AS the Welsh first minister resigns, many feel that Wales was a brave experiment that has sadly failed. Here Charlotte Phelps and Huw Davies debate whether it should be shut down.
Cuisine
Charlotte: Wales has produced Welsh rarebit. Have I missed anything? Cawl. Which is lamb and potato stew. Heston Blumenthal must be shitting himself.
Huw: Don’t forget leeks. Admittedly it’s a bit sad to base your national identity on a giant spring onion.
Sexual satisfaction
Charlotte: Wales isn’t really a place you go to get laid, and there’s no Welsh equivalent of the Kama Sutra – except maybe the ‘Baa-ma Sutra’.
Huw: Wales is extremely sexy. There’s Katherine Jenkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and of course the original ‘sex bomb’ Tom Jones. What lady doesn’t want sex with a man who openly dips his knob in Listerine for hygiene reasons? I’m afraid Welshmen having sex with sheep is just a popular myth. Bottlenose dolphins are the real goers.
Weather
Charlotte: As any English holidaymaker knows, the only weather in Wales is rain. You’d be drier if you just kept driving into the Irish Sea. I genuinely believe it’s a conspiracy by the amusement arcades.
Huw: I admit we do get quite a few showers in Wales, but that could be solved with a huge perspex lid running from Llandudno to Barry. Granted it would resemble the sci-fi thriller Under The Dome, but we’re used to nightmarish dystopias. Look at Swansea.
Scientific discoveries
Charlotte: Wales invented the spare wheel and Pot Noodles. It’s not quite the atom bomb and the home computer, is it?
Huw: Pot Noodles were a quantum leap in nutrition for people too f**k-idle to use a toaster. Wales also invented the microphone, without which karaoke would just be a senseless cacophony of people shouting tunelessly in a pub. A Welshman thought of the symbol for the mathematical ratio Pi, which is loads of fun. You can calculate the area of a circle, work it out to 100 decimal places, determine the volume of a pipe – the possibilities are endless.
Politics
Charlotte: So this Drakeford guy no one knows from Adam has resigned, and the only other Welsh politician I know is Neil Kinnock. It doesn’t fill you with confidence when someone’s nickname is ‘the Welsh Windbag’.
Huw: Well, there was Aneurin Bevan. And we’re still less likely to privatise air than England.
Cultural contribution
Charlotte: Rhys Ifans. Ivor the Engine. I think that’s it.
Huw: I’m afraid you’re wrong there, Charlotte. Wales is a cultural hub responsible for Gorky’s Zygotic Mynki, Mr Nice, Sian Lloyd, Torchwood and the entire Doctor Who renaissance. Everyone loves discussing how Russell T Davies just keeps making the show better and better!
Final words
Charlotte: It seems to me Wales hasn’t done much of note since Pobol Y Cwm. Probably best to put it out of its misery.
Huw: As a proud Welshman and spiritual descendant of the great warrior king Owain Glyndŵr, I agree. Personally I would like to see us reinvent our national greatness for the 21st century by becoming the world’s largest B&Q.
