The Gaelic proverb "ruigidh each mall a' mhuileann" - a slow horse will still reach the mill - could not be more apt. Scotland's indigenous tongue continues to make slow steps towards equal status with yon Walmart of languages, English. Even more surprisingly perhaps is that it was acheived under the stewardship of MG Alba boss and lacklustre former Labour MSP, Alastair Morrison. Whatever, after centuries of repression and neglect, Scots can now enjoy the language of the Scots on old fashioned telly as well as wireless and internet. BBC Alba will screen on Freeview channel 8 from early June.
The next victory could well be a stand alone Gaelic school for Edinburgh which it is anticipated will replicate the successes seen in Glasgow, Inverness and Skye. Word in the corridors of civic power in Dùn Eideann is that Bungsoil Ghàidhlig Dhùn Eideann is set to be given the green light. Unfortunately, Lib Dem education chief, dinosaur and ignoramus Marilyne 'Butterball' MacLaren is still refusing to budge. Rumours that Butterball and right-wing Edinburgh Evil News columnist John Gibson were seen leaving a High Street hostelry in the wee small hours arm in arm and singing 'rebellious Scots to crush...' are entirely unfounded.
Its high time for those Unionists to live up to their ideals and unite. Having a 'Scottish' leader who takes his/ her orders from London is not enough. Why don't they actually... unite? Furthermore, surely it's time that they have a leader that embodies their right-of-centre orientation.
Here goes then...
Oswald Mosely. Surely a man to whom the words 'British' and 'Union' have become synonymous? His vision and discipline are just what is lacking in the current sad crop of Unionist duds in Scotland. There is the small matter of him being dead of course. However, we understand that Glasgow's very own Psychic Barber is willing to mediate with a ouija board. Initially it was thought that he'd be a natural for the Tory wing of the Unionist alliance. However, his penchant for moustaches, uniforms and large numbers of marching men appears to sit uneasily with the more conservative family value types.
The Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley. If you want a man to say 'never, never, never' to an independent Scotland whilst also saving this auld nation from sodomy, then Ian's your man. However, he's also getting on a bit and is a bit close to Mosely, both in political persuasion and mortality. Like Mosely, he likes marching, often wearing a bright orange and purple 'sash' and proclaming the memory of King William of Orange - the Dutch religious tyrant and notorious homosexual whose orders saw the MacIains of Glencoe massacred in their beds. He may be too left wing for Labour though.
The Reverend Ewen Aitken. Last but not least. This is the renowned Edinburgh Cooncillor and former leader who unsuccessfully challenged Kenny MacAskill at this year's Scottish elections. Aitken is famous for being a 'conductor on God's tramline' as well as for being an enthusiastic supporter of Edinburgh's own disastrous tram project. Aitken, with God on his side, may be a formidable leader of the Scottish Unionist alliance though others think that there's 'something of the night' about him. There may also be a few skeletons lurking in his vestry such as his 'promotion of porn' stooshie a few years back.
Chan e seo deireadh rathaid ach toiseach linn - This is not the end of the road but the start of a new age. Runrig, 'Àrd', 1993
Labour's dinosaurs hit the ground with a thump as the meteor hit. Their food source gone. The Lib Dems thought that having two faces would give them double the chance of success but it just gave the people twice the target to kick. The Tories' talk of 'common sense' by grabbing others' pubic hair saw them scrape a new low and left poor matron Annabel inspecting the skid-marks in her Union Jack bloomers.
Meanwhile, the public voted in unprecedented numbers for the SNP to gain what they can from the greedy ConDem government in London before pursuing full independence. A mood of optimism exists despite Scotland having to face up to the consequences of a bankrupt British economy that incredibly can still find enough dough for war while throwing teachers and nurses on the dole and freezing wages.
What songs are fitting for this moment? Here's a starter: Runrig's 1993 anthem for home rule, Ard. The song mourned the dark days of Scotland suffering under a Tory government in London while expressing hope that a new generation would struggle and achieve self-determination. We did take that first step. Here's to a new generation taking the next step towards a progressive, prosperous and independent Scotland, leaving those Labour dinosaurs to fossilise.
Àrd
Madainn Di-haoine 's duthaich fo sgoth
'S mi sgith le cuid smalan, mi-mhisneachd is bron
Seo an deicheamh la dhan a'Ghiblean 'sinn fo ghruaim a rithist
An co-dhunadh a cheannaich na daoine aig pris
Tha spiorad nan daoine nas soilleir na ghealach
Nas doimhne na'n cuan
Gheibh sinn ar n-aite 'san t-saoghal
'S an ginealach ur
Ard: blar nan daoine
Ard: guth is saorsa
Ard: tha sinn gluasad
Gu h-ard theid sinn suas
'S iomadh trioblaid tha romhainn 'nis Gaidheal agus Gall
'S mi le aon suil air eachdraidh, aon suil mo chlann
Ach cum creideamh nad bheatha, sonas nad chridhe
Chan e seo deireadh rathaid ach toiseach linn
Tha spiorad nan daoine nas soilleir na ghealach
Nas doimhne na'n cuan
Gheibh sinn ar n-aite 'san t-shaoghal
'S an ginealach ur.
Translations available via Google. Gaelic education links on the left bar at the top.
And for the 3rd paper on the choice of AV or first past the post voting for the greedy and bankrupt London parliament, I intend to write 'Independence'.
The Union has failed Scotland, that much is clear. Historically, Scotland used to enjoy cordial trading relations with the main European powers. After the union of 1707, we were at war with them because England's battles were now ours as well. At the time, many Scots lived in dire poverty. That did not change even though a handful of Scottish merchants did line their pockets on the plundered spoils of the British Empire.
Today, the contrast between the haves and have-nots is still stark. On the Royal Wedding weekend, the East Neuk of Fife was replete with Union Jacks and pics of the happy privileged couple. It was like a corner of middle England tacked onto the bulk of dark once-communist Fife. A drive through the likes of Leven, Kennoway and Cowdenbeath on the way home revealed the real Fife. That saddest thing is that huge swathes of deprivation and poverty like this are to be found in most parts of Scotland - from Dumfries to Glasgow, from Midlothian to Aberdeen.
In parts of Glasgow the longevity of an average man is as low as 54.
Meanwhile, our small and independent neighbours on the North Atlantic rim are doing fine. Norway in fact is sitting on top of the world in terms of wealth, health, happiness, education and even community spirit. Even the nations in the 'arc of prosperity' - Ireland and Iceland - that lost their shine are still more prosperous than bankrupt Britain.
Despite Britain's reputed £900billion debt, the combined Unionist alliance of Labour, Tory and LibDem have wasted billions on foreign wars, Trident missiles, aircraft carriers, shoring up nuclear powers and other such nonsense. Demands to safeguard public services are met with demands from Cameron, Clegg, Brown or Blair to 'tighten our belts'. Why provide for Scotland's poor when you can kill half a million Iraqi civilians in order to remove a dictator of our own making?
Its bullshit. There is absolutely no reason for Scotland to remain part of a 'UK' that is bankrupt in all senses of the word. Some Scots still vote Labour because their grandparents did. Some don't like Alex Salmond. Some believe scaremongering that only voting Labour will keep the Tories out. That's a vote for negativity.
If Labour want to protect Scotland from a London Tory government, then they too should embrace independence and reclaim some of their auld principles.
Think for yourselves. Don't vote for Salmond, vote for Scotland's future. It could be SNP, Green or Scottish Socialist. Scottish Labour is a corpse of a fat complacent dinosaur that took its food source for granted for far too long. Leave it to the maggots.
Police are only human. Unlike other humans though, they seem to have a supernatural ability to avoid the usual consequences for actions that are deemed 'unlawful'. Police routinely lie in court and yet few of them get sent down like Tommy Sheridan. Murders committed by police are 'unlawful killings'. True, some of them do get sacked when caught impersonating KKKweirdos killing Asians. But, that only happens when the deed is captured on film or on tape.
Today is not a slow news day though concerning this matter. The below piece caught my attention and in particular the words, "A force spokesman said the death was being treated as unexplained."
This comes on the same day as an inquest jury in London found that the paper-seller Ian Tomlinsonwas unlawfully killed after he was hit by a baton and pushed to the ground by PC Simon Harwood of the Great Satan's constabulary.
It also comes just days after cops broke up a 'Royal wedding' party in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park when thousands of youngsters had taken to heart David Cameron's plea to 'organise parties irrespective of local bureaucracy'. Trouble flared once the cops arrived.
Kelvingrove - here comes trouble
As a youngster in the shed at Tynecastle, I used to listen to the big boys sing 'Harry Roberts is our friend, he kills coppers'. Many of the guys singing it were striking miners from Midlothian and were more than used to police brutality. It was the kind of education they didn't teach in schools then.
All murder is regrettable and pointless but even Harry Roberts' Wiki page has the word 'murderer' in brackets. 'Unlawful killing' aint for the plebes. Roberts is still in prison after killing three cops in 1966. I doubt if PC Harwood will even get a year. I guess some are more equal than others.
Our shops are decked in red, white and blue. The colours of the royal wedding and Old Firm mail bombers who profess loyalty to the Queen but refuse her law. As Scotland enters the final week of an election which looks like it could deliver a joint SNP-Green administration and with it, a referendum on independence, the plebes are given a day off. Grate Britain is bankrupt but on top of another military enterprise abroad where we bomb another oil-rich nation we can afford to splurge on the weddingof an Anglo-Hellenic-Germanic prince and his posh bit of fluff.
How soon before the royal couple grace the floor on the Royal Strictly Come or ITV screen I'm An Inbred, Get Me Out of Here! where chinless aristo types eat lichen and dungbeetles on the banks of Lochnagar? If not them, then their kids. That's for sure.
Turn off the telly on Friday and watch some other anthems....
Laibach - Anglia
So you still believe you're ruling the World,
Using all your tricks to keep the picture blurred.
Scatter your enemies, confound their politics,
So you still believe you're ruling the world...
God save your gracious Queen,
Long live your noble Queen.
God save your gracious Queen,
God save you all!
So you still believe you're superior,
And all other nations are inferior,
Any sedition hushed, rebellious Scots crushed,
So you still believe you're superior,
God save your gracious Queen,
Long live your noble Queen.
God save your gracious Queen,
God save you all!
So you still pretend you're ruling the World,
Using all your tricks to keep the picture blurred...
So you still pretend you're ruling the World,
Using all your tricks to keep the picture blurred...
Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
God save the queen cos tourists are money
and our figurehead is not what she seems
Oh god save history god save your mad parade
Oh lord god have mercy all crimes are paid
Finally, here's Kunt and the Gang once again. Share the love...
The forthcoming 'royal' marriage between an Anglo-Germanic prince and his chosen receptacle for the royal seed has the worrying possibility of giving renewed credence to two equally outdated institutions. Those are the 'British' royal family and marriage. Marriage though as we know it appears to be dying despite a blip in Scotland last year when the numbers were up slightly from the previous year's all-time low. The fact remains though that most relationships break up. Why then try and contain human sexual relations within a narrow Judeo-Christian box that is increasingly a coffin for true natural feelings?
In a Western European context, the 'institution' of marriage continues to be shored up through the twin evils of religion and authoritarianism. Religion at least seems to be dying too. Perhaps 'dying' is too strong a verb as there will always be a significant minority who either believe in a god or want to get hitched in whatever way god or state decides. It is however a cause of celebration that both these institutions seem to be withering away to their 'irreducable core'.
Those who do not or cannot marry are still hindered by the archane laws of many countries in Europe. One example is that of the late Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy. He died at the age of 50 in 2004. However,the law in his native Sweden refuses to acknowledge the 32 year co-habitation between Larsson and his partner as legitimate and decrees that his estate should go to his blood relatives.
Germany too creates difficulties for those not married, even when one of the partners and their child are born abroad. Should an unmarried German mother attempt to take her Scottish born baby into Germany there could be problems if the baby carries a different name to her mother. Should they wish to enter Germany via an airport, the customs and excise guards could refuse entry and fine the mother 2000 Euros. Should the mother drive or walk across the border from the Netherlands, France, Poland or Denmark then this isn't an issue.
Which god is that?
Civil partnerships may be a step in the right direction. However, should the love or co-habitation between two people of any gender have to be 'recognised' by the state? The word 'marry' simply means 'to unite' or 'to come together' and this was the way it was for most of human history. Monogamy too has not always been an issue though in almost all cultures it's usually been the men who have enjoyed various partners. Even early Christians were not as hung up on a formal ceremony and recognition of marriage as their modern equivalents are. For the early Christians, the intention to live together was signal enough of the love between two people.
The philosopher AC Grayling in his book Life, Sex and Ideas - The Good Life Without God states:
The roots of socio-legal marriage lie in a profoundly sexist financial arrangement. Its originating aim was to constrain women's sexuality and fertility so that men could be sure they were bequeathing their property to their own offspring. When the poorer classes also began to acquire property... various marriage traditions were at last reduced by law to a single type.
Control of sex is what it comes down to. Rich men wanted to make it illegal for another man to 'shag their burd'. And if the law failed then at least the groundwork was done to deny the fruit of another man's loins wealth that it didn't deserve. As with modern drug control though, the law and religious morality failed and continues to do so. Hence, what is natural becomes illegal. Grayling goes on to offer the following quotes:
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink but he did not die of it. He degenerated - into vice. Nietzsche.
Nature knows no indecencies, man invents them. Mark Twain.
"Is your scrote bigger than mine?"
As with the old definition of 'marriage' having being corrupted, so too is 'monogamy'. Monogamy originally meant one partner for life. Aye right. The fact is though that should you be lucky enough to marry the person with which you spend your remaining decades of life, it is highly unlikely that it will be your first sexual partner. Equally, despite all the fuss, money and continuing morality surrounding marriage, around half of them break up. If this isn't reason enough to give it a miss, why not look to biology. According to Dutch biologist Midas Dekkers, the inclination of a species to play around can be gauged by the size of the scrotum:
The greater the chances of unfaithfulness , the greater the sperm production will have to be. Within a single group of animals the degree of infidelity from species to species can be determined by the size of the scrota.
We apparently, on the scrotal swingometer, are somewhere in the middle between the chimp and the gorilla with a slight inclination towards gorilla-style fidelity. Infidelity remains a popular habit for married couples though. What will Prince William be? A chimp, gorilla or maybe a bonobo? Certainly, his family have no claim to the moral high ground of family values in a married Christian context. His wee brother Harry is a carbon copy of the 'lecherous cad' James Hewitt. His father Chas allegedly had 'liaisons' with a male servant and enjoyed adulterous relations - "I want to be your tampon" - with horse-faced Camilla while still married to Saint Di.
Interestingly the word 'infidelity' originally meant a 'want of faith, unbelief in religion'. Polly Vernon in the Guardian states that up to 40% of people in marriages or long-term relationships will be 'unfaithful' at some point. Again though, our obsession with sins of the flesh should have no place in a modern progressive society. Partners can be ill-treated in many ways. Why then should a sexual liaison with another person be worse than sitting in front of a computer growing a beer belly while 'the wife' does the washing-up?
In the progressive Scandinavian nations, religion and marriage are becoming increasingly sidelined. In Norway and Sweden, the majority of kids are now born outside of marriage. This has caused some consternation amongst Catholics, still reeling from the Pope's condom U-turn who fear a loss of control.
Marriage remains an outdated and usually expensive millstone around our necks. In Europe it is promoted by a Judeo-Christian philosophy that expects us to circumcise our sons or sees unmarried elderly bachelors sermonise us on family values. It is a unnecessary capitulation to authoritarianism and backward religious 'morals'. MPs and priests, churches and registry offices can no more express the diversity and unpredictability of human love than can Loving magazine or a comic strip from The Sun. On April 29th, I'll celebrate the likely demise of the forthcoming royal marriage and hopefully of both 'institutions'.
That lone voice of reason, the Daily Mail today reports with horror that...
The astonishing speed at which traditional family life has collapsed is laid bare today.
Shocking figures reveal that births outside marriage are at their highest level in two centuries and nearly half of children can expect their parents to separate by the time they turn 16.
Nine out of ten couples now live together before – or instead of – tying the knot. Before the Second World War, it was fewer than one in 30.
I am indeed shocked. Its the first good news that I've read in the Mail, ever.
Great Britain with its thousand years of democracy finds itself once again perfectly placed to be the world's polisman. Of course, Uncle Sam has to give the nod first. Let us explain why Great Britain has the moral authority to rid the world of all bad people like the very very bad Colonel Gaddafi. Gaddafi thinks that he can oppress his own people AND do business with us. Who does he think he is? China? Saudi Arabia?
For a start, Britain would never clear its own people of the land, especially for reasons of profit or ethnic hatred.
The Clearances in Uist, 1895
Nor would Great Britain shoot its own people while they demonstrated for basic human rights.
Bloody Sunday, 1973
Even dirty hippies living on the edge of society would not be subject to violence at the hands of the British state.
'The Battle of the Beanfield' 1985
Though dirty striking miners with left-wing tendencies did occasionally provoke the police into suppressing their dissent by any means necessary as they were called upon to do at the so-called 'Battle of Orgreave'.
Orgreave, 1984
Our parliament is lead by honest and accountable politicians. This duckhouse is the symbol of the probity of the 'Mother of Parliaments'.
A necessary expense for London MPs
And our leaders would never join forces with religiously motivated extremists to wage an illegal war on a third world country.
Repeat, would not enjoy a 'special relationship' with a country that covertly financed terrorist groups such as the Contras in Nicaragua.
CIA manual - part of US 'covert' warfare against Sandinista Nicaragua
Were atrocities against innocent civilians ever to have occurred then that of course is a matter of great regret. Rest assured though that no breaches of international human rights law take place today.
Guantanamo Bay, still home to 172 'detainees'
Britain is so assured of its morality that it would take swift and effective action against any nation guilty of human rights abuses. Be it China...
Bodies of student protesters, Tianamen Square, China, 1989
Or in democratic and capitalist-friendly Russia...
Massacre of Chechen 'rebels', 2000
We are also confident that Great Britain's friendship with nice Saudi Arabia is having a positive effect on human rights there. Particularly in its attitude to women.
'Be thankful you're not getting stoned'.
Lastly, Great Britain would never tolerate the maintenance of a dynasty of unelected persons living at the tax payers' expense.
Er...
Gone are the days when our government was run by a privileged clique of white Eton-educated rich men.
Cool Britannia was never... so cool.
Please remember all of this if you read of claims that Great Britain is wasting £billions on another foreign war while the economy withers and thousands lose their jobs. Please remember to stand in respectful silence when the coffins come home. Our boys die for you.
Even if you can't read Scottish, you know what it means. Our complacency broken, its time to roll out the anti-nuclear power campaigns again.
Once in generation it seems as if we have a major nuclear accident. One too many. And even if these major accidents are few and far between - low level radioactive leakage seems to be regular and the cost to the taxpayer of subsidising nuclear power is enormous. Then there's the question of what to do with the waste. I remember Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight with his trademark incredulous frown asking the then chair of British Nuclear Fuels if he was 'seriously proposing that we bequeath to our grandchildren tonnes of radioactive junk'.
Generations are often marked by their tunes. So, where are all the anti-nuclear power tunes? Nuke war has got a few. But atomic energy? Well, perhaps my 5 minutes of half-hearted research wasn't thorough enough but I managed to dig up a few examples - all from the 80s it seems. And all from the 'anarcho-punk' genre. The anarchist strand of punk music didn't quite change the world but its impact was to be seen in movements such as CND - given the kiss of life by Crass - and the animal rights movement. Unfortunately for some, it was also the mother of all chastity belts. The Pope would've been proud. No condoms needed as adolescents were consumed by marching for CND and against vivisection, reading veggie cookbooks, squatting and latterly by getting filthy and growing dreadlocks. Though this was mostly by those who later graduated to a job in banking. Sex was viewed with frustrated suspicion - maybe it was 'sexist' to chat someone up?
Anyway, Edinburgh's anarchos Oi Polloi seemed to shout most about nuclear power. Songs like Resist the Atomic Menace, No Filthy Nuclear Power and Go Green provided a soundtrack for protest trips to Torness to rage against nuclear power stations that Labour gave us before they opposed them before they advocated them again.
Loanhead based noise-merchants AOA also got in on the act with their split LP with Oi Polloi. AOA also came from an area where the miners' strike was at the heart of the community. Today it may seem as if environmental activists and 'spokespersons' all speak with the same kind of Oxbridge accent. AOA weren't of that ilk.
Flux of Pink Indians emerged out of the Crass-inspired wave of punk. They were responsible for memorable anthems such as Tube Disaster but also for the weird and pretentious, though superbly titled, 'The Fucking Cunts Treat Us Like Pricks'. Flux later produced the Buddhist-inspired 'Uncarved Block' on their own Little Indian label which also gave us the likes of Bjork and the Shamen. Here though is their own anti-atomic anthem.
Lastly is Discharge. Again, very influential - certainly on thrash metal bands such as Metallica and Sepultura. Lyrically, they are best described as 'uncomplicated' and 'straight to the point' though 'repetitive' may also be apt. They definitely had a bee in their bonnet regarding things nuclear though to be honest, war was by far their biggest bugbear. 'The Possibility of Life's Destruction' is open to interpretation though. Here are the lyrics. All of them.
Can you hear the sound of an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell
The possibility of life's destruction
Can you hear the cries of pain the mournful sound
At present, Scotland's SNP minority administration government is committed to making Scotland nuclear free. Should the election in May see the uninspiring former radical Iain Gray become first minister as head of a Labour-lead government, then Scotland could once again become a nuclear dustbin.
Amazing but true... London BBC plumbs new depths in insularity in their coverage of the impending nuclear crisis in tsunami-hit Japan. While helicopters hover over the stricken countryside, our well-spoken English correspondent tells us that one of the main problems in gaining information from the local populace is that they are... Japanese speaking. And thus, the navel-gazers of Englandshire are rocked by a quake of higher magnitude that than which hit Japan - these people actually exist without the English language!
While David Attenborough extols the wonders of Madagascar's flora and fauna it seems as if the BBC has sent Germano-Hellenic Prince Philip to marvel at the plight of those yellow and slanty eyed foreigners.
Phil the Greek, "Come ahead all you slitty-eyed Jock jigaboos and wops"
And then, the Beeb's helicopter returned to more urban areas where islands of Engerlish are often to be found. As people stuck on top of buildings and bridges signalled their need for rescue, the camera crews of the British Broadcasting Corporation had another priority - film first, rescue later, all the while hoping that it doesn't overshadow news of the royal wedding. But while we Brits were reassured that we are too clever to learn others' languages we at least were able to identify language as one of the cultural markers which differentiates Japan from Engerland.
Meanwhile, back in yon green and pleasant land, a nation of Daily Mail readers awaited their next visual feast amid dire warnings that a Scottish media service would be... 'narrow and insular'.
