Welsh OR British, NOT English

A point I would like to make regarding National Identity and as a comment on THIS BLOG, or more specifically the sub-heading, top right, "Welsh not British".

As soon as I utter a syllable in Portuguese, my Gringo accent announces, "Yes, I'm not from here, go ahead, ask me all the usual questions, 'Where are you from?What are you doing here?Do you like Brazil?What football team do you support?'". I'm delighted when people respond with, "Wales is in Britain isn't it?" and Pissed Off if someone says "Wales is in England isn't it?". So I patiently explain and say, you can call me Welsh or British, BUT NOT ENGLISH!!

Okay, why British or Welsh? The name Britain is derived from the Romano-Greek "Pretanni", which Russel Crowe and Kirk Douglas (oh no sorry, he wasn't Greek, he was Spartan I believe) pronounced as "Britannia", denoting the peoples there at the time (erm...at the time of the Romans you know, and maybe a little before... i.e. The Greeks). Sooooo, who were the people there at the time? And who were the English? It's a long story but basically the Romans were refering to the inhabitants of the land BEFORE the Angles, Saxons (Saesneg) and Jutes came and and formed ENGLAND (= ANGLE LAND) . These inhabitants (though not the original natives of the land) went on to become the Welsh and Cornish (I think they all turned into Pixies). So you see you can call me Welsh or British.

Oh yeah, all this happened about a thousand six hundred years ago.