Two deeply moving
theatrical experiences.
And The Killing too
John Cameron
John Wayne stunts
A Robin Hood tax
would be immensely
popular. Let them pay up
The Cafe 2
Myths about Dalgety Bay
We should take seriously
the rise of assorted
cultures of protest
Bruce Gardner
Am I a real doctor?
SR Books
Nicknamed Mick after the Dickensian character for whom something would turn up, Iain Macmillan finds in his long and extraordinarily long life that something – or someone – does turn up. A job with the great Scottish playwright James Bridie turns up. In wartime Paris, the sophisticated Yvette turns up – but is she all she seems? Back in Scotland, a tawny owl turns up – the start of a wonderful love story. And, without ever planning it, a distinguished career in the law turns up, leading to the presidency of the Law Society of Scotland and a seat on the bench. But the figure looming over Iain Macmillan’s witty and engaging autobiography, out now, is someone who didn’t turn up, but was there all the time.
To order a copy of Iain Macmillan’s ‘I Had It From my Father’, £15 plus £2.80 P&P
Also available from SR Books:
‘The Treasured Years’
Alistair R Brownlie’s story of a life in the law.
‘One of the aims of the book is to convey to young lawyers the tremendous privilege which they are inheriting…he has maintained and enriched that inheritance’ – Lord Cullen of Whitekirk
To order a copy of Alistair R Brownlie’s ‘The Treasured Years’, £20 plus £2.80 P&P
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Rural Aberdeenshire
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Faces of Scotland
A month of character studies by Islay McLeod
12. The football supporter
Revealing
Scotland’s dirty
little secret
I note Kevin Rooney’s contribution (23 November). Speaking as a lifelong Celtic supporter who stopped going to Celtic Park because of the bigotry I had to sit through being sung in the stands, I wonder how he feels about similarly venemous or offensive songs being sung about black people or Jews– or is that different?
Some of us appear to have been conditioned into accepting behaviour which is completely inappropriate in what is supposed to be a civilised society. If there are issues about the police being heavy-handed, that has to be addressed. But citizens are not entitled to decide which bits of law they will subscibe to and which bits they can ignore. I’m surprised a teacher should suggest such.
If the young man in question continued singing songs in defiance of police advice, he got all he deserved. If I had been in charge of the police at that juncture the human wall that prevented him getting lifted at the time would all have been lifted for a Monday morning appearance at the Sherifff Court.
Perhaps we should all go along and sing rebel songs in Mr Rooney’s school.
In which way do the eejits at Celtic Park imagine they are honouring the memory of the brave lads who marched into the GPO in Dublin in 1916 by reducing their behaviour to this silly level? Do they know that the orange in the flag of the Irish Republic was put there deliberately as an open invitation to northerners to freely come and join them? Do they know that James Connelly, surely one of Scotland’s heroes, shot sitting in a chair in a Dublin Jail, spent much his early life in trade unions in Scotland railing against religious sectarianism which divided the working men? Have they any idea how much respect they would garner if they behaved rather better than those they see as their enemies?
What the new law, imperfect as it may be, is doing is to start to expose Scotland’s dirty little secret and the remaining manifestations of it and that is that the residue of historical institutionalised anti-Catholicism lingers on in some areas and that similar reactive behaviour by elements at Celtic Park is very unhelpful indeed.
David Hill
Mr Rooney surprisingly makes no mention of what song the accused was alleged to be ‘belting out’, as we like to say in Glasgow. I very much doubt that it was Singin’ in the Rain, or some other popular music hall number. Perhaps Mr Rooney makes no mention of it because he knows the song is simply indefensible when performed in a public place.
Mr Rooney, and all football fans, should remember that stadiums are not private residences. Being in a crowd does not make you immune to the law. He mentions that a crowd of fans prevented the police from arresting the accused. Perhaps if the same fans had instead prevented the individual from singing offensive songs, this incident could have been avoided entirely.
Alastair Findlay
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