The township of 12 people
which sells four million
cans of beer a year
Scotland
in the
heat
The Midgie
Short guides to the modern world (1)
There’s a lot of stuff about Charles Dickens at the moment. What do we know about this guy?
According to BBC Breakfast telly this morning, he’s ‘one of the world’s most famous writers’.
What did he write?
A book called ‘Great Expectations’.
Wow. Anything else?
‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’. But he didn’t finish that one.
Oh, that’s a shame. What happened?
He died. But that’s okay. The BBC have finished it for him.
Was he gay?
Apparently not. He had quite a few women. But he was nasty to his wife.
What can we expect from Charlie boy before the end of twenty-twelve?
Yet another BBC adaptation of ‘Great Expectations’ of course.
Great!
Oh, and the Olympics.
What did Charlie have to do with the Olympics?
Dunno mate, but they’ll pin something on him. A medal, I shouldn’t be at all surprised.
Thanks.
It’s a pleasure.
War
This man has gone into
battle with…
…this man
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Today’s banner
Meikleour, Perthshire on New Year’s Day
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
A referendum?
Let’s see if we can spell
Norman MacCaig first
Kenneth Roy
On the last working day of the year, in the last email to be received here in 2011, I was accused of ridiculing Scotland, of attacking ‘Norman McCaig’ and then retracting, of publishing Professor Tom Gallagher and of being insufficiently loyal to the first minister. Furthermore, I was addressed as ‘Ken’. Compliments of the season, but without the compliments.
It is true that Professor Gallagher does have a knack of getting under a lot of thin Scottish skins. It is also true that it would be commercially sensible to drop him. Every time we publish one of his occasional contributions, we lose friends and alienate people. Perhaps this is because Professor Gallagher makes no secret of his disdain for Mr Salmond. He likened him recently to a bumptious squire – not the most grievous insult ever levelled at a politician, even quite funny in its context, but the sort of remark guaranteed to cause offence in Scotland’s hyper-sensitive condition.
There are (you may have noticed) contributors to these pages – a majority – who take an altogether friendlier view of the first minister; and, anyway, the ruling party and its leader must expect to be criticised. It would be slightly worrying if they were not criticised. Actually, more than slightly worrying.
In the interests of free speech, then, Professor Gallagher will continue to be offered a refuge here for his treasonable opinions. As for myself, it would make life so much easier if I rallied round the first minister in the manner proposed and dutifully prepared three flattering editorials a week. I can drum up a press release as well as the next man. But, when I did this for a living ages ago, a note of semi-concealed subversion tended to creep into the blue-sky reports I had to draft for the people who were running the show. I found that I wasn’t natural cheerleader material. Sadly, this character defect remains.
But the charge that I once attacked ‘Norman McCaig’ and then had to retract – that’s more serious. I have never attacked ‘Norman McCaig’ and it follows that I have never had to retract. Come to that, I have never attacked Norman MacCaig either. Or retracted.
We have a problem. We are having a referendum – sometime, somehow, somebody’s – and maybe we are going to break away and do our own thing. But can we spell? If those who hold the cause of Scotland dearest, and who resent any articles in the Scottish Review less than wholly adulatory of the first minister, cannot actually spell the surname of one of our greatest poets, are we really fit for independence? Shouldn’t we complete our education first?
A country which had any sense of pride in its own identity, and in the best it had produced, would not insult Norman MacCaig’s memory in this way.
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