Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Help me, I’m Scottish

[iStock] 
issue 07 January 2023

I did not enjoy the Christmas festivities this year: I sang no carols, ate no turkey and failed to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. There were two reasons. First, I received my DNA heritage results from a company I’d bunged £100 or so back in the autumn. My family had been greatly looking forward to this event, hoping for a revelation that I was part Igbo or Hausa or, better still, related somehow to the unfriendly pygmies of the western mountains in Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile I was hoping to be 90 per cent English with the remaining 10 per cent Danish, as I have often considered myself to be distantly related to the Viking hero Ragnar Lodbrok, which may account for my political disposition.

I have often considered myself to be distantly related to the Viking hero Ragnar Lodbrok

So I tapped on the screen with high expectations, family gathered around, and could not have been more appalled if it had been revealed that I was descended from Belgians.

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