Wings Over Scotland

The greatest intellectual weakness of the independence movement is its attitude towards Trident, and trying to reason with people about it (whether readers or other independence activists) is consistently one of the most frustrating aspects of writing Wings, because nuclear disarmers and Unionists are equally impervious to logic on the subject.

The UK’s nuclear “deterrent” – or as it was more accurately and memorably described by the former Vulcan nuclear bomber squadron commander Air Commodore Alastair Mackie, “a virility symbol, like a stick-on hairy chest” – is the greatest gift to a future Scottish independence negotiating team imaginable.

The rest of the UK gets a lot of economic and infrastructural benefits from Scotland, like water and energy, but ultimately it’s not massively bothered about those. Water is not yet a critical area and energy can be sourced elsewhere, and in any event Brexit shows us that the UK is more than willing to do itself enormous harm in the service of ideological political goals.

But Trident is a whole different kettle of sweaty underwater men.

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The reality-TV let’s say “personality” Kelly Given – who Wings readers previously met on a trip to New York for Tartan Week with a raft of SNP let’s say “celebrities” a couple of months ago – has been off on another nice holiday.

Last night she told both the viewers of BBC Scotland’s “Seven Days” that she’d just spent three weeks on an island in Greece, where apparently she was quite shocked to discover that the Mediterranean nation was hot in July.

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Inspired by this tweet:

We thought we’d try the idea out.

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There’s still nothing happening in Scottish politics, so inspired by the Hieland Coo from yesterday’s godawful Economist front-page story, and for those of you who don’t use Twitter, and by reader request, meet some of my new friends from the last couple of weeks of strolling around Bath, guarding against ursine incursion.

Because VIGILANCE MUST BE MAINTAINED AT ALL TIMES.

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Below is a clip from last night’s ITV News West Country.

It really needs a wider audience.

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Sorry readers, been a bit busy with research today. But here’s a news:

Now the Catholic Church loves all The Gays and Stonewall hates them. It’s 2023, and welcome to whatever the Hell this is, everyone.

The release of some early 2021 census statistics relating to gender was greeted with glee and elation by Nancy Kelley, CEO of Stonewall in the UK. Vindication at last!

(Kelley declined to mention that her figure of 262,000 was substantially less than half the number of trans and non-binary individuals – 600,000 – that her organisation has habitually claimed for years.)

The census suggested that England and Wales are home to 48,000 transwomen (and 48,000 transmen), from the total who’d answered No to the voluntary question asking if their gender identity aligned with their sex at birth.

(The largest number that said No, around 118,000, didn’t tick the boxes of transwoman, transman or non-binary, nor wrote in their own. An unknown number of these may have been rejecting “gender” altogether. 30,000 ticked “non-binary” and 18,000 wrote in a gender because they were REALLY special.)

But, as we’ve been told time out of number, we must accept what people say about themselves. So 48,000 transwomen it is. So few. So vulnerable. And that number got me thinking.

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Just for a little bit of fun. This is actual footage of North Korean TV news (source: NK News) from today, but I thought it deserved a more moving soundtrack.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM

Chapter I
Ignorance Is Strength

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered.

Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.

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Bath, readers – which some of you may be aware isn’t even in Scotland – is a pretty darn pleasant place to while away your days, all things considered. Packed from head to foot with gorgeous Georgian architecture the colour of set honey and nestling amid a clutch of lush green hills, it’s like a miniature version of Edinburgh in sandstone.

It’s big enough to be lively and have plenty of culture, with theatres and museums and venues and galleries and cinemas both multiplex and arthouse. Countless movies and TV shows have been shot here, from contemporary episodes of Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected to a whole string of period costume dramas, and the “Little Theatre” cinema seen in Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr Fox” is based on our real one.

It’s also very handily placed. Situated on or close to two main railway lines, you can hop on a train and ten minutes later be in Bristol, an ugly and unlikeable but still vibrant and eventful city. 30 minutes takes you to the classic English seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare, or the unfairly-maligned Swindon. Stretch it to an hour and you can be in a whole other country, in Barry Island or the impressive Welsh capital of Cardiff. 90 minutes gets you to London, and a couple of hours will see you in any of a bunch of places on the south coast (my personal favourite is Weymouth), all direct. You can even get straight to Edinburgh or Glasgow with only a single change of train at Bristol.

Having a car unlocks lots of other magical and fascinating places that are well within daytrip distance, like the ghost villages of Tyneham and Imber, the striking Cheddar Gorge, Longleat safari park and the world’s greatest museum ever, the batshit-mad Oakham Treasures, as well as Lacock, a quaint 13th-century townlet entirely owned by the National Trust, which gets invaded by Nazis every year.

(If you love a stately or historic home, you can join the Trust and visit somewhere new within 40 minutes’ drive just about every week for a year. Then you run out.)

In short, Bath is fab. But there’s a downside.

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