At the optician's : Scottish Independence (2)

We're up in Edinburgh for our summer holiday and yesterday my wife had to go to an optician to buy a new pair of reading glasses because she'd lost her only pair on our travels.

I lose and break my reading spectacles so frequently - twice a week at least -  that my optician is now the cut price store where I can buy a pair for £1 rather than the £70 I would pay at the optician's. My wife on the other hand is more careful about her sight and seldom loses her specs and a rare event like this does not threaten to break her bank. So, having bought a 'make do' emergency pair at the cut price store my wife, with me in tow, headed to the optician's store which was one of a chain widely advertised on television.

Once at the store, a sight test was administered, a new pair of specs were prescribed and in order to pay for them we sat across a desk from a saleswoman to complete the deal. This is the time when not only do you have to pay the very attractive advertised price which drew you into the shop in the first place but you are also encouraged to insure your goods at an additional cost and you are introduced to other extras you might care to purchase.

*Which of these spectacles were bought in the £1 store ?

While we were navigating through this, the saleswoman noted that we lived in Devon and while she said nothing when my wife spoke, she did observe when I spoke that my accent was not from south of the border. I responded with an old chestnut,

"Naw, Eh come fae Dundee, but Eh dinnae let on."

"Ah," she says, "that explains the 'Yes' badges."  My wife and I were both wearing small lapel badges with the word "Yes" on them  which signifies our support for a vote in favour of Scottish Independence in the forthcoming referendum.  I thought for a brief moment she was suggesting that my being from Dundee meant I had more of a propensity to support independence, but eventually decided that she was establishing a connection between a couple living in England and their  wearing of 'Yes' badges.

"Well, I don't know," she continued, "I'm tempted to vote 'Yes' but I'm fearful about what Westminster can do to us if we do vote 'Yes'".

"The Westminster government seem very keen to keep a hold on Scotland," says my English wife. "Scotland must have something that London wants."

"Yes, and if we vote 'Yes' they might take it all away from us."

"Doesn't 'it' belong to Scotland ? Why should 'it' be taken away, wouldn't that be theft ? asks my wife.

"Well," replies the saleswoman, "it's all a bit more complex than that. My heart says 'Yes' but my head says  'No'."

I had tried not to be involved in the conversation up to now but I've never been able to stop myself from saying something when an  'adult-like' figure implies I am too much of a child to know about grown up things.

"The thing is," says I, "Scotland has so many natural resources with the potential to produce more than enough renewable energy for itself, while selling the surplus off to other countries. It may be the potential profits from that surplus attracts the City of London and its friends in a certain party in the Westminster government. I think Scotland on its own will have a very sound economy for many decades to come."

The saleswoman's mouth widened into a very tight thin smile.  It was  apparent to me that I hadn't made a convert to the "Yes" campaign. I wished I hadn't closed things off in such an abrupt way. I thought what I had said was valid but by being so pedantic and 'adult-like' myself I'd been hoist by my own petard.

When we talked about this exchange later my wife and I agreed that we had known fairly early on in our exchange with the saleswoman we were in the presence of someone who did not want an independent Scotland and that we  respected that position even if we disagreed with it. What surprised us was that the saleswoman did not trust her heart to say how she might vote. She trusted only her head and while we might not agree with what her head was telling her we felt that in the end all human action has its wellspring in the heart as well as the head and maybe we didn't need a pair of reading spectacles to see this.

_________________________________________

* Answer to caption question. All of them were bought by me for me in the £1 store but I do not recommend this method for those who have a care for their eyesight. Always seek qualified help.

“Yes” is a creative word : Scottish Independence (1)

 I live in England and so I will not be voting in the September 18^th, 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.  I was born in Scotland, have lived in Scotland,  and my parents as well as my forebears were Scottish, so I think it legitimate for me to express  views about the idea of Scottish independence, a notion which first came to mind over 60 years ago when, as a wee boy of 7 or 8 years in Dundee, my teachers, Mrs Wilson and Miss Gilchrist,  told us about the stirring deeds of  those early strugglers for Scottish independence, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.  In the last few months, these memories have returned to  me,  and I  have been  fascinated, given that I don’t have a vote, by how much the discussion about the independence referendum  has impacted upon my feeling and thinking.  What follows is just one example of that.

 In recent weeks when I’ve mentioned to friends, acquaintances and some  members of my family that,  had I been entitled, I would have voted “Yes” for independence in the forthcoming Scottish referendum,  I have been astounded to find I am accused of over-emotionality and sometimes of anger. I have attempted to dissuade those with whom I have been conversing from holding these notions about my psychological state by providing my rationale of the advantages of  independence for Scotland. My explanations have, almost without exception, fallen upon deaf ears and  been cut short by the other person. I have come to believe that when I am putting forward a case for  Scottish independence, those I speak with – all fellow United Kingdom citizens -  begin to feel I am abandoning them.  I experience them as  over-possessive, ‘stuck’ parents who can’t let go of the status quo. It is as if they are saying, “How dare you leave us here at home after all that we have done for you”. 

Let me say I do not think any Scots who call for independence are in the throes of an adolescent struggle for adult identity as they ungratefully attempt to break away from their parents.  Scots have been fully grown up for a long time. Scottish history blazons the Scots' contribution to all aspects of human life, endeavour  and culture, just as it does their courageous and industrious responses to the misfortunes and injustices foisted upon them,  such as, for instance,  the highland clearances which forced so many Scots’ families from their homes and shores as a consequence of the avarice of so called "landowners". 

Scottish people are creative and along with this they carry a positive propensity to look out to the world as well as a capacity to welcome newcomers and take them into their fold and offer them fully fledged membership of the Scottish community. 

The Scottish Parliament - a creative symbol

This is why, to be sure, an independent Scotland will be a full and enthusiastic partner in Europe and a positive force in the wider world.  It will not cry out “No !” as a knee jerk default response to any new idea from so called "foreign fields." The latter is a state of mind represented by the churlish, cynical and destructive  attitude struck towards Europe and elsewhere which, sadly, is a cherished monopoly of  the  current United Kingdom government.

“No” is a turgid word full of fear and inertia. “Yes” is a creative and courageous word full of hope. It provides, without fear, the  time for reflection and consideration of new ideas and so makes original and alternative actions possible.  Yes is a word which is symbolic of Scotland.

The Dundee FC's triumph is a stroll in the park but not for a lachrymose Arab taxi driver

My wife and I were up in Dundee recently to go to Dens Park to watch the famous eleven defeat Dumbarton in front of almost 11,000 fans and so win the Scottish Football League Championship and gain promotion to the Scottish Premier League.

The match went well. We defeated Dumbarton 2-1. Before the game, following a stramash about which seats we could and could not sit in, we were eventually located in the section of the main stand near to where the Dumbarton supporters were gallantly and sometimes quite effectively singing for their team. As most readers will know goals from Christian Nade and Peter Macdonald put us 2-0 up by half-time and even when Dumbarton scored from a penalty mid-way through the second half to make the score 2-1,  I had no worries. We'd win the league even if the match was a draw because our goal difference was 8 better than Hamilton's.  So when the final whistle blew I felt the joy of our winning both the match and the league but in truth it was no more than I had anticipated. I had never countenanced us being defeated. If we had been all would have been lost.

It was a happy ending and Paul Hartley and his team had triumphed  We watched the after-match celebrations. The man on the loudspeaker told the more enthusiastic members of the crowd that they could not go for a stroll in the park. I have to report they ignored him and did go walking in the park. After several more frantic beseechings from the man on the loudspeaker, they returned to their homes in the stands to watch the trophy presentation.  Under a shower of ticker tape, on the stage which had been rapidly assembled in the centre circle, the Dundee players were presented with their medals. Gavin Rae stepped up to receive the gleaming championship cup and a great roar rose from the crowd as he held the  trophy aloft and the team all began to bounce up and down in unison which now seems to be something that is programmed into all modern football players who win trophies. This was a a signal for those exuberant fans to take another promenade on the park despite more threats from the man on the public address system who implied that Armageddon would unfold before our very eyes -  to the extent that the players' lap of honour would have to be cancelled  - if the more enthusiastic members of our flock did not retreat from their happy pastures. Give the man on the tannoy his due, within a minute the excitable but happy lambs had returned to the safety of their folds and the lap of honour took place.

On leaving the ground, we looked for a taxi but none was to be found and my wife's mini iPad which she'd used to take photies of the celebratory scenes was useless for contacting a cab and I, with my usual efficiency, had left my mobile 'phone behind at our hotel. A kind man overhearing our anxious discussion about our lack of a telephone, called a taxi company for us. A few minutes later we were pleased when a cab arrived for us at the junction of Tannadice Street and Arklay Street. We told the pilot we were going to the Queens Hotel. He nodded and we hopped in. The driver, who was listening to an English Premier League match on his radio, seemed miserable almost to the point that you would guess he was crabbit.  I decided there and then he was an Arab. Who else could look so unhappy immediately after a Dundee victory ?  If indeed he was an Arab, then sadly  -  and there's only a wee touch of disingenuousness in my sadness  -   a couple of weeks later he'd have a greater reason to feel as scunnered as he seemed by Dundee winning the championship.  It was a shame about United's defeat in the cup final.

"Well, ye've done it." he said lugubriously. I could see it was hurting him to say it.

"Och," I said, "it was a walk in the park,"  -  there's that walk in the park again  -   "easy-peasy even if we'd drawn we'd have been up. Our goal difference was a way better than Hamilton's."

Dundee supporters take an after match stroll in the park

"Naw, ye widna  ha'e won," said the cab driver bitterly. Was that a hint of a tear in his eye I could see?  He continued,  "Hamilton beat Morton 10-2 and they'd have gone up if ye'd drawn. The goal difference was the same, the points wid've  been the same so they'd ha'e won the league because they'd scored mair goals than youse."

I couldn't take in what he said for a few seconds. All through the match I'd been in blithe ignorance of the farce going on at Hamilton.  Nobody near us in the crowd had seemed aware of it either and yet most of them, unlike me, had their mobile 'phones with them. I'm sure they would have been texting friends or keeping up with live text commentary of the Hamilton-Morton match.  Perhaps, like me they had taken Dundee's triumph as a given, or they had known and my antennae hadn't picked it up. In any case I was surprised to find that rather than being relieved not to have known how perilous Dundee's situation was, I resented not having experienced the heart-wrenching and excruciating tension that many of the spectators, I later learnt,  had experienced.  Calm, it appears, is less attractive to me than the tempest. It's a funny thing the human mind, well, the one I've got seems to be.

To be sure I never did find out if he was an Arab (though that "youse" said a lot) but we were grateful to our lachrymose cab driver for driving us through the traffic and crowds after the match.  He didn't need to come to our rescue and we didn't see any other taxis about. He dropped us off outside the Queens Hotel and we paid him our fare together with a healthy monetary consideration in gratitude for the trouble he had taken on our behalf. He thanked us and though I think he tried to, he just couldn't seem to raise a smile.

Just to let you know, for the time being I'm putting aside my paranoid thoughts about how the result between Accies and Morton came about. I am as genuinely sorry for Dundee United as I am pleased for St. Johnstone. I am ecstatic about Dundee's  ascension. In another sense it was a personal triumph for me. It was the first time after many years of trying that I had persuaded my wife to go through the portal of Dens Park. I used to think she was a secret Norwich City fan with a touch of Watford in there as well but I have been instructed after writing this to make it clear that she supports Watford and Torquay United. Still,  she said she liked her visit and, at the end, there she was singing with the best of them, "Nini mini mini mini ninina, Dundee's going up, going up, Dundee's going up!"




Note
In Dundee, the term Arab describes players and supporters of Dundee United Football Club. This came about in the 1970s when the pitch at Tannadice where Dundee United plays was invariably a mud bath to the extent that large areas of it had to be covered in sand to make the ground playable. At one local derby Dundee FC supporters described United's pitch as looking like a desert and so called those associated with Dundee United "Arabs." The United supporters took this name up and a number of them will be seen at matches wearing various kinds of headgear associated with Arabs.
That's my version of the myth and I'm sticking with it until history can  absolutely demonstrate it to have been otherwise.

Let them eat cake : the Queens Hotel, Dundee, and Frank Sinatra, 1953

Recently we flew up on a Saturday morning from Exeter to Dundee to go to Dens Park to watch the famous eleven defeat Dumbarton 2-1 and so win the Scottish Professional Football League Championship and gain promotion to the Scottish Premier League. To give ourselves time for any possible post-match  celebration we had arranged to stay overnight at the Queens Hotel, an elegant Victorian establishment which first opened its doors to guests in 1885.

An interesting, but not elegant part of Victorian Dundee

The match score tells you there was a happy ending at Dens Park. Paul Hartley and his team triumphed.  We enjoyed the after-match celebrations at the ground and then took a taxi back to the Nethergate and the Queens Hotel where later in the evening we were to dine with two friends, a couple, who live just outside Dundee.  During what was an excellent meal,  I talked - which I almost incessantly do  -  about my childhood memories of Dundee. I paused briefly to catch my breath, and one of our friends swiftly breached this momentary gap in my lengthy blethering, to inform us that for all the years she had lived in and around Dundee she had never set foot in the Queen's Hotel and yet in the early 1950s her mother had worked as a chambermaid there. Her mother had told her stories about many of the famous show business people who stayed at the Queens in those days. It was a convenient resting place for them because it was situated close to the Palace Theatre and was not so far away from the Caird Hall. Our friend's mother had said that one of the occasions which remained clearly in her memory was the time Frank Sinatra and his then wife Ava Gardner had stayed at the Queens when he was appearing at the Caird Hall. 1953 was  a time when the singer's star was temporarily on the wane. Young fans had fallen in love with newer, younger crooners and the ticket sales for the show were poor. When the show started less than 500 people occupied an auditorium built to accommodate well over 2000 souls. Apparently Sinatra was not best pleased with this and felt  his show had suffered from poor pre-publicity and he vowed never to return to Dundee. He kept his promise.

Ava and Frank bided here in Victorian elegance

As for the poor pre-publicity well certainly I was unaware that Frank Sinatra was in Dundee on July 7th, 1953 but at the time I was 7 going on 8 and was much more interested in following the Ashes test cricket series on the nine inch Bush television which my father had bought us in May so that we and everyone else in the street  could watch the coronation. In fact I didn't get interested in music until we were hit by  Rock n' Roll  in 1956 when allegedly, well, according to my Mummy at least, the Teddy Boys were planning to rip up the seats in the Astoria Picture House in Lochee where "Rock Around the Clock" was about to show. I was already well over 10 years old and certainly I did not understand why I was not allowed to go and see "Rock Around the Clock."

A 1953 App for cricket and coronations

And another thing, now that I come to think of it, my Mummy and Daddy did a very good number on my sister and me over evening television programmes. Everyday the television service closed down at about 6 o'clock after Andy Pandy and Muffin the Mule and all that stuff had been shown. I mind it stayed on until 6.30 pm when the cricket was on which was lucky for me because Daddy did not come home from work until about that time. I think  Mummy let me watch the cricket not only because Daddy hadn't got home yet but also because it kept me quiet.

Well, to get back to that number that was done on us over the TV, when the television service closed down in the late afternoon, our parents successfully conned us into believing that  television broadcasts were off the air until the following afternoon's children's programmes started again.  After a few months I became suspicious about this not only because I had not experienced any other aspect of life which was so loaded in favour of us children but also because I thought I could hear talking and singing in the living room and it wasn't Mummy and Daddy and it didn't sound like the radio.  So one night at about 8 o'clock I decided to do something about it and went downstairs into the living room intending to say I had a headache. I caught them at it. Yes, there they were in the dark watching the TV.

 I said "I thought there was no TV at night."

"Well it just started the night,"  my Mummy replied.

"And it's on too late for you to watch. It doesn't start until half past seven," my Daddy said as a reinforcement. Actually I thought that was fair enough but why had they kept it a secret ?  At that time I sometimes wondered about parents. I continue to do so.

Anyway at about the beginning of 1955 things got better. I was in bed one February night and heard crowd noises and the voice of a commentator coming from the living room. The crowd sounded just like those I heard at Dens Park. So I quickly developed a sore throat and went downstairs for comfort. When I entered the living room which my parents always kept dark when the TV was on at night so it was just like the pictures,  I saw there was a football match on the TV.  I asked if I could watch it. My Daddy was about to say, "No !" when my Mummy intervened and said "Och, Chic, let him watch it you know he's football mad." He relented and I watched the match sitting on the floor. It was from Brockville Park which was the only stadium  in Scotland with floodlights. Falkirk was playing the Army, whose side had a lot of professional football players who were doing their national service. Once the match was over and I was told to go to bed, I did so immediately for I hoped it was the start of a good thing.

And it was. I was still not allowed to watch TV on ordinary nights but if there was football on I could stay up and watch. This was a favour not afforded to my younger sister. I don't how she felt about that. I guess I just thought it was fair enough because I was older than her by a year and I didn't think she was interested in football.

 I watched some great matches including a series of floodlit friendlies between Wolverhampton Wanderers (who were the English league champions at the time) and Moscow Dynamo and  Moscow Spartak as well as the Hungarian team, Honved, that had Ferencz Puskas in it. He was one of the Mighty Magyars (not to be confused with the Maryhill Magyars) of the Hungarian national team. These matches were big news, coming, as they did, before European club competitions had really got underway. International travel was still a minority experience, and though my Daddy had been abroad on business a number of times, I had not, so teams from as far away as Moscow and Budapest seemed excitingly exotic.


These peregrinations have taken me away from the story told by our friend's mother who had also related to her daughter that while most of the show business guests would, at the end of their stay, leave a significant monetary consideration to be shared among the Queen's Hotel staff,  Frank Sinatra left them a small, round, and undoubtably delicious, Dundee Cake to share because he "was sure they would really like it."  Well I've been brought up to believe that as far as gifts are concerned, "It's the thought that counts."

I did it my way

I don't know if the hotel staff saw it this way. Was a gift of a Dundee  confectionery icon an exercise of unmitigated altruism ? or an expression of downright meanness ? or even an act of ignorant naivety on a Marie Antoinette scale? We may never know, but we can be sure "ol' blues eyes" did it his way.

Seldom Spotted Edinburgh Tram captured in its nesting place in St Andrews Square, May 2nd, 2014

Tram twitchers throughout the world have been anticipating  this sighting for eons. A seldom spotted Edinburgh tram was glimpsed in St Andrew's Square Edinburgh today.  Yes just 58 years since the Dundee tram migrated never it seems to return, a living breathing Edinburgh tram, long thought extinct, has now returned to its ancestral breeding grounds. Their human piloting systems are not quite integrated but as soon as they are acclimatised to their Edinburgh grooves, they'll be flying everywhere.

There it is : but not without its down side

Of course not even a miraculous and epoch-making happening like this comes without problems. That usually much loved creature the commonly spotted Auld Reekie Taxi Driver will have to find something new to squawk about.


And what about our Dundee trams ?

Incubating in a Machinassic Park ?

 Is there a chance that a colony of them may be hiding in some uncharted foreign part,  preparing for its return ?

A Parcel of Rogues : why Scotland has a right wing, London biased media

The Conservative Party and its misled, confused and sorry compatriot in the United Kingdom government, the Liberal Democratic Party, hold 12 of the 59 Scottish Westminster parliamentary seats. The Scottish National Party and the party formally known as  - but no longer representing -  Labour,  hold the remainder.  In the Scottish Parliament even with its proportional representation system the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats hold merely 20 of the total 128 seats. Known for never getting anything absolutely correct, I accept my figures may not be immaculately accurate at the time of posting but they do not misrepresent the general situation.  It is evident the majority of the Scottish electorate holds left of centre views and this, if I may be holier than thou for a moment, is to its credit, and leads to Scotland being a civilised country which wishes to care for those in its community who are vulnerable and integrates this tendency of concern for the less well off and the suffering into government policies much against the wishes of the government of the South East of England at Westminster in London and against the desires of the self-interested Scottish media.

 So given the clear political leaning of the Scottish electorate why does it  suffer from such an overwhelmingly right wing and London biased media ?

As if the Scots haven't suffered enough over these last three centuries when even the English (British?!) national anthem regales against the Scots with a stanza about an imperialistic road and bridge building member of the English military and prays to the Almighty,

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid 
Victory bring.
May he by sedition hush and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King ! 

Well forgive me for noticing that the BBC in Scotland is, like the writer of this abominable song, a Londonophiliac in nature, and intent on belittling what it is to be Scottish at the same time as being  determined to crush the Scottish spirit.  The BBC is inhabited by a significant number of people in awe of the "loadsa"  money, power and influence which they believe exists in London and though they don't like it as much, Manchester. The idea of a smaller SBC world holds no attraction for them.  Faithful to that "dross called gold" and not to the communities from which they came, as soon as the whiff  of golden life beside the Thames wends its way up their nostrils, they are lured south.

As for the printed press, with one or two exceptions such as The Daily Record and sometimes The Herald the  predominant left of centre view of the Scottish electorate is not well represented and  there certainly isn't any significant representation of the views of the many people in Scotland who favour independence. Newspapers in Scotland are it seems also in thrall of the "high road to England."* Their owners and editors fantasise that toadying to Westminster and to the wealth of the City of London will somehow save their failing publications.

A Parcel of Rogues in a Nation : the signing of the Act of  Union 1707

Three hundred years on it would seem important that Scots, at least this time, each with a vote to prevent it, should not be sold out by another parcel of self serving rogues.**



Sources
* "The noblest prospect a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!"
From James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD.  Published 1791.

** Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation  Poem by Robert Burns
Published 1791

Freedom of Speech : the views of the late John Tunnock

A few weeks ago I picked up a paperback in Blackwells, at the junction of  South Bridge and Infirmary Street, Edinburgh, in the same building where the late lamented James Thin Booksellers once traded. The book was a risky purchase. I was fearful it would be too esoteric because it was not on the "Buy two and get a third one free" table. My fears proved ill-founded. It turned out to be a "profound, funny and thundering good read" and offered what for me were a number of pearls of wisdom. The book contained the collected papers of one John Tunnock, a schoolmaster who bit the dust some years ago in Glasgow. I thought Mr Tunnock's idea about freedom of speech was worth - if I might be allowed a little indelicacy - chewing the cud over.
     In the following short excerpt from his memoirs Tunnock recollects his thoughts as he is about to join a demonstration in Glasgow to protest about the Anglo-American war with Iraq.

"I approve of people publicising their ideas on peaceful protest marches, whether workers who don't want their industries shut, or pacifists who want nuclear missiles banned, or even Orangemen who think the world's worst menace is the Catholic Church. Freedom of speech needs everyone to openly show what they believe, even if those ideas are stupid and wrong. Without public discussions and demonstrations the only alternative to being governed by millionaire politicians is terrorist bombings".*

Old Men in Love  Alasdair Gray

    I think Mr Tunnock is saying that differentiating the right of freedom of speech from the privilege of public action is significant. Freedom of action should require a genuine consensus of all the members of our community. Disagree with me if you will but please don't get out the water cannon and I hope those millionaire politicians are listening. 

                               

*An excerpt from page 94 of the novel, Old Men in Love John Tunnock's Posthumous Papers by Alisdair Gray

We're no' daft : Holyrood or Westminster - nae contest

Now I may be wrong about a lot of things but if you have a look at that Prime Minister's Question Time daytime show that they have on Wednesdays on the television from Westminster and then using your dit-dit you click on to the television channel that covers the Scottish Parliament and you see the way business is carried out there at Holyrood in what is a very forthright yet respectful way, you will begin to understand why so many people in Scotland will opt to be governed by their own kind. We're  no'  daft.

At Westminster  a parcel of performing rogues is to be found, while at Holyrood is discovered the kind of gathering you would expect to be dealing with the issues of an enlightened, outgoing community and  nation.

Nae contest.

Dundee Football Club, John Brown, Scot Gardiner, Barry Smith, Sandy Davie and my football career at Liff Road School

I would say that I had nothing against John Brown. As a fellow human being I am sorry that he has been eased out of his job as manager of Dundee FC.  I never saw him when he played for Dundee.  It was at a time  when I couldn't get to Dens to see the team.  What I was upset about and  ashamed of was what had happened before John Brown was appointed, in particular the way his predecessor was dismissed.

I remember that at one of the his first engagements with the media after his  appointment as manager to our great club John Brown said,  "Scot Gardiner. and I go back a long way."  I didn't quite understand what he meant. Quite fancifully, what came to mind was that they were distantly related or that they had belonged to a male society whose members identified each other by the nature of their handshaking.  It turns out that I am completely wrong,  or, if either was the case, none of those things helped Mr. Brown keep his job but you've got to admit that Mr Gardiner is a very powerful man. He's the sort of champion who has the wherewithal  to run a side like Rangers. Of course a man right enough for Rangers may not be right for Dundee.

At Raith Rovers : New Year, 2014 

As an aside I was sorry not to be at Dens Park last Saturday to see again that good man and good football coach, Barry Smith.

This particular blog carries with it the warning that my views on matters of football are in all probability - actually in all certainty -  worthless and most would rightly count me a football  naif even though I played at outside left for Liff Road School on three occasions during the season 1956-57. Firstly I played against our local rivals St Mary's School, Lochee, who then had a great team which that year  had vanquished  all before them. The result of the match was 1-1 or "one's up" as we used to say.  I was kept in the team for the next game against St. Mary's School, Forebank, which we lost 2-0,  and finally I played for the side in another local derby against Ancrum Road School at Lochee Park. We lost 5-0 or as we would say at the time,  "five nothing."  After this disaster, our manager, coach and school heidie, Mr Dalgleish, dropped me forever.  I was so distraught that next season I went to the Harris Academy and took up rugby.

Mind you I'm a person who always enjoys shining in the reflected glory of others. So, let me tell you, our goalie in the Liff Road side was a boy named Sandy Davie who went on to have an illustrious career in football, even if he did play for that other unmentionable middle eastern team. Unfortunately this fact did not turn me into a good player.

Still, despite all my disappointments in life and football, I'll be taking an early train from Totnes to be at Dens for the Hamilton Accies match on Saturday. A good match to win !  What a club I support !

Khat to be banned in the United Kingdom : we're saved from Armageddon !

That magnificent moral band of people called the United Kingdom government, inspired by our wise Home Secretary, Theresa May, is to ban the mastication of khat, a bunch of twigs and leaves which if chewed upon makes the chomper temporarily unproductive and leads him to carry out acts of terrorism. You've got to admit, as a form of reasoning, it makes watertight sense. Furthermore, our government believes it is a practice that if not banned sine die will accelerate the coming of Armageddon.

Now, for all you liberals out there  - I mean Liberal Democrats not real liberals  -  this is great news. We are really beginning to get to grips with assuring an end to all the nasty behaviours in which the immigrant poor indulge. That's why Mr Clegg acquiesced meekly when Mr Cameron  explained to us how he would stop the activities of those devious Bulgarians and Rumanians from the far east of our continent who step on to our sceptred isle and by cunning alchemy convert all the taxes we Britishers pay from our very own pockets into welfare payments which end up in THEIR pockets. Of course you'll find propagandists  out there from the centre left  -  not from the Labour Party of course, but from the real centre left   -  who claim that these foreign deviants are in work, paying their taxes and are not taking our welfare benefits. Well, if you believe that sort of rubbish you probably imagine that the NHS is a good institution. What a laugh !

Anyway back to the subject of those worst ever drugs that all the Johnnie Foreigners in our country are ingesting 24 hours a day.  Let me tell you,  all you people from East African countries living in our welcoming country who might be assuming that the consumption of your drug of choice is being singled out and picked upon, that this is just not the case.  Hold back on your prejudice.  Next week the United Kingdom government will  announce an immediate ban on the intake of nicotine and the imbibing of alcohol.*

* "OK officer, I'll come quietly, and I will learn to appreciate that my last sentence was unpatriotic, traitorous and most significantly, an anti-capitalist lie". 

Free Scotland in 2014 : a sense of my own worth

I hope that on September 18th, 2014, the voters of Scotland choose to make their country an independent one. Others have demonstrated that there are many compelling economic, political and philosophical reasons for Scotland to choose to be independent but for me as a Scot living away from his country, the attraction of freedom is emotional as much as it is rational.

Behind bars on the Scotsman's stair

     A healthy indicator of the nationalist movement in Scotland is its internationalism. In the first instance, it has a wish to be understood as European as much as it is Scottish. Informally, the Scots have a long tradition of this, not only in the development of  European thinking, but also in the way the Scottish diaspora has disseminated and in turn implemented its ideas about science, engineering, medicine, construction, democracy, government, education and etc., throughout the world. 

     What impacts more powerfully upon me is the evocative and provocative sense of a free Scotland. Being Scottish connects me to a place where I belong, where I come from and where I spent my childhood. If Scotland votes for independence  I will be pleased not to feel - in a very embarrassing way - churlish when I insist that I am Scottish at those times when it is assumed that by being British I must be “English.”  For certain, I love where I live in England and I love English people. Yet, why is it that perhaps 6 or 7 times a year I find myself in a situation which impels me to protest that I am a Scot ?  Some will not understand this. After all, Belgians don’t get called French, Dutch people don’t get called German, Portuguese folk don’t get called Spanish and English people seldom experience - directly or by implication - being  called Scottish. For most people my anxiety may seem childish. It is. It runs deep. It is primitive.  It frets over my sense of my own worth  - not in pounds sterling  -  but as a human being. 

Edinburgh, January 1st,  2014.

OECD : Office of Essential Capitalist Dissemination and thoughts on China and Sri Lanka, Oh! and Andrew Mitchell

It would be good to know more of this very clever  -  much more clever than any of us, you know  -     international body called the OECD which last week told us our useless kids and their useless teachers are trailing light years behind those hard working and nice non-hoodies, Korean and  Chinese schoolchildren, in the pursuit of doing sums. To tell the truth I am pleased about the success of children from far Asia, because for so long my generation was told that people from those countries  were either technologically neanderthal or copycats and certainly they were, we were informed,  culturally rather backward.

How things have changed, for while our UK prime minister, David Cameron, MP sniffs the posterior of  Chinese government and Chinese industry and their gold, he feels rectitudinally big enough to exercise his cane on the backside of the Sri Lankan government which has treated some of its people rather poorly. I am sure, because here in the United Kingdom we are a respectable and fair people with a respectable and fair government, that our prime minister will  provide us with evidence that the Sri Lankan government is nastier to its people than the Chinese government is. There can be no doubt that if this were not so, our noble and very wealthy prophylactically helmeted leader, our top Etonian, would be courting the world media to report that China is not too hot on human rights and so maybe we oughtn't to make trade deals with it.  It is mere happenstance that the Sri Lankans don't have the financial muscle of the Chinese and it would be cynical to think the relative poverty of Sri Lanka, and the less attractive trading opportunities it offers, allows our government the "moral strength" to front up to the human rights violations of the Sri Lankan government and, at the same time,  to wipe out from our collective memory some of the human rights atrocities that have occurred in China in recent decades. Actually when I come to think of it we're not too good on treating people humanely. As well as giving the nod to a little bit of torture here and there, our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have hardly lessened the suffering of humankind, and as for the way we treat our own poor.......

"Well, that feels better. Got rid of a lot of stuff there."

Getting back to the OECD, I think it tells us that China is on the right lines and how it is going to be the greatest economy in the world soon - indeed it may already be so. And well, well, well the OECD isn't holding out much hope for the Sri Lankan economy.

It is an irony, though perhaps rather small beer,  as we simple folks try to make sense of all the big issues which are far beyond the thinking capacity of our little minds,  that the OECD is now telling us, that we, the United Kingdom gas consumers, are sadistically wounding and bankrupting those deserving shareholders of the energy companies who blithely, merrily, happily, verily and rightly stitch up, and keep cold, the poor and the less well off. You'll understand now that it's not right to vote for wee Ed in the next general election because he'll put a stop to their rightful and justified profiteering.  What an undeserving economic disaster that would be for "them thar"  paragons of energy  -  what with Christmas coming up so soon too.

I do hope I voted for the OECD. I am sure I must have done because its proclamations are delivered on the BBC daily and nobody seems to provide a dissenting voice. So that proves OECD must be right.

Us plebs  -  sorry Andrew, I am, in some measure, so sure you didn't say that word even if you did say f**ckin' -  have got to break free of our negative and fallacious obsessions about the selfishness of the important people  -  who are, let's face it, so much more worthy than you and me,  -  represented by the  OECD. We are drowning in our envy and the OECD is saturated in its altruism.


"OK, I'll come quietly officer. Oh ! don't tell me I've got it all wrong again. No, I don't necessarily support the OCCUPY movement.  I was only......................"

Three cheers for the increased support to children in foster care ! Now let’s do it for those in children's homes

My lack of sympathy for the current United Kingdom Conservative-led coalition government is a secret I have tried desperately to keep, though not, I confess, entirely successfully. It is a government which has not altogether covered itself in glory in its treatment of troubled families and troubled children and so the announcement made today, December 4th, 2013, by the government minister for Children and Families, Edward Timpson, that children being looked after in foster care in England will continue, if they so wish, to have their foster care and support funded until the age of 21, is one to be welcomed. This is something that foster carers and others involved in the care and education of children looked after in the care system have long called for. 

Mr Timpson, whose own family fostered nearly 90 children, stated that the government would pledge £40m to this initiative over three years and the measure will be introduced during the third reading of the Children and Families Bill next year. I congratulate Mr Timpson. His intention will give us something of which, as a community, we can be proud. 

There is of course another smaller, though significant, group of looked after children. These are children in children's homes and they are perhaps the most vulnerable group of young people in our community. They are children who for a variety of reasons are not available for foster care. Too frequently their difficulties are seen as 'more problematic' rather than - as they should seen - ‘different.’ So the residential care they are provided with becomes, quite wrongly, understood as a  'last resort’ sump of care when it is clear that for these children it is a ‘first resort.’ It is what they need. Let us hope that within a very short period of time the government will announce a similar level of support for children and young people who are in residential care beyond the age of 18 years. Their needs for further support may well be different, perhaps more expensive, but if such support is provided it will be a further welcome sign that as a community we are attempting to edge towards becoming civilised. We will have demonstrated that we are as determined to establish, as much as we can, positive future prospects for young people in residential care, which are equal to those now being put in place for children growing up in foster care.

Comments

John Stein writes : 
I agree with your comment about residential child care being 'first resort' rather than last resort. I couldn't agree more. (Except that I strongly prefer the term, 'residential treatment' to residential care). Virtually every child I met in residential placement needed coordinated treatment in the life space. 'Care,' especially here in Louisiana, implies 3 meals a day and a roof and a bed with an adult with no more than a high school education to look after them. After all anyone can care for kids. That attitude is all too pervasive in our social work profession here, and it runs the programs.

The Dens Road Market

I was up seeing the Dundee match against Falkirk last weekend  and instead of getting a bus or a taxi from the station up to the famous stadium, I walked through the Wellgate, and then up the Victoria Road and round the bend on to the Dens Road to get to Dens Park. And what do I find on my way ? The Dens Road Market is closed. 

A closed Dens Road Market, Saturday, November 16, 2013

Of course this may be history to people living in the town but it was news, and sad news for me but I guess everything under the sun has its day and goes.  It says on a notice that its moved tae the Hulltoon or something but surely it cannae be the same as it was in the glory days of the 70s and the 80s. 
So, so many great second hand bargains and first hand memories.



Comments

Joyce Billingham writes

Never to be forgotten .

R.I.P.

Jennie Thomas recounts
That's very sad - my man and I bought our first furniture together at Dens Rd. I also have happy memories of stovies and bingo from visits there as a child.

Stuart Russon remembers

Yeah, its sad.... My memories are similar, I can hear the bingo caller's tuneful number calling even now. I used to opt for the mince roll rather than the stovies and I remember buying a Madness LP at the record stall. Following the trip to Dens Road Market we would have to sit and wait in Grandad's Volvo whilst Grannie and Grandad went round the Cash & Carry. Our patience would then be rewarded with sweets and a drive up the Law Hill.

My Wee Pal,"Me", the BBC, Democracy, the "Most Powerful Man" in Britain, and a Gable End in Leith

   I was watching the TV last night and a BBC reporter on the six o'clock news,  while commenting about a new investment programme to create even more nuclear based energy, referred to David Cameron as "the most powerful man in Britain,"   and here was I not thinking that along with every person who has the right to vote in this country, I was the most powerful person in Britain? I mean that's what the politicians and the media like to tell me to think when they are talking about free speech and letting me know what a great privilege it is to live in a "democracy" like ours. Up to now I've always really tried to believe this last noble bit of their message.

Sunshine on Leith : pictures of some of the people whose labour made Britain powerful.

   Perhaps you'll say that in accepting this vision I was just being too much of an unweaned bairn not to see that the world of media and politics is busy being fed by and feeding off the members of its own small clique, while they give each other bigger and bigger helpings of power and wealth. You'll tell me I can hardly expect them to have time to be concerned about being of service to my fellow citizens and me, even though, according to the romantic myth of democracy they dole out to us,  each one of us has equal rights. True of course until that is we turn up with tuppence and they turn up with a tenner.  Well I just can't swallow their fake food any more.

18 years of age : old enough to vote and die but certainly not to drive

The United Kingdom  government  -  which these days doesn't very much like many of the citizens it is supposed to serve - is thinking of not allowing young adults to drive until they are 18 or 19 years old and even then they may not be allowed to hold a full licence. Government ministers are due to publish their proposals in a Green Paper following a report by the Transport Research Laboratory.

Of course everyone wants to see a reduction in the number of road accidents with their potential for destroying lives and this should be addressed by looking again at the way driving is taught. Nonetheless questions of  equal rights and equal privilege are raised when a government declares an intention to withdraw a privilege from a certain section of our citizenry. This appears to be what is happening with the proposal to prevent 18 years old adults holding a full driving licence. Should the voices of these adults be heard before any legislation is prepared ?

I imagination these are the same 18 years old adults who are old enough to vote, who for two years have been old enough to get married and who are old enough to be killed when serving in the United Kingdom armed forces. 

Apparently the statistics show that the plan to ensure young adults are well and truly off the road is valid and reasonable. Did you know that drivers between 17 years old and 24 years old cause 20% of the serious accidents on our roads ? The rest of us cause the other 80%  so we'd better watch out or the government may catch on to that. I'd be devastated if I wasn't allowed a driving licence until I was 69. Still maybe it would really be fair enough -  since the likes of me have been causing 4 out of 5 of all road accidents. 

Finally, a message to young adults :  I would warn you not to protest about these proposals. You know what happened when those badgers moved the goal posts.

Sources 

No driving licence until 19?  Richard Wescott, BBC on 10.10.13 at   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24481574

 Driving test age rise considered for teenagers, BBC 11.10.13 at 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24485792

Comments

John Stein writes :

I read with dismay your piece on driving licenses for young people.  My personal experience here in Louisiana, where kids were able to get learners permits at the age of 15 (they require a licensed driver in the car), was that kids who started driving earlier learned to be responsible, while kids whose parents didn't let them get a license until later, like the age of 18, went right out and had an accident very soon after getting their license. 

I'm not convinced that waiting helps.  I think teaching responsibility and safe driving is the better way to go.  The younger they are, the more likely they are to learn.  At 15 (they could get a full license at 16), it is a REAL privilege.  Only a few years later, it becomes a right.

But, just my opinion from a different place and a different time...