Norman!

I’ve tried to do a siggy, can anyone see this now?

No Lancs, Crazy Chick didn’t call me blonde, but being a dark haired guy it wouldn’t have bothered me anway.

I actually don’t use that term ‘blonde’ to suggest dumbness or simple-mindedness. It originated in the USA. In the UK we tell Irish jokes, in the USA they traditionally tell jokes about dumb Poles ( or Polaks as they sometimes say ) then sometime around the early 90s it moved onto blondes. I’ve known some smart blondes in my time and in my experience a woman’s hair colour has nowt to do with her intelligence. I don’t find blonde jokes amusing, it’s nothing to do with being politically correct, I just don’t see the connection between blonde and being dumb.

In saying this, I admit I enjoy ( and tell ) Irish jokes. Even though the Irish are not dumb, they themselves tell their own jokes along the same lines, but they call them Kerryman jokes, about guys from County Kerry. Almost all of the best Irish jokes actually come from the Irish themselves, about Kerrymen, we just steal them and call em Irish.

I think we British saw the Irish as being dumb due to the huge numbers of them who came here to work in the construction industry in the 60s and 70s, many of whom were farm labourers and poorly educated, despite the fact that thousands of them came here to work as navies long before that, i.e. on the navigation canals. I’m sure the Irish were telling Kerryman jokes a long time before we began telling Irish jokes.

My great grandparents were Irish. I’m proud of my great grandad, as he was from the republic, yet he volunteered and enlisted in the British Army to fight the Kaiser and his huns in WW1. He was killed at Gallipoli.