(Please)Hate Me: I’m Irish

Samantha Brick is hated for being attractive. For some people it’s nationality that’s a problem.

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The past week saw a storm of publicity over the claims made by Samantha Brick in a leading British daily newspaper that women hate her because she is so attractive. “There are downsides to looking this pretty” she said.

Here at The Buzz it got me thinking- why do people love me because I’m Irish?

It’s hard being Irish. Don’t try and pretend it’s all Guinness swilling, Irish dancing, potato eating fun. Remember the famine? That was tough. It’s not easy coming from a land with clear air and water that tastes like water to the big city. Like a Dickensian protagonist it was hard to discover that the streets were not, contrary to popular belief, paved with gold. What made it worse however was that unlike every other nationality, I seemed to be liked.

I longed to be Welsh and to be lambasted for dubious pre-marital relationships with sheep. Oh to be Scottish and to be hated for being miserable and having a wallet full of moths! Even Jersey which gave us the painfully bad detective series Bergerac would do. But no, I had to be Irish.

It became impossible to talk in politics lectures without being used as an example of consociational government and power sharing using the d’Hondt method.

It was but a dream to be able walk down Tottenham Court Road (with my accent the ‘R’ in TCR makes pronouncing that acronym unwise) without being allowed to go on my way by a Red Cross volunteer after casting them a Colin Farrell-esque glance and saying “No thanks kid”.

I’ve tried my best to be more normal- to be at the very least treated like anyone else in London. I’ve tried dodging fares on the No 29 before the bendy bus was scrapped. Somehow the ticket inspector let me off because “that Rory McIlroy is a fair golfer”.

And yes, I’ll admit, I sometimes trade on it. Yes I’ve attempted to use my nationality in the queue at Moonies for purposes other than what God intended it to be used for. But who could blame me?

Like Samantha Brick using her ‘vital statistics’ to gain promotion in work who am I to turn my back on my roots? I just wish I didn’t have to.

And lets face it, the rest of us have tried our best. We haven’t exactly been the nicest to Britain over the last century, one way or another but Dara O’Briain seems to have smoothed over those cracks.

We’ve even toned down our riots a lot in my part of the country so London wouldn’t be embarrassed by a few little scuffles last August but to no avail.

Perhaps it’s time to change my nationality, perhaps I’ll try and pass myself off as an Australian (believe it or not I’ve been mistaken for one in the past) or a Canadian (snap).

Anything to have people refuse to make eye-contact with me on the Piccadilly Line. Anything to be forced to give money to save the tigers on Tottenham Court Road.

Please hate me. Please.