People, people everywhere

Historical musings on the origins of people on this island. The British are usually thought to be so homogeneous, which from a modern perspective is largely true, but over the millennia the original Celtic and Druid people were invaded by Romans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, and most recently Normans (only 1000 years ago!). Over the years many Continental Europeans showed up and stayed, particularly if they had been thrown out of somewhere else (Huguenots from France, Jews from Spain's inquisition)and in very recent years, thanks to the EU, this tradition has been elevated to an onslaught, a deluge, an avalanche of humanity. Today in London something like a third of its residents were not born here. Go on the bus, shut your eyes and listen to the phone conversations and you might just as well be in Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Iran, Morocco, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, any of the former soviet bloc, etc., etc., etc. As an English speaker I'm in the minority! Unfortunately, many of these recent arrivals have not brought high level skills or high brow culture with them either. And our neighborhood is very multicultural! That's the euphemism for the debris that Labour under Blair and Brown let flood into the country over the past 20 years for what purpose no one actually knows (supposedly for cheap labor). Now that the EU is cracking up and the "furriners" are seen to be taking all the jobs, the natives are becoming a tad more restless and xenophobic, although it's still politically incorrect to say so! As things become more difficult economically, I suspect they'll become more interesting politically, correct or not. What was that Chinese curse?