In which National Pride takes a dissin'...

If you’re anything like me, you probably organise your life around the Gregorian calendar, and will therefore have found yourself, spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, in the year 2010 (unless you lost any of the above in the orgy of uncensored debauchery I generously label a New Year’s celebration). Depending on how far our other similarities extend, you may or may not have already experienced extensive mental, emotional and existential breakdowns this year, despite it having lasted (at time of writing) only a fortnight. At the beginning of this year, as at the beginning of each of the past five or so years, I was forced to determine with fragile mind whether the events of the preceding hours were an indication that the year could only get better, or simply an exceptionally bleak precedent. Were they a festering gutter from which to escape up a ladder of self-improvement and wise choices, or merely the apex of a very stunted parabola, from which the only escape is to plummet down the slope like a clinically-insane tobogganist? “So,” as Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “it goes.” Not that I would, for a second, compare my annual descent into madness with the Dresden bombings. Remove yourself wholly from such suspicions of crass disregard for historical tragedy. Anywho, with what discursive handcuffs shall I temporarily imprison you for the benefit of my own perverse intellectual fetishes? I must say that it is times such as these during which I regret acutely my inability to effectively tackle current affairs. Surely such mad times merit a place in my archives. What of the fast approach of a Conservative government and their inevitable legalisation of slavery? How about our country’s utter fecklessness in the face of, admittedly severe, winter weather, or the embarrassing reality that the world’s developed countries are collectively incapable of conceiving anything bordering on even a crap solution to global carbon emissions? No... I am afraid that I am still very much fearful both of becoming boring and of exposing my substantial ignorance. As such, I have sensibly opted to discuss a long-held personal gripe of mine, and litter the resultant skid-mark with additional grumblings I hope you will find any one of enlightening, amusing, or arousing...

Above and beyond all the inestimable ridiculousness that permeates conscious reality, what I loathe the most about the world is ignorance paraded as insight. Bold words, you might retaliate, from a man whose website is exactly that, but I at least make an attempt to avoid subjects about which I genuinely know nothing. A transparent attempt at modesty to avoid people thinking I’m a berk it may well be, but I would rather slash open the wrists of humility and bleed false-modesty all over you than peddle the sort of intellectual hemorrhoids certain witless cretins attempt to lance with their crass philosophies and flimsy historical awareness.

People from all over the world do this routinely, and on a huge scale. The Americans are notorious for glorifying every aspect of their history with little or no regard for the less comfortable truths. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no nation on the face of the earth is as shameless in its smoothing over of fact as the Scottish. For the most part it is perfectly harmless. It manifests itself primarily as a sort of warm-hearted rivalry towards the English, as between brothers or close friends. It’s more or less just a bit of fun, like saying the French are all effeminate cowards, or the Italians greasy womanisers. Such trivial animosities are proof that we are, by and large, willing to laugh at how ridiculous our nations may at times appear to the world at large. As such, it shouldn’t irritate me too much when I hear people ranting about the ruthless tyranny and unyielding oppression of the English, the potential glory of Scottish independence, or our country’s vast collection of selfless national heroes.

But it does.

An example, more of a very dull town’s attempts to encourage tourism than of dunderheadedness, perhaps, is the significance the townspeople of Crieff place on what until recently was The Drummond Arms Hotel. Here, Bonnie Prince Charlie, that unadulterated rectum of a human being, held his last council of War before his army was strategically sodomised by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden (the Duke of Cumberland was thirty-feet tall and farted acid). Without elaborating at all, this is, you will admit, a pretty feeble thing from which to draw communal pride. We identify something incredibly noble in the last of any given thing or event, and often deservedly so, but in this case it was not merely the last; it was evidently the most shit. With historical elaboration this becomes not simply a celebration of mediocrity, but also a laughably sycophantic abandonment of principles in return for a paltry boasting right. Crieff was very much a pro-Government town at the time (Rob Roy McGregor's son and his drinking chums were killed in the street for singing Jacobite songs in the middle of the night) and after the Battle of Sherriffmuir, the Highland army burned Crieff to the ground, and were less than reserved regarding their desire to do it again...

Pathetic.

Hilarious... but pathetic.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, of course, is another fine example of the Scottish love of romanticising historical figures, a habit exercised primarily upon those who fought against the “English” (though this was often not the case, as divisions were primarily political or religious, not national). Charles is an almost folkloric figure to many raving Scottish patriots. In actual fact, if you open any decent book on the subject, you will discover that his heroics were limited to enduring a boat journey to Skye wearing a dress, and I would wager, from what I understand of patriotic Scots, that most would recoil from any description of their darling Prince DRESSED AS A WOMAN! Besides, just look at his portrait on Wikipedia. If a more punchable face exists in any of the annals of human history I am yet to be made aware of it, and dread the volatility of my reaction if such a time comes.

As I say, this shouldn’t really annoy me, but it does... particularly when one considers the huge number of other Scottish historical figures and achievements (actual achievements- successes!)one could celebrate. Shame on our nation for consistently failing to celebrate the fact that the adhesive stamp,  postmarks, tarmac, the Kelvin scale, the vaccine for typhoid AND the cure for malaria, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Bank of England, the United States Navy and anything made in the Tunnock’s factory are all Scottish creations. Why would a country in possession of such sterling (and delicious) credentials resort to celebrating a repugnantly absolutist, waste of a perfectly nice skirt?

Jamie

P.S. I’d just like to finish by saying that this entry goes out to my deceased home-dog, Robert Burns, a womaniser and a dedicated drinker- a true symbol of our country’s brilliance.