Writing about ‘Welshness’ in a Welsh newspaper is a notoriously difficult thing to do; one false move and you’ll be strung up faster than you can say ‘hypocritical’.
But one thing that has consistently bothered me whilst living here is a common blithe insistence by many Welshies that people from outside Wales don’t know anything about it, whilst at the same time the accusers invariably don’t know their Dover from their Doncaster.
The South Wales Echo, however, has truly outdone itself this time. With Jade Goody visiting town to sign books, ‘journalist’ David James took the chance to try and belittle her in one of the most painful pieces of writing to grace the paper recently.
The interview that Jade Goody had been good enough to give the paper consisted of them asking questions on Wales, and making snide comments when she didn’t get them right (despite the fact she actually managed to get most correct).
It would be less obnoxious had the author managed to realise that Bermondsey-born Jade, with Bermondsey being in London, is not an Essex girl. It seems to have escaped the patronising author that Essex, constituting the most populous county in Britain, is not in London.
Sarcastic comments about her knowledge of geography are somewhat undermined by statements about the ‘Essex girl who knows all about tormented family life and London slang yet has no idea what asparagus is’, or most impressively of all, slagging off the ‘Bermondsey-born Essex girl’.
Considering how ultra-sensitive an organ the Echo is with anything it perceives to be even slightly anti-Welsh, perhaps they would like to take a few geography lessons themselves before they start having a pop at anyone else.
