got a mocha frappucino (yum!), read The Independent, bought some shoes (my Etnies are dying a slow death because of the fact that I must walk weird...I've totally worn the corners off!)...oh, and got quite excited at an advert for 'Guinness Marmite'! Can it really be true?? Sadly I just bought Marmite so I may not get to try it.

Right, I have to do some work now.

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Eating: Twiglets! I feel 5 years old again

Most distracted from coursework by: Season 5 of ER on DVD - though it's sad not to be able to admire Gates, as with the current series

Listening to select songs from: Chris Cornell, Snow Patrol, The Goo Goo Dolls, The Spill Canvas, The Zutons, The Fray, Counting Crows, Editors, UK Escapade, Alanis Morrisette, Sting, Funeral For a Friend, Embrace, Santana, Maroon 5, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, Oasis, The Killers, Nickelback, Guillemots, Aqualung, Daniel Bedingfield, Scissor Sisters, Muse, Phantom Planet, Chili Peppers, Fall Out Boy, Matchbook Romance, Franz Ferdinand, REM, Nizlopi, Van Halen, James Morrison, Boxcar Racer, K T Tunstall, Robbie Williams, Green Day, The Bittersweets, Starsailor, The Calling, Stone Sour, Doves, The Raconteurs, Kendall Payne, Pink, David Gray, Feeder, U2, Razorlight, Andy Flannagan...

p.s. A big thank you to Viola over at The Americanization of Emily for this post which helped me sort out the line spacing issues my posts were having with Blogger.