100% English?
Take eight people - all of whom are convinced they are 100% English. Then submit a sample of their DNA to a series of state-of-the-art tests... Lord Tebbit, Garry Bushell and Carol Thatcher are among the participants who have agreed to place their genetic make-up under the microscope.Channel 4 is airing a programme called 100% English tomorrow. Should be highly amusing, as those who think they have purely English ancestry give a sample of their DNA - and find out that they are nothing of the kind. When I did a little bit of Family History, I was pretty sure I'd easily find some people who had come from overseas (especially as some of my lot lived in London). I was delighted to find that one was Italian, given my Roman interests :-) And I'm sure I'll find more ancestors who did not originate on the island. That's fine by me.
posted by Alex Bordessa @ Sunday, November 12, 2006
3 Comments:
I'm definitely a mongrel. My dad's half Italian, my mom's half Irish and a quarter Scottish. And with all that Italian and Irish blood, trust me (and my brother) to look like the Anglo-Saxon bits. (Our sister picked up the Italian looks.)
That was an interesting prog. I thought the Anglo-Saxon nationalist woman who turned up partly Romany was particularly amusing. She seemed incredibly humourless. Garry Bushell took it in the right spirit.
I've encountered that "Steadfast" group online when some of their members once objected to one of my blog posts. They seem a bit mad.
Hope you're well.
Martyn (part English, Dutch, Spanish, Scottish and Irish that I know of, and probably lots of ancient Brit as well)
I particularly liked the end-scene with Ian Wright (for those who don't know, he's a black 'soccer' player who happily counts himself English) scoring a goal, after one chap relented on people having at least 12 generations (or some such) born in England before being counted as English. Nice one :-)
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