Showing posts with label billy connolly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label billy connolly. Show all posts

24 May 2009

Merlin – I belong to Glasgow

According to the BBC Merlin (he of Arthurian legend) has joined Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Adam Smith as being on a list of famous Glaswegians famous Glaswegians

A council spokeswoman said: "Recently an amateur historian has pointed to the fact that the legendary Merlin lived a 'comfortable life', with his wife Gwendolyn, in Partick, not Camelot and I'm sure most Glaswegians think that's just magic."

Tradition has it that King Arthur's magician was either English or Welsh but in his book Finding Merlin: The Truth Behind the Legend, author Adam Ardrey claimed he actually hailed from Scotland.

Hmm... I can just hear a Merlin asking Gwendolyn to get out the wire brush and Dettol so he can deal with his piles. But then again perhaps it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Merlin was a Glaswegian. After all, a fellow Glaswegian or renown did posit that the New Testament was incorrect and Jesus was from Gallowgate and not Galilee. Here he is expounding his thesis:



24 February 2007

While on the subject of God Save the Queen

It is my only regret that the story that God Save the Queen originates from a French hymn composed to wish Louis XIV a speedy recovery from arse surgery is apocryphal! As I said in my previous post I think the song is a tedious dirge. If the UK is going to have a national anthem it should be lively and make people feel good about living here. 20 years ago Billy Connolly did a piece about replacing God Save the Queen with Barwick Green, the theme tune to the Archers (a long running radio soap):



Rumty tumty tumty tum... Billy has a point!