"Being Welsh, he was a stickler for time"

The title is a quote from a long article on the 50th anniversary of the Queen Mary arriving in Long Beach as an attraction and later a hotel in Sunday's Daily Breeze.

The "he" is Captain John Treasure Jones.  I knew that the Welsh, as a group, were famous for their singing abilities and subsequently numerous singing choruses, but had never heard that punctuality was also foremost in their lives.  This required examination.  But first I had to get through the singing information.

Various theories are expounded as to why so many of them sing so well - they have a sing-song speaking accent.
Singing is given emphasis as entertainment for both the singers and the audience. 
It took a long time for them to get electricity and thus TV (my own theory.)  

Wales is known in some circles as "The Land of Song" which is a far nicer way to describe your home country than, say "The Land of The Atomic Bomb Whose Leader is Deranged Enough To Use It."

Back to punctuality.  The Arriva Trains Wales are on time - within one minute - 85.4 per cent of the time.  Were he alive today, Mussolini would be eating his heart out with jealousy.  "He makes the trains run on time" was the only semi-nice thing ever said about him.

As an extra = the Scots are the friendliest; the Welsh the shyest' and Londoners the coldest.   Make up something about the Irish on your own.  I rather fancy, "Ireland - where your living room is the pub down the road."

I think the Scots are the friendliest because if you are a man wearing a skirt, the odds are good that another man is going to take umbrage and a lot of women are going to want a peek.  You need to be nice to deflect unwanted attention.

I think Londoners are unfriendly because they have to be wary of people carrying funny-looking back packs "Is that a coil of wire there, over by the zipper?" "Why's he carrying a pressure cooker on the Tube?"  In their case, suspicion and distance are good ideas.  We understand. I wouldn't be friendly either.