On Friday morning, I was in couch potato mode, observing the results of the Scottish referendum on the BBC. A number of analysts were in the studio to discuss what might have been history in the making, although it didn’t quite turn out that way. By 5am in Scotland, some of the experts were definitely wilting, with their thoughts turning to the more important matter of bacon sandwiches for breakfast.
I was delighted to see Clackmannanshire, otherwise known as the “Wee County”, getting its moment in the limelight, being the first county to announce its results. Now it can go back to producing the famous Fraoch Heather Ale, the only ale in the world using heather flowers. Admittedly I’ve never tasted it, but I bet it’s good.
Moose on the loose
Important news following last week’s item concerning a “moose loose aboot this hoose’’. According to the Dundee newspaper, The Courier, a real moose, not a mouse, had this week been seen strolling along a road near Pitlochry in the Scottish Highlands. A lady who spotted and photographed the moose said “we got quite a shock as we thought they were found in Canada”. The lady also said the moose appeared to be “not happy”.
The giant beast became extinct in Scotland 3,000 years ago, although a few are raised in Scottish wildlife parks. Initially, none of the parks reported a missing moose.
It was beginning to look like what the Courier rather painfully described as a complete “moosetery”, but then one park admitted it did have a moose that went on the loose for a couple of days, but has since returned home. Apparently it was looking for a mate, which might explain why it looked so unhappy.
So, with considerable relief we can announce the moose is no longer on the loose. Perhaps it’s time for a 2014 version of Hoots Mon, with appropriately amended lyrics.
In the footsteps of Rebus
I’ve only been to Edinburgh a couple of times and must admit much of my limited knowledge of Scotland’s capital is what I have gleaned from Ian Rankin’s popular crime thrillers featuring Inspector John Rebus.
In those novels, Rankin seeks out the shadowy side of the Scottish capital and he has even been criticised by some citizens for painting a grim portrait of their city. However, tourist officials disagree, saying that some of the most popular tours in Edinburgh take people to the places featured in the Rebus novels. The fact that the tours include a lot of pubs may have something to do with their popularity.
In 2007, Rankin retired the inspector in what was supposed to be the last Rebus novel, Exit Music. Fortunately Rankin didn’t kill him off and owing to popular demand, the detective has reappeared in two more novels, Standing in Another Man’s Grave and Saints of the Shadow Bible, pursuing unsolved cases.
I would be intrigued to know what Rebus would have made of the referendum.
It all comes down to sunsets
In light of the referendum, there have inevitably been a few articles concerning the decline and fall of the British Empire, even though the empire declined, fell and wheezed to a halt a long time ago.
A few years ago, an American professor In Texas produced a collection of the more bizarre offerings his students had come up with in history exams. My favourite was a student’s observation on the British Empire. It had a certain charming logic one finds hard to dispute:
“The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.’’
Well, who could argue with that?
Running out of red bits
No one aired his views on Britain’s declining influence in the world more eloquently than the bigoted character Alf Garnett of the 1960s television series Till Death Do Us Part. In an accompanying book, Thoughts of Chairman Alf, a brief passage of which is reproduced here, Alf is waxing lyrically in his East End accent, wondering what’s happened to the British Empire:
“Look at a map. Just look and see where all them bloody great red bits have gone. Blimey, the countries we give away and we only kept this little bit. What we should have done is kept all the rest and given this little red bit here away — England, I mean. There’s all your bloody foreigners sitting out there in the sun surrounded by oil wells and there’s all of us over here in the bleedin’ rain and fog and snow, catching colds and bronchitis.”
Alf was certainly right about the weather.
Pie and beans
It seems appropriate to round things off in true Caledonian style with another sample from the works of Walter McCorrisken, who proudly called himself “Scotland’s worst poet”. If you were not convinced by last week’s tale of a flea and a dog, here is an equally moving ode entitled Pie and Beans. A true masterpiece, best appreciated if heard in a Scottish accent:
Although I love auld Scotia’s scenes
There is nothing more beautifuller,
Than a plate of pie and beans,
Served in a happy atmosphere
And another thing, it’s no’ very dear.
And also, what’s more, you can use the empty tin
As an ashtray, or even for displaying lovely flowers in.
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