Kenneth Roy
Could it get
any worse
than yesterday?
Bob Smith
The feel-good factor
Bob Cant
Tomorrow is Holocaust
Memorial Day. These
people are part of it
Jill Stephenson
The wrong question
Eileen Reid
On this significant day,
a theory on why the Scots
still lack well-being
John Cameron
Farewell, Shetland
Graham Connelly
It looks as if snow
is only for kids
from private schools
Barney MacFarlane
It’s worse with Corden in it
Catherine Czerkawska
Let me introduce you
to the internet version
of the pub bore
Quintin Jardine
Catalonia and language
26.01.12
No. 506
John Cameron
The first test of the democratic credentials of an independent Scotland will be a request from Shetland for freedom to re-unite with their cousins across the Norwegian Sea. Shetland, a subarctic archipelago some 200 miles west of Bergen, 350 miles north of Edinburgh, has powerful racial, cultural and economic links with Norway.
For much of its history it was a Norwegian province until in 1468 it was ceded to James III as the dowry of the Norwegian Princess Margaret to whom he was betrothed. Even then, Shetland’s connection with Norway continued and most of its trade remained with Bergen and other ports of the Hanseatic League until the Act of Union in 1707.
The first two centuries of union were ‘den fryktelige ganger’ (the terrible times) with most islanders reduced to serfdom or forced to emigrate under brutal landlords. Finally in 1886, the great reforming prime minister William Gladstone managed to pass the Crofters Act which enabled the Shetlanders to own their small farms.
During the first world war the archipelago lost a higher proportion of men than any other part of Britain and there was a subsequent flood of female emigration in the 1920s and 1930s. With the second world war the enduring relationship with Norway was renewed and the naval unit known as the ‘Shetland Bus’ conducted operations off the Norwegian coast. Relations with Norway became still closer when oil was discovered in the seas around the archipelago and the east Shetland basin proved one of Europe’s largest oil fields.
Today, the main revenue producers in Shetland are the petroleum industry (crude oil and natural gas production), agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, knitwear and tourism. The common language deriving from Old Norse was crushed after the union, but their motto remains ‘Með lögum skal land byggja’ (‘by law shall the land be built up’).
There have been some Scottish immigrants but the genetic make-up of the islanders is Scandinavian and they have infinitely more in common with Norway than Strathclyde.
Ominously when Norway regained its independence in 1906, Shetland sent a letter to King Haakon: ‘No "foreign" flag is more familiar or more welcome in our havens than that of Norway. Shetlanders continue to look upon Norway as their mother-land, and recall with pride and affection the time when their forefathers were under the rule of the kings of Norway’.
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
On this significant day,
a theory on why the Scots
still lack well-being
Eileen Reid
See the sky? It’s a big part of our problem
Photograph by Islay McLeod
The impending referendum on independence has given rise again to discussions of the national character of Scots. Can Scotland stand on its own as an independent nation if it does not have a clear sense of, and pride in, its own distinct cultural identity? But if there is a Scottish national character, what is it? Who articulates it? For example, is there a recognisable and distinct body of Scottish literature? Do Scottish artists visually articulate a notion of Scottishness?
P G Wodehouse’s old quip that ‘it is never a problem to distinguish between a Scotsman and a ray of sunshine’. But as will become clear shortly, I think this comment more apt than he could ever have realised.
In ‘The Crisis of Scottish Confidence’, Carol Craig offers a compelling case regarding the roots of our national character. According to Craig one cannot understand contemporary Scotland if one does not understand its cultural roots in Calvin and Knox. It is this particular form of Protestantism, with a range of social and cultural accretions over the centuries, that have shaped decisively the Scottish psyche for good and ill.
There is much to be said for her thesis, and her book repays close reading. But I think it is not the whole story. For it does not fully explain, if that is indeed possible, why Scots took to Calvin in the first place. Why did Calvin, and later Knox, find such fertile ground in Scotland but not in, say, Spain, Italy or Portugal? There was plenty of discontent with the church amongst the Mediterranean peoples at the time of the Reformation, but they did not respond to the call of Calvin. Protestantism in its most extreme forms seems to have been tied to the north. Why?
I have a suggestion: climate. In a moment I will set out some of the empirical findings that link certain physical and psychological conditions to a lack of direct sunlight; but first it is worth stressing that this form of cultural explanation has a long pedigree, going back to at least the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates held that human nature is universal, and cultural differences are to be explained not by appeal to inherent differences in race (a common belief at the time), but by differences in the environment. Human beings in different physical environments produce significantly different cultures. This line of thought is echoed in the 20th century by Arnold Toynbee in his monumental ‘A Study of History’.
Toynbee’s principal thesis is that environmental factors account for the birth, growth, decay and death of 30 distinct civilisations. And this line of thought seems plausible if you’ve ever had a holiday outside of Scotland. I have just returned from the delightful island of Fuerteventura and I am still benefiting from the effects of sunlight, warmth, relaxation and the rest of it. Those beneficial effects undoubtedly include improved mood. This is significant because, let’s face it, you’d have to be suffering from long-term despair to find Calvin remotely attractive.
Why does cloud density matter? Precisely because lack of sunlight is linked
to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament.
Now to a few facts about the Scottish climate: cloud cover and density. The west of Scotland has the second most dense cloud cover in the world. (The first prize goes to an unlucky patch of northern British Columbia – notoriously, according to my Scottish-Canadian husband, the most dismal but sparsely populated zip code south of the arctic circle on the North American mainland). What’s more, it is possible for this part of our country (the most densely populated) to go over 100 consecutive days without any direct sunlight. This is significant because all human beings require 15 minutes of direct sunlight every day (not cumulative in a two-week holiday to Fuerteventura) for healthy bones, general health, and psychological well-being. That is bad enough. But there is more.
In geographical regions above 40 degrees latitude, the sun is never strong enough in winter to allow for the natural production of vitamin D. Glasgow sits at 55 degrees latitude. So, even when we do get a ‘sunny’ day during our long winter, unfortunately it doesn’t count.
Why does cloud density matter? Precisely because lack of sunlight is linked to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament. We are familiar now with seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression linked to low levels of serotonin. In previous generations this would have been ‘treated’ with the bottle; it is now routinely treated with sunlight lamps.
Less commonly known is that 40% of women in the west of Scotland have low bone density due to vitamin D deficiency brought on by a lack of sunlight. Lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency is also linked to higher levels of breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and the re-emergence of rickets. In fact we are only beginning to discover the implications of the lack of sunlight on Scottish well-being. No doubt we will soon find that lack of exposure to direct sunlight has epigenetic effects that have long-term health implications. Perhaps the so-called ‘Glasgow effect’ is down to this alongside poverty.
Alain de Botton, the UK’s armchair philosopher tweeted recently: ‘It shouldn’t be disrespectful to the complexity of the human condition to say that despair is also, often, low blood sugar’. On this day of significance in Scottish history, I’d like to amend that to: ‘It is not disrespectful to the complexity of Scottish culture to say that lack of sunlight has had a major influence on identity and well-being’.
Carol Craig is right to say that we really do need to get away from harping on about Scottish identity if we are to improve our lot here in Scotland, especially if independence becomes a reality. Although we cannot alter our history and its legacies, we can address again Craig’s thesis concerning low confidence, and in addition, similar to other northern countries like Iceland and Norway, mitigate against the long-term ill-effects of climate. I think this is so important, I will support any
Eileen Reid is head of widening participation, Glasgow School of Art,
writing here in a personal capacity
is only for kids
from private schools
Barney MacFarlane
It’s worse with Corden in it
Catherine Czerkawska
Let me introduce you
to the internet version
of the pub bore
Quintin Jardine
Catalonia and language
26.01.12
No. 506
John Cameron
The first test of the democratic credentials of an independent Scotland will be a request from Shetland for freedom to re-unite with their cousins across the Norwegian Sea. Shetland, a subarctic archipelago some 200 miles west of Bergen, 350 miles north of Edinburgh, has powerful racial, cultural and economic links with Norway.
For much of its history it was a Norwegian province until in 1468 it was ceded to James III as the dowry of the Norwegian Princess Margaret to whom he was betrothed. Even then, Shetland’s connection with Norway continued and most of its trade remained with Bergen and other ports of the Hanseatic League until the Act of Union in 1707.
The first two centuries of union were ‘den fryktelige ganger’ (the terrible times) with most islanders reduced to serfdom or forced to emigrate under brutal landlords. Finally in 1886, the great reforming prime minister William Gladstone managed to pass the Crofters Act which enabled the Shetlanders to own their small farms.
During the first world war the archipelago lost a higher proportion of men than any other part of Britain and there was a subsequent flood of female emigration in the 1920s and 1930s. With the second world war the enduring relationship with Norway was renewed and the naval unit known as the ‘Shetland Bus’ conducted operations off the Norwegian coast. Relations with Norway became still closer when oil was discovered in the seas around the archipelago and the east Shetland basin proved one of Europe’s largest oil fields.
Today, the main revenue producers in Shetland are the petroleum industry (crude oil and natural gas production), agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, knitwear and tourism. The common language deriving from Old Norse was crushed after the union, but their motto remains ‘Með lögum skal land byggja’ (‘by law shall the land be built up’).
There have been some Scottish immigrants but the genetic make-up of the islanders is Scandinavian and they have infinitely more in common with Norway than Strathclyde.
Ominously when Norway regained its independence in 1906, Shetland sent a letter to King Haakon: ‘No "foreign" flag is more familiar or more welcome in our havens than that of Norway. Shetlanders continue to look upon Norway as their mother-land, and recall with pride and affection the time when their forefathers were under the rule of the kings of Norway’.
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
On this significant day,
a theory on why the Scots
still lack well-being
Eileen Reid
See the sky? It’s a big part of our problem
Photograph by Islay McLeod
The impending referendum on independence has given rise again to discussions of the national character of Scots. Can Scotland stand on its own as an independent nation if it does not have a clear sense of, and pride in, its own distinct cultural identity? But if there is a Scottish national character, what is it? Who articulates it? For example, is there a recognisable and distinct body of Scottish literature? Do Scottish artists visually articulate a notion of Scottishness?
P G Wodehouse’s old quip that ‘it is never a problem to distinguish between a Scotsman and a ray of sunshine’. But as will become clear shortly, I think this comment more apt than he could ever have realised.
In ‘The Crisis of Scottish Confidence’, Carol Craig offers a compelling case regarding the roots of our national character. According to Craig one cannot understand contemporary Scotland if one does not understand its cultural roots in Calvin and Knox. It is this particular form of Protestantism, with a range of social and cultural accretions over the centuries, that have shaped decisively the Scottish psyche for good and ill.
There is much to be said for her thesis, and her book repays close reading. But I think it is not the whole story. For it does not fully explain, if that is indeed possible, why Scots took to Calvin in the first place. Why did Calvin, and later Knox, find such fertile ground in Scotland but not in, say, Spain, Italy or Portugal? There was plenty of discontent with the church amongst the Mediterranean peoples at the time of the Reformation, but they did not respond to the call of Calvin. Protestantism in its most extreme forms seems to have been tied to the north. Why?
I have a suggestion: climate. In a moment I will set out some of the empirical findings that link certain physical and psychological conditions to a lack of direct sunlight; but first it is worth stressing that this form of cultural explanation has a long pedigree, going back to at least the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates held that human nature is universal, and cultural differences are to be explained not by appeal to inherent differences in race (a common belief at the time), but by differences in the environment. Human beings in different physical environments produce significantly different cultures. This line of thought is echoed in the 20th century by Arnold Toynbee in his monumental ‘A Study of History’.
Toynbee’s principal thesis is that environmental factors account for the birth, growth, decay and death of 30 distinct civilisations. And this line of thought seems plausible if you’ve ever had a holiday outside of Scotland. I have just returned from the delightful island of Fuerteventura and I am still benefiting from the effects of sunlight, warmth, relaxation and the rest of it. Those beneficial effects undoubtedly include improved mood. This is significant because, let’s face it, you’d have to be suffering from long-term despair to find Calvin remotely attractive.
Why does cloud density matter? Precisely because lack of sunlight is linked
to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament.
Now to a few facts about the Scottish climate: cloud cover and density. The west of Scotland has the second most dense cloud cover in the world. (The first prize goes to an unlucky patch of northern British Columbia – notoriously, according to my Scottish-Canadian husband, the most dismal but sparsely populated zip code south of the arctic circle on the North American mainland). What’s more, it is possible for this part of our country (the most densely populated) to go over 100 consecutive days without any direct sunlight. This is significant because all human beings require 15 minutes of direct sunlight every day (not cumulative in a two-week holiday to Fuerteventura) for healthy bones, general health, and psychological well-being. That is bad enough. But there is more.
In geographical regions above 40 degrees latitude, the sun is never strong enough in winter to allow for the natural production of vitamin D. Glasgow sits at 55 degrees latitude. So, even when we do get a ‘sunny’ day during our long winter, unfortunately it doesn’t count.
Why does cloud density matter? Precisely because lack of sunlight is linked to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament. We are familiar now with seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression linked to low levels of serotonin. In previous generations this would have been ‘treated’ with the bottle; it is now routinely treated with sunlight lamps.
Less commonly known is that 40% of women in the west of Scotland have low bone density due to vitamin D deficiency brought on by a lack of sunlight. Lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency is also linked to higher levels of breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and the re-emergence of rickets. In fact we are only beginning to discover the implications of the lack of sunlight on Scottish well-being. No doubt we will soon find that lack of exposure to direct sunlight has epigenetic effects that have long-term health implications. Perhaps the so-called ‘Glasgow effect’ is down to this alongside poverty.
Alain de Botton, the UK’s armchair philosopher tweeted recently: ‘It shouldn’t be disrespectful to the complexity of the human condition to say that despair is also, often, low blood sugar’. On this day of significance in Scottish history, I’d like to amend that to: ‘It is not disrespectful to the complexity of Scottish culture to say that lack of sunlight has had a major influence on identity and well-being’.
Carol Craig is right to say that we really do need to get away from harping on about Scottish identity if we are to improve our lot here in Scotland, especially if independence becomes a reality. Although we cannot alter our history and its legacies, we can address again Craig’s thesis concerning low confidence, and in addition, similar to other northern countries like Iceland and Norway, mitigate against the long-term ill-effects of climate. I think this is so important, I will support any
Eileen Reid is head of widening participation, Glasgow School of Art,
writing here in a personal capacity
26.01.12
No. 506
John CameronFor much of its history it was a Norwegian province until in 1468 it was ceded to James III as the dowry of the Norwegian Princess Margaret to whom he was betrothed. Even then, Shetland’s connection with Norway continued and most of its trade remained with Bergen and other ports of the Hanseatic League until the Act of Union in 1707.
The first two centuries of union were ‘den fryktelige ganger’ (the terrible times) with most islanders reduced to serfdom or forced to emigrate under brutal landlords. Finally in 1886, the great reforming prime minister William Gladstone managed to pass the Crofters Act which enabled the Shetlanders to own their small farms.
During the first world war the archipelago lost a higher proportion of men than any other part of Britain and there was a subsequent flood of female emigration in the 1920s and 1930s. With the second world war the enduring relationship with Norway was renewed and the naval unit known as the ‘Shetland Bus’ conducted operations off the Norwegian coast. Relations with Norway became still closer when oil was discovered in the seas around the archipelago and the east Shetland basin proved one of Europe’s largest oil fields.
Today, the main revenue producers in Shetland are the petroleum industry (crude oil and natural gas production), agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, knitwear and tourism. The common language deriving from Old Norse was crushed after the union, but their motto remains ‘Með lögum skal land byggja’ (‘by law shall the land be built up’).
There have been some Scottish immigrants but the genetic make-up of the islanders is Scandinavian and they have infinitely more in common with Norway than Strathclyde.
Ominously when Norway regained its independence in 1906, Shetland sent a letter to King Haakon: ‘No "foreign" flag is more familiar or more welcome in our havens than that of Norway. Shetlanders continue to look upon Norway as their mother-land, and recall with pride and affection the time when their forefathers were under the rule of the kings of Norway’.
See the sky? It’s a big part of our problemPhotograph by Islay McLeod
P G Wodehouse’s old quip that ‘it is never a problem to distinguish between a Scotsman and a ray of sunshine’. But as will become clear shortly, I think this comment more apt than he could ever have realised.
In ‘The Crisis of Scottish Confidence’, Carol Craig offers a compelling case regarding the roots of our national character. According to Craig one cannot understand contemporary Scotland if one does not understand its cultural roots in Calvin and Knox. It is this particular form of Protestantism, with a range of social and cultural accretions over the centuries, that have shaped decisively the Scottish psyche for good and ill.
There is much to be said for her thesis, and her book repays close reading. But I think it is not the whole story. For it does not fully explain, if that is indeed possible, why Scots took to Calvin in the first place. Why did Calvin, and later Knox, find such fertile ground in Scotland but not in, say, Spain, Italy or Portugal? There was plenty of discontent with the church amongst the Mediterranean peoples at the time of the Reformation, but they did not respond to the call of Calvin. Protestantism in its most extreme forms seems to have been tied to the north. Why?
I have a suggestion: climate. In a moment I will set out some of the empirical findings that link certain physical and psychological conditions to a lack of direct sunlight; but first it is worth stressing that this form of cultural explanation has a long pedigree, going back to at least the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates held that human nature is universal, and cultural differences are to be explained not by appeal to inherent differences in race (a common belief at the time), but by differences in the environment. Human beings in different physical environments produce significantly different cultures. This line of thought is echoed in the 20th century by Arnold Toynbee in his monumental ‘A Study of History’.
Toynbee’s principal thesis is that environmental factors account for the birth, growth, decay and death of 30 distinct civilisations. And this line of thought seems plausible if you’ve ever had a holiday outside of Scotland. I have just returned from the delightful island of Fuerteventura and I am still benefiting from the effects of sunlight, warmth, relaxation and the rest of it. Those beneficial effects undoubtedly include improved mood. This is significant because, let’s face it, you’d have to be suffering from long-term despair to find Calvin remotely attractive.
to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament.
In geographical regions above 40 degrees latitude, the sun is never strong enough in winter to allow for the natural production of vitamin D. Glasgow sits at 55 degrees latitude. So, even when we do get a ‘sunny’ day during our long winter, unfortunately it doesn’t count.
Why does cloud density matter? Precisely because lack of sunlight is linked to so many health problems, both mental and physical, and these in turn cannot but affect people’s mood and temperament. We are familiar now with seasonal affective disorder, a form of depression linked to low levels of serotonin. In previous generations this would have been ‘treated’ with the bottle; it is now routinely treated with sunlight lamps.
Less commonly known is that 40% of women in the west of Scotland have low bone density due to vitamin D deficiency brought on by a lack of sunlight. Lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency is also linked to higher levels of breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and the re-emergence of rickets. In fact we are only beginning to discover the implications of the lack of sunlight on Scottish well-being. No doubt we will soon find that lack of exposure to direct sunlight has epigenetic effects that have long-term health implications. Perhaps the so-called ‘Glasgow effect’ is down to this alongside poverty.
Alain de Botton, the UK’s armchair philosopher tweeted recently: ‘It shouldn’t be disrespectful to the complexity of the human condition to say that despair is also, often, low blood sugar’. On this day of significance in Scottish history, I’d like to amend that to: ‘It is not disrespectful to the complexity of Scottish culture to say that lack of sunlight has had a major influence on identity and well-being’.
Carol Craig is right to say that we really do need to get away from harping on about Scottish identity if we are to improve our lot here in Scotland, especially if independence becomes a reality. Although we cannot alter our history and its legacies, we can address again Craig’s thesis concerning low confidence, and in addition, similar to other northern countries like Iceland and Norway, mitigate against the long-term ill-effects of climate. I think this is so important, I will support any
writing here in a personal capacity
