The Duke, usually a man of infinite wisdom, wrote:

one of the biggest things i hated about scotland, and the one maybe most to blame for making me move was the nationalist fervour inherent in too many of the people.

I'm surprised to hear this. I was lucky enough to be over in Edinburgh for the Festival last year, and the Referendum for Devolution was on at the time. I couldn't get over how many people weren't interested at all, or how many people were saying on the telly that they were voting no because they might have to pay an extra penny in the pound tax for a parliament. A small price to pay for having your own say, I would have thought.

nationalism is a dreadful trait to have...

Only if it's at the expense of others, I'm very proud to be Irish, I even try and speak the (dying) native language from time to time. But this does not make me anti-English. I most certainly am not. I love the place, love the bands, love the TV, love the football. Being proud of where you're from doesn't mean that you're a terrorist or a hooligan or whatever.

I hate the world cup not because i have little interest in soccer but because of the > dreadful attitudes it brings out in people, and because it encourages those nationalist tendencies in the youth, who by rights we should be educating to be more tolerant

The only "dreadful attitudes" I've seen have been from a couple of hundred NF tossers. This shouldn't be allowed to ruin the rest of the tournament. To me the last week has been a celebration of different cultures. The most wonderful sight of the world cup has been Nigeria stuffing Spain despite their "defensive naivety" (thank you Ron, Kevin, etc). Why shouldn't those people feel proud of what their countrymen had done against the odds? It was the same for me when Ireland beat Italy in the last World Cup. Sure we were terrible to watch, and half the team were Anglos anyway, but I still felt as proud as hell and it didn't inspire me to go out and smash some windows. I was in Italy at the time, and all the Italians came over and shook our hands after the game. Having said all that, I can understand part of what The Duke is trying to say. Nationalism in the "Our country is better than yours" sense can be pretty ugly stuff, I wouldn't like to give the impression that I'm in favour of that kind of thing. Sorry if this has bored the arse off you all. I did have to read about Dangermouse for a week though. Ronandinho. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . Somos todos conejitos felices que tararean . consonancias felices del conejito - no somos? -----------------------------------------------------------------------