Chart flop: VisitBritain sorry for literary map ignoring Wales and Scotland
The nation’s official tourism agency published a map of inspiring bookish sights that left Wales ‘depicted as trees’ and Scotland guillotined
The two places don’t actually speak English and therefore can’t be considered to contribute to literature – you can only do that in the top dog language after all.
There’s also the point that the two places aren’t literate. You know, that Welsh attempt at a play which spells stuff backward, the Scottish brushes with poetry containing entirely burning misspellings.
So, seems fair enough. And a rousing chorus…..
A bit harsh, what about that Dylan Thomas, didn’t he write some racy saucy stuff? I’m sure there was a letter D in the name…
A strangely ignorant post, Tim. Walter Scott was probably the best selling novelist of the c19, with an influence that extended from the USA to Russia. He even invented the British conception of Scottishness. I believe he was Scotch
Sorry, but I know Llareggub about the the subject.
Sherlock Holmes, a relatively famous Englishman, also sprang fully fledged from the brain of a Dunedian
First, the porridge wogs:
Apart from Scott and Conan Doyle, there’s Smollett, R L Stevenson, A J Cronin, Compton Mackenzie, Edwin Muir, James Boswell, Carlyle, Hume and…drum roll…Adam Smith.
Then the sheep-shaggers:
Apart from Dylan Thomas, there’s R S Thomas, Dafydd ap Gwilym (14th century), W H Davies, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Edward Thomas, Bertrand Russell…
Robbie Burns
Surely Long John Silver came from Bath? What else would explain his deviousness and low animal cunning?
@Ljh
If you imagine a Scotch commercial traveller in a Scotch commercial hotel leaning on the bar and calling the barmaid “Dearie”, then you will know the keynote of Burns’ verse.
A E Housman
Ljh
Burns didn’t write in English but in lowland Scots.
Pshaw. Americans have fifty states that piss on each others’ trousers to arouse similar responses.
Timothy, you are being juvenile, go to your bedroom and study: Where did “The Enlightenment” start?
Scotland: Adam Smith, Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott, David Livingstone, J. M. Barrie, Muriel Spark, John Buchan, Alistair MacLean, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith and I suppose JK Rowling
Wales maybe: dragons, leeks and Ivor
Splendid post Mr Worstall. Some first class triggering.
Feck all of that – the equations of James Clerk Maxwell are prettier than anything written in the English language.
And even better, as well as being understood by physicists the world over, I reckon a visiting species would work out what they were about.
Eau schit, just read Mark above – you got me.