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| The climax of Burns' Tam O'Shanter |
I have never been what you might call a hard-core Scotsman. My self image has never fitted well into the mold of 'Scot'. I think I have a love/hate relationship with the land of my birth. For a while I think I wanted to forget about Scotland and my Scottishness as part of my attempts to become an intellectual man of the world. I used to hate travelling on the London Underground because I new I was going to end up being cornered by a drunk Glaswegian. When this inevitably happened he would usually detect my reluctance to engage in conversation and start to get a bit shirty, as drunk people so often do when you refuse to throw their ball back over the conversational fence. As bad as I feel about this I have never faked an English accent to shake of am inebriated jock. I will never stoop that low!
Having returned to Scotland for a period of RnR 1 I attended a service of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)2 and eat wild salmon at the Minister's Manse. Later I found myself cruising the sleazy3 tourist shops of Portree on the Isle of Skye. In a period of about 45 minutes; I considered my favourite tartan tie in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill4, actually tried on a Harris tweed sports jacket, bought Boswell and Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and tapped my foot to some accordion and fiddle music!
Having never eaten salmon in my puff and actually quite enjoyed it, I started to compile a list of 'Things typically Scottish', things which might have strong positive associations with Scotland and/or the Scottish. I present this list for you now, along with position on each.
Things typically Scottish
Whiskey-hate the stuff, smell makes me gag. If it comes to some kind of ceremonial whiskey drinking e.g. Burns' night/Saturday night then I tend to just wet my lips and pass it on.
Porridge-no positive feeling towards this stuff other than the childhood memories of my gran pouring it into a drawer in the sideboard lined with greaseproof paper. When cooled and hardened this could be cut and given to children as a kind of working class muesli bar.
Fish, esp salmon-always disliked fish. The smell of hot salmon could bring on nausea.
Being tight with money-well gotta fess up here, I am a bit mean but also have a masochistic aversion to dealing with money matters or financial affairs. I let the current Mrs Gibbons deal with it. I feel totally out of my depth in those fiscal waters.
Haggis-never really ate haggis till I left home around 1983. Since then I have delighted in the 'Chieftan' several times and his misunderstood relative the vegetarian haggis. Another great thing about haggis is convincing foreign people and the English that a Haggis is a living animal which needs to be hunted and caught in a net before slaughter. I once made a small boy cry with that story. I kid you not.
Football-I consider myself the personification of Scottish football, i.e. I'm rubbish. Played rugby instead and am pretty mediocre at that. There is a pattern forming here. The 1978 world cup in Argentina crystallised my feelings about the national team. They possess the amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and tend to play brilliantly when the odds are heaped against them, but usually to no avail, as shown in the final group game vs Holland. Archie Gemmill, we salute you! Watch it and weep at the poetic beauty as the wee man fi Paisley make Cruyff and his boys look like eejits!
Being drunk in public-never again, not since that time in 1998 when the police were nearly called to a Tesco's just outside of Northampton when it looked like I was a sexually assaulting my wife, the fragrant Clare Rosamund. look, I'd had a beer or two and we were quite recently married at the time, what more can I say?
Bagpipes-shit.
Scottish nationalism-I flirted briefly with the SNP in my student days at Aberdeen, think I even voted for them. Now I tend to think Scotland is better off in the tent pissing out. For one thing who gets to keep the nukes!?
Calvin-loving the salvation by grace alone/struggling with election and predetermination5
Robert Burns-I used to think Burns was pretty naff, with Tam O'Shanter being the acme of naffness. Then I read it and was totally gripped by its sexy magical voyeurism and adrenaline fuelled chase scene 6. I thought it was all about a silly hat. Needless to say I soon discovered the works of Burns to be intelligent, sensitive, passionate and riven with a desire for social justice.
Rain/wind-apparently very common in Scotland. No strong feeling on it myself but they do say when in the highlands if you don't like the weather wait 15 minutes.
Being dour-Gordon Brown MP. Need I saw more?
Deep fried Mars bars-if I had been given a deep fried Mars bar for every time a kid had asked me if I'd ever had a deep friend Mars bar I'd probably look like a deep fried Mars bar. Or dead. Same thing really.
Balamory- Does Balamory reflect the ethnic mix in the Inner Hebrides? Look at miss Hoolie's pre-school class and I think you might ask a few questions.
Kilts-love them and want one. Few men in my family have the physique to carry off the kilt. After wearing kilts to my wedding most were arrested for 'having no visible means of support'. My dad said he looked like a lamp shade when wearing a kilt.
Gingerness-nothing against ginger people, in fact I'm a bit gingery myself in the beard department. The current Mrs Gibbons, the fragrant Clare Rosamund, actually wants our wee boy to have ginger hair and constantly remarks on his 'coppery tones'. Not so sure myself.
Billy Connolly-this man is the world's best anecdotal joke teller. I refer you to his appearance on Parkinson in the 1970's where he delivered the now classic 'murdered the wife' joke.
1 Reading n (w)Riting
2 A schism of a schism. Members of the FCC (Free Church Continuing) refer to the members of the Free Church as the 'residual body', or the 'rump' in less charitable moments. Members of the Free Church have apparently nick-named the FCC as the 'Taliban'. Nuff said.
3 Sleazy in the way that afterwards you feel dirty and empty and promise yourself that you will never do it again. Of course, even as you are promising yourself this you know that soon, in fact the next chance you get, you probably will!
4 then wondered if I would ever wear a tie again.
5 think I'm Arminian ,not Armenian like Dave 'the Duke' Dickinson, great episode of Who do you think you are
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