It was very pleasant to see Lou Hickey and Dougie MacLean performing “Caledonia” at the Yes Scotland launch – it’s a nice enough tune, if a bit mopey, and “Flower Of Scotland” has been somewhat ruined for us as a national song by years of appallingly murdered, out-of-time renditions at Murrayfield and, especially, Hampden.
(We liked the brief period when The Three McTenors or something did a speeded-up rendition at the football, which was nicely modern and left less room for the crowd to balls it up in – for some reason football fans can’t grasp the concept of a pause – but the SFA with their trademark ineptitude soon abandoned it in favour of Ronnie Corrie barking it out in his Hielan’-wedding get-up again. We also approve of the SRU’s practice of making the band stop for verse two and leaving it to the crowd alone, but why not just count them in and then let them sing unaccompanied from the start?)
We can’t help feeling, though, that music is a bit of a weak spot generally for the Scottish nationalist movement – still basically mired in the misty-blue-hills-of-Tiree era, where Runrig are seen as modernist hep-cats and the SNP’s official song is a 1962 blues tune best known by the staggeringly inappropriate title of “Let’s Stick Together”.
Had it been up to us, the Yes launch would have seen Glasgow’s own Primal Scream stood in front of a giant backdrop of Gordon “British jobs for British workers“ Brown and pummelling out an apocalyptic rendition of “Swastika Eyes“, but we get that that might not have mainstream appeal. Anyway, the point is, it’s time to think positive.
Long-time WoSblog viewers will already be aware that I’ve embraced my gay side when it comes to Eurovision now, thanks to the simple expedient of entering into the spirit and watching it with other people. (If everyone else is even briefly out of the room for some reason I get very twitchy.)
But for those of you still struggling, here are this year’s highlights, with the minimum of campness and the maximum of ROCK!
(Click the pic to watch on YouTube. We can’t have it embedded here because the repellent corporate nightsoil at Sony Music Entertainment have laid a copyright block on it and there STILL isn’t a remotely decent video plugin for WordPress. This is the original TV version, incidentally.)
It’s fantastic, of course. But on this occasion it’s not the truly awesome thing.
There are two reasons I’m incredibly happy about suddenly and unexpectedly rediscovering it – as I just have – of which the first is the less important.
Malcolm McLaren RIP. This is a version of a piece I originally wrote for WoS a few years ago, reprinted in tribute to one of the world's great chancers.
The world would have been a much more interesting place if he'd managed to become the Mayor of London.
(To enjoy this feature TO THE EXTREME!, install the excellent Spotify and click the song titles to hear the songs. Failing that, I’ll just have to try to paint you a picture of some sounds, but made with words instead of paint.)
In the heady atmosphere of 1985-1986, I never thought I’d live to see the day when The Jesus And Mary Chain – musical revolutionaries, performers of shambolic 20-minute sets of hellish white noise and inebriated chaos, banned from Student Unions across the country because of their concerts’ tendency to end in (sort-of) riots, scruffy council-estate urchins from the industrial wastelands of West Central Scotland – would be having their music celebrated and given away free with copies of The Times.
I guess if you’re right, and if you wait patiently enough, the world sometimes comes round to your way of thinking eventually.
Alert WoS viewers will have seen this a while ago, but as it’s my all-time favourite piece of videogames-related art it’s worth repeating for the hundreds of new readers of WoSblog. Once you’ve grasped what it is you won’t expect that you’re going to watch all nine minutes of it. But you will.
The content industry has a long and shameful history of spurious figures when it comes to the subject of intellectual-property piracy. This much we already knew. But the most recent set of “statistics” on the economic cost of piracy – which have, of course, been seized on and repeated unquestioningly by the press – may have set some sort of record.
Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: “The scandal of housing un-affordability in Spain: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/27/eviction-of-87-year-old-puts-spains-deepening-housing-crisis-in-the-spotlight It’s the Guardian so all the usual reality-denying shibboleths are trotted out…” Sep 27, 07:53
Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: “I don’t have to pay. Perhaps “they” are limiting your access. You must have upset somebody.” Sep 27, 07:40
Willie on Cowering From Destiny: “An utterly apt critique quote by Yanis Varoufakis – ” Andy Burnham’s new government is a case in point. Having…” Sep 27, 06:33
Minceheid on Cowering From Destiny: “Mark, here’s an archived copy of that article: archive.is/I7Uhr” Sep 27, 04:31
James Barr Gardner on Cowering From Destiny: “1995 a wee bit before afore maist folk ?????” Sep 27, 02:36
Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: “You have to pay to read it. Why don’t you just give us a summary.” Sep 26, 20:28
Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: “An interesting article on what’s wrong with the left: https://unherd.com/2026/09/the-centre-lefts-slow-suicide/” Sep 26, 19:31
Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: ““Saint Nicola now fled to London” Jeezo, Willie, but you need to get out more. It’s an hour or so…” Sep 26, 19:11
Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: ““The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” Margaret Thatcher.” Sep 26, 18:35
TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “Mea culpa….the wrong Kennedy it would appear. It does however rest on the definition of socialism. «socialism is a noble…” Sep 26, 18:04
Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: ““When they tore down the Berlin wall, what people went in which direction? Socialism is for morons.” Senator J Kennedy…” Sep 26, 16:49
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Sorry. Forgot to add direct link to above-mentioned book: Ainmean Beanntan na h-Alba/ Scottish Hill Names: Meanings and Origins’ by…” Sep 26, 16:21
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “A couple of new books of Gaelic, Edinburgh, and Hillwalking interest: ‘A’ Ghàidhlig ann an Dùn Èideann tro na Linntean…” Sep 26, 16:01
James on Cowering From Destiny: “I often hear the question ‘was Surgeon a plant from the beginning, did they get something on her; or both’?…” Sep 26, 15:14
TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “@Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh Tapadh leat!, i’ve experienced more nastiness in my life than most. It has made me, i conjecture, wise…” Sep 26, 14:25
Captain Caveman on Cowering From Destiny: “”i [sic] am not unwise as to ways of the world.” Well, I’ll be the judge of that, son. In…” Sep 26, 14:12
sam on Cowering From Destiny: “The funding model in Scottish universities is broke. Financially and structurally. The business model that relied on income from foreign…” Sep 26, 14:12
TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “KENNEDY, the consummate coldwar fantasist who almost started a WW over Cuba and initiated the wars in Viet Nam, Laos…” Sep 26, 14:10
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Hang on in there TURABDIN. Your experientially informed contributions are appreciated.” Sep 26, 14:10
Peter McAvoy on Cowering From Destiny: “Yet again the SNP government has failed Scotland BBC Scotland news website stated that Alexander Dennis did not meet the…” Sep 26, 14:09
Mark Beggan on Cowering From Destiny: “‘Socialism is the reason I believe in free speech. How else can you tell who the idiots are’ Senator J…” Sep 26, 13:49
TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “@CAPTAIN CAVEMAN & HATEY. I come from a ethno cultural entity which lost its sovereignty some time ago. I know…” Sep 26, 13:47
Lorncal on Cowering From Destiny: “H McH: I respect your views, and everyone else’s, enough to actually read them. When have I ever said that…” Sep 26, 13:35
Willie on Cowering From Destiny: “The comment about convening a referendum on the wee pretend parliament very much reflects union fear about Scottish independence. We…” Sep 26, 13:04
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Cowering From Destiny: “Re Edinburgh University – a very engagingly readable autobiographical essay by Kevin MacNeill – ‘A Subject That Taught Me I…” Sep 26, 12:34
BH on Cowering From Destiny: “Look at Sweden’s death rate say 1950 to present. Pin a pandemic on it. Try next door with its rising…” Sep 26, 12:20
Northcode on Cowering From Destiny: “It’s worth remembering that Scottish universities have been international for decades. They actively recruit staff and students from all over…” Sep 26, 10:48
Hatey McHateface on Cowering From Destiny: ““these so-called ‘elite’ universities are no longer Scottish in any meaningful sense” As that was my exact point, I don’t…” Sep 26, 10:19
Alf Baird on Cowering From Destiny: “““this once Scottish university” You are the ‘haver’ Hatey, Willie is right. With some 90% of its academic staff and…” Sep 26, 09:42
TURABDIN on Cowering From Destiny: “Ramsay Mac Donald in Socialism: critical and constructive, published in 1921, wrote: «The Anglification of Scotland has been proceeding apace…” Sep 26, 09:34
