Don Paterson is a celebrated Scottish poet, writer and musician. The essay below comes from a new anthology of Scottish writers called Irish Pages: Scotland, and is reproduced with his permission.
Remember The Vow? Most of us have tried to forget it. This was Westminster’s Hail Mary as polling day approached in the 2014 referendum; a vote that Yessers – people tend to forget this part too – initially had no real expectation of winning, until an inspirationally positive campaign saw the polls draw neck-and-neck.
Then lo! There it was, splashed across the Daily Record: a fancy-font promise from Westminster party leaders that if Scotland voted to stay within the UK, we would enjoy new devolved powers. There was some other waffle about defence and opportunities and having an equal share in the UK’s prosperity. But the message was clear enough. We would be listened to.
In the modern political world, you don’t get anywhere without a movement, and movements don’t get anywhere without a flag. So we’ve decided it’s time to take action and stand up for a very large group of people who are genuinely discriminated against and significantly disadvantaged in our society.
Here’s their symbol.
Today is July 1st, and we officially, on behalf of all our oppressed kinfolk, declare this to be People Who Aren’t Eligible For A Railcard Pride Month.
Holiday Boy has of course chosen the general election campaign to spend the next three weeks feeding stray cats somewhere sunny, so here’s a cartoon by the brilliant webcomicname that summarises the Baillie Gifford story for anyone joining us late.
As a writer, feminist and literary events organiser in Scotland, I’m regularly sent links to information someone thinks might be of interest to me. This week it was a document commissioned by one of Scotland’s leading and most powerful publicly-funded literary organisations, Literature Alliance Scotland (LAS).
Nobody, of course, objects to transgender writers being included or supported, but the content of the guidance raises several extremely serious and concerning issues.
He’s the cuddly, lovable character all of Scotland’s talking about, but what do we really know about the Hate Monster? Where did he come from? What’s his backstory? Well, the diligent research team at Wings have been hard at work, and we’re thrilled to bring you this rare archive footage of not one but BOTH of his parents.
Both were in the arts. Here’s his mum, Ruda (originally from Eastern Europe, escaping to the West before the Iron Curtain came down) starring in a 1952 Bugs Bunny short:
And this is his dad, in one of several collaborations with the Scooby Doo team in 1976 under his former wrestling persona of The 10,000-Volt Ghost:
Our boy was born for the stage. No wonder he’s made such an impact.
I’ve always been obsessed, in cultural terms, with pivot points: the precise moments at which something significant changes irreversibly.
They can be a goal that ushers in a football team’s golden era – for me, Alex McLeish putting Aberdeen level in the 1982 Scottish Cup final. They can be a twist in a movie, like (first example that comes to mind) the shocking revelation of the bad guy in LA Confidential. They can spring out of nowhere, like the latter, or be something that was visibly on the way but finally crystallises, like the former.
Scotland’s biggest cultural problem famously used to be with its alpha males: hard-working, hard-drinking men, often sexist and openly sectarian, with an easy propensity for violence. (The archetype cut right across every social class, from shipyard workers to high-ranking police officers and everywhere between and beyond.)
But times change, and thankfully those characters are now almost entirely a thing of the past. Less happily, though, they’ve simply been replaced by a breed that’s every bit as unpleasant, just in slightly different ways. Readers, meet the Beta Bullies.
Slacky The Holiday Boy is off for the next THREE weeks, gallivanting around the globe on the clearly excessive wages we’re paying him. We hope he does actually come back, because his home city is becoming a poisonously hostile place for the creative.
Around 300 years ago, Edinburgh was the birthplace and residence of the Scottish Enlightenment, a remarkable period of intellectual and scientific accomplishment built around “the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason”, and which led to the city being famously dubbed “the Athens of the North”.
Just for a change, let’s have a Friday-night competition!
Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that former First Minister Alex Salmond is staging a show in the Spiegeltent at the Edinburgh Fringe next month, from 4-13 August.
You may even have seen a bit of online criticism from certain po-faced pseudonats about the fact that Salmond is sharing a platform with – gasp! – a Yoon, in the shape of the “last of the traditional Tories”, David Davis MP.
100%Yes on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “How important is Scotland becoming an independent country to you and what would you do to secure that goal? Next…” Jul 25, 09:04
Xaracen on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@Stuart; “The Treaty was entered into without limitation of time and some articles express quite plainly that they were intended…” Jul 24, 22:27
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “For general info, here is a link to PROF ROBERT BLACK KC’s presentation about the UNION: Professor Robert Black KC…” Jul 24, 19:33
Stuart on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Xaracen. 2:14 How wrong can one man be? Well in your case very. Your argument (feeble though it is) re…” Jul 24, 18:43
Northcode on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “When their buttons and switches and knobs – and they have many – are pushed or flicked or twiddled… they…” Jul 24, 18:40
twathater on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@ Lorn you said “I believe implicitly, that those men who transgress the rules of normal, decent behaviour have a…” Jul 24, 18:14
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@ Lorn at 4:15 pm It’s definitely okay to blame the Scots for the prevailing Union, and jist ignore things…” Jul 24, 18:02
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@Dan – I mean the cost per MwH quoted as £150, Hinckley Point see originally struck at c.£85. Yeah I…” Jul 24, 17:59
twathater on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Oh there’s Bastard TAX MOAN back from his holidays in Is rahel, has he been updated on the plans to…” Jul 24, 17:56
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Hmm… but when did pretty much anything built in the UK ever come in on proposed cost? HS2, a couple…” Jul 24, 17:30
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It’s been a busy week for the Eton rifles. “What a catalyst you turned out to be. Crashed your van…” Jul 24, 17:03
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “The favourite rant from the Parasite Class; ” It’s good for the economy!” Who’s economy?” Jul 24, 16:55
Chas on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Rather than the readers ‘chipping in’ Andy, you could gift him some of yours!” Jul 24, 16:35
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “LABOUR MP CALLS GENDER-CRITICS ‘SWIVEL-EYED FANATICS’ A Labour MP has revealed his contempt for those who believe in the reality…” Jul 24, 16:32
Chas on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Alfie Boy can’t lose. Either we accept we are living in a colony. Or, if we don’t, it is proof…” Jul 24, 16:22
Lorn on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I think that it is less that we are colonized than that we have allowed ourselves to be treated as…” Jul 24, 16:15
Lorn on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Young Lochinvar: no, decent men did not barge into female spaces in the past, and any who were indecent enough…” Jul 24, 16:06
Stuart on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Name checking your own homework does not count Professor Baird. Your narrative (feeble though it is) is inaccurate and clutching…” Jul 24, 16:06
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Who is “Scotland”, every single person in Scotland who has been polled on the subject, or a tiny bunch of…” Jul 24, 14:49
James on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““Aidan”; “I think we’ve all just got to face up to that fact…” Who’s “we”?” Jul 24, 14:32
James on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Good old “Aidan”, the true BritNat defender on every subject. Scotland doesn’t need (or want) nuclear, but hey, when did…” Jul 24, 14:15
Xaracen on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@Stuart; We are talking of a union of two sovereign kingdoms, neither of which in 1706 owed any obeisance to…” Jul 24, 14:14
James on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Can you elucidate what these “fish” might be? England has been meddling in Scotland’s affairs for nigh on 1,000 years…” Jul 24, 14:01
Rob on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “The simple fact is that Scottish politicians have shown over the last 10 years that they are simply so incompetent…” Jul 24, 13:54
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It’s a case against nuclear power, I don’t know where she got the numbers from re costs, they seem around…” Jul 24, 13:08
sarah on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Further to my comment at 11.18 a.m., coincidentally Gareth Wardell, Grouse Beater, has retweeted today the speech that he would…” Jul 24, 12:59