Thursday 19 January 2012

VOTE WITH YOUR HEART!

26 comments:

throbber said...

Post independence it would be good if we started sorting out wankers like this Laird..The 'Much Honoured' Thomas Fothringham of Murthly who gets a slap on the wrist for altering the River Tay for 140 metres.
The longest salmon river in the UK and home to 50% of the rarest fresh water mussels in the world...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-16636542

Dark Lochnagar said...

Throbs, an arsehole but while people are allowed to own land.....

throbber said...

Can you imagine the Lairds anger if some poacher stole a salmon ?
Yet he destroys habitat for otters and mussels and no one notices diggers and workmen working away for months on the river. Aye right.

Dark Lochnagar said...

Throbs, I'd poach him. In some slightly boiling water, well salted, with a hint of garlic!

Unknown said...

Damn,

This is truly a brilliant piece.

I am sorry that my ancestors so badly mismanaged their land that the English had to save it (Baaah), and transport us to America.

-Ewen

The Young Oligarch said...

Well , he convinced me !

If he's being ironic , however , he might be one of this mhob


http://www.ultras-celtic.com/gallery/d/6274-5/a.jpg

Therr , therr .

Dark Lochnagar said...

Ewen, welcome to the blog. Where are you located?

Dark Lochnagar said...

Oli, if you don't mind me making an observation, well I'm going to make it anyway, are you not getting tied up in the religious aspect of our country and it's relationship with the rest of the world?

The Young Oligarch said...

Religion has nothing to do with it , DL .

What he spouts is a heady mix of this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenianism

and this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

employing this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory

well known technique .

Dark Lochnagar said...

Oli, I would certainly agree with you as regards, Marxism and the 'Frankfurt school'. However, I'm not sure what the Fenians have to do with it. They are after all just trying to support their narrow idealism rather than taking over the world.

The Young Oligarch said...

I see you have noticed

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7473450225862196869&postID=3163558231861367516&isPopup=true

that this piece is slanted in a certain , unpleasant , direction .

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2012/01/15/vote-britain/

Dark Lochnagar said...

Oli, I have no time for those Trotskyist bastards as I have documented well. there will be lots of different opinions in an independent Scotland and I think they will have a lesson to learn about just how left wing the Scottish people aren't.

Unknown said...

@Dark Lochnagar
>Ewen, welcome to the blog. Where are you >located?

Thanks.

Living in Paris since early 2007, after some years in Saudi Arabia.

I am hoping to pass some time in Scotland once I get my long term residence card here.

-Ewen

The Young Oligarch said...

There is a reasonable , moderate case to be made for an independent Scotland along the lines of "The Union used to be great , but it has ceased to be . Time we and the English split for our mutual good ".

This guy , and his strand of Scotto-Fenianism , takes the line that everything about Britain , from day one , has been a catalogue of tyrranical oppression aimed merely to line the pockets of his favourite ethnic enemy , the hated English .
No one has gained any benefit from it and it has been 300 years of pure , unadulterated evil .

Not like the brave , new Scotland which he and his comrades will create if only the fools of an electorate let them . Oh , no ! It will be a land flowing with milk and honey , where there will be no problems at all . And if you think there are , it's off to the gulags with you .

Surely you must see the parallels in the argument with those expressed by the Irish Republican terror supporters . We in Lanarkshire have to listen to them on a daily basis , so maybe I'm more attuned to it than you .

PS Took your advice and looked up this guy's chums in BellaCaledonia .

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/contributors/

I like the way half of them stay in England , or the South of France .

My particular favourites are the one who is a
"Sinn Féin activist back at home"

the one who
"moved from Cork to Glasgow in 2003"

and the one who states that
"He lives in Edinburgh with his husband" .

A far cry from Wishae !

Also deserving of mention is this gem

"originally from Edinburgh, now teaches political economy at Cambridge and social sciences at the Open University. Left Edinburgh in the late 1980s as part of the Scottish exodus driven out by Mrs. Thatcher and is open to reasonable job offers to get back home (Edinburgh only)."

O ! The oppression !

Dark Lochnagar said...

Ewan, you really like shitholes. Paris and Saudi Arabia, lol. Where are you going next, Pakistan!

Unknown said...

@Dark Lochnagar
> Ewan, you really like shitholes.
> Paris and Saudi Arabia, lol. Where > are you going next, Pakistan!

I don't find Paris more a shithole than other metropoleis of more than 8 million souls.

It's also kind of cool to jump out of bread, throw on a jacket and cross the street to get to a bakery with fresh bread and pastries.

There are seriously unpleasant national-chauvinists - but I think that too can be found anywhere.

Finally, the standard of living is competitive (better than the US - not as good as Ireland ca. 1998).

Riyadh is a shithole, but it's possible to stand the place if :

1) You don't live on a compound - eg. Get a nice villa smack in the middle of a wealthy neighborhood, and a live-in servant. It's possible to do so for a salary equivalent to 41k Euro per year.

2) Learn to speak Arabic.

3) Dress native.

No problems except the lack of beer, lack of music, not being able to look at women, fear of getting blown up because someone wants to take down the government, fear of having ones throat slit when foolishly admitting to being from the US, fear that the government itself is going to give you up to some throat-slitting bastard so people will talk about something other than how badly they are oppressed, fear that your own embassy is going to give you up to some throat-slitting bastard just because it's suspicious that you don't live on a compound...

Just kidding, it's a shithole.

I would have been tried immigration to Scotland, but the educational standards were so high I could not do continuation of studies - and probably there are tons of people more qualified to do my job there, so work entry is equally off limits.

I hope to someday be able to ask to immigrate there on the basis of my family being transported for the English, their sheep and a few family members supporting the wrong king ... repeatedly.

-Ewen

Budvar said...

Not the old Highland clearances "We're a people without a homeland" bollox?

I sympathise, I really do. I only hope my landlord never tries to ever evict me, send me and my entire family on an all expenses paid boat ride to Nova Scotia, give us 50 acre a piece of our own land and tell us "It was nice knowing you mate, there you go, get on with your life".

Oh no, you'd have to drag me away clapped in irons, kicking and screaming!!

Unknown said...

>Not the old Highland clearances "We're a people >without a homeland" bollox?

It's interesting to me that someone should consider the "Clearances" bollox.

GB didn't invent the practice of kicking people off of their land, but they did so quite methodically.

Perhaps, having been born in one of the "Colonies", I have always misunderstood the word "bollox" and the correct translation (rather than "bullshit") would be : "historical fact."

I guess I will have to reinterpret all the music I listened to as a teenager.


>I sympathise, I really do. I only hope my
>landlord never tries to ever evict me, send me
>and my entire family on an all expenses paid boat
>ride to Nova Scotia, give us 50 acre a piece of
>our own
...
>Oh no, you'd have to drag me away clapped in
>irons, kicking and screaming!!


Perhaps you haven't looked at "transportation" in its historical context.

Wotever.

Budvar said...

Just one or 2 observations here, first, it wasn't their land was it? They were tenants, and 2, gaining your knowledge of history from the words of songs? Yeah right, that'll be an unbiased viewpoint and not at all one sided!!

Transportation, convicts sentenced to a spell in the pokey only not the local nick, but the colonies. That a fair representation?

Anonymous said...

Superb DL,just superb!

Dark Lochnagar said...

Ewan, Budvers, we who live in Scotland and who have been taught and read Scottish history, don't think it was bollox. I don't think I see Scotland romantically as I've lived here for 57 years. I was at a Burns supper here in Spain last night and yes there were lots of Scots who live here with the 'land across the sea' syndrome. I had to remind some of them why they were living in Spain and not Scotland, as i hope to be shortly.

Dark Lochnagar said...

Anonymous, cheers.

Budvar said...

DL, we have our differences of opinion, but we're 2 blokes with not too dissimilar backgrounds with a similar outlook on life.

History if looked through unbiased 21st century eyes, paints a picture of the time of "Highland clearances", with a time of 4 year old kids up chimneys, down mines,and crawling through machinery up at mill.

The English of the time (Contrary to popular belief) were not all living in big houses with servants, whilst Scots, Irish and the Welsh were living in the gutter.

Now let's get down to the real nub of the "Highland clearances". They were cleared by their own Clan Chiefs not some English bastard down in London, as the likes of Salmond would have people believe. The reason they were cleared is because they'd outgrown their usefulness.

Their usefulness being the Clan Chief having a bit of bother with the MacTavishes across the Glen, would round up the Clan and have a bit of a stab fest and sort it out that way. So it was handy to have a few big lads about the place.

The advantage for the peasants was if they had a bit of a bad year with the croft, the Clan Chief would feed them from his stores as it wasn't in his interest to upset the troops or have them die of starvation.

After Culloden, most of the upperty fuckers were buried in a bog somewhere, so they didn't need their own standing army, and the bean counters of the day sussed that not only were they surplus to requirements, they were costing money too. Hence they were shifted and replaced by sheep.

As for the cunts of the Caledonian society, (and I'm willing to lay money you wouldn't piss on most of them if the were on fire).
So called Scottish culture is a fantasy, fairy tale, made up nonsense by a bloke called Sir Walter Scott.

Clan Tartans, sporrans and Tam O'shanters have about as much to do with Scottish culture as Flat caps, clogs and ferrets down the trousers has to mine.

Now to the Scottish national dish. I have a theory it was dreamed up by the days equivalent of the sheep marketing board to get the gullible to eat (and pay for) the bits you wouldn't feed a dog.

Then along comes Sir Wallys mate George the Prince Regent on a Royal visit, who not only was as dim as a box of rocks, was a fucking German. Some bright spark in the Royal kitchen decided to show the bastard, and stuffed a sheeps stomach with porrage, lungs and arseholes then serves it up to the tartan clad throng, saying with a straight face, "Oh aye right, a proper national delicacy this". Then some pissed up Jewish cunt with a touch of the "Heebee Geebees" named Rabbi Burns started prattling on about "Wee beasties" in the corner, and thus the Caledonian society was born...

Dark Lochnagar said...

Budvers, I wouldn't disagree with what you say about the clearances. I think anyone who has studied Scottish history properly would know that. The haggis eating and poetry reciting is because we are a romantic nation with some notion of our history. English history didn't really start properly, (if you exclude the Tudors which I got stuffed down my throat at a Scottish school), until the Scottish joined them and educated men started inventing things and conquered half the world with our cannon fodder troops.

But aye, we're not far apart on our outlook!

Unknown said...

If we put "Thrown off our land" into a neat little slop bucket called "The Clearances"
I can easily see how one might arrive to call it or think it bollox/bullshit. But for me
"Thrown off our land" has more resonance.

How does one determine that a culture is _mythic_? I don't see how our Ancient And
Illustrious Rabbi Burns having exaggerated a little or a lot, says anything about the
authenticity of a Scottish culture that existed before him.

If he did invent a mythic Scottish culture then I submit that it must be real as he
would have invented the entire genre of "High-Fantasy" fiction, as well as probably
some others, and only a woman from a real culture could squat and squeeze out such
a genius. And don't forget it's Scottish and not "Great-Britainish" as it should be
in a real homogenous Union.

I don't see why "unbiased" is being elevated either, as some kind of more truthful
perspective. Some people got the shit end of the stick with the Union. I don't see any
particular need to see that with the eyes of relativism, twenty-first century or
otherwise. In particular, one can't (without teleological calesthenics) use modern
syncretic "British" culture as a proof of the non-existence of some other culture.

It would have been amusing to see someone go to pre-Great War Ireland and tell
people : "Well, you got occupied, disposessed, screwed and reduced. But really, it was
your pansy-arsed chieftains who sold you out over these last 500 years that you should
blame." I don't think that would fly.

PS. I didn't say I learned history from songs - rather I learned the word "Bollox"
from "British" songs of late 1970's and 1980's. It wasn't part of Americanish until
long after the Sex Pistols, The Damned, etc. Rereading my earlier post, I can see
how that might not have been at all clear.

Cheers,

-Ewen

Dark Lochnagar said...

Ewan, FFS you're older than you've let on!

There is a big difference between the nations as we both know, but it is difficult for the English to understand! They for instance are a lot more materialistic than us, but that's the way it goes!