Amid all the debate about oil, currency, pensions and a million other items, I’m surprised higher questions have not been asked about our cultural identity. I’ve never said I’m British in my life, I’m Scottish, but the full story is more subtle than that.
Despite being a football fan, a Scot and a Gordon Strachan fan, I watched another channel when Germany-Scotland was on. My sense of personal identity, the anthems I cherish, the emblems I’ve always worn, my ‘national’ community, is the one I share with you.
I know we have a large number of England-supporting, English-Celtic fans here, just as there are Ireland-supporting, Irish, and Scotland-supporting Scots, but some of us feel our strongest affinity among our urban, west of Scotland-based, Celtic community. This community will only ever march behind a green flag. There is nothing wrong or unpatriotic about this, finding your own identity is what multiculturalism is all about.
There are a thousand more national identities than actual nations, but why do many of us feel more like sons of Jock Stein, than Jock Tamson, or (cough) John Bull?
I don’t think there is a single British, or Scottish, cultural institution I feel an attachment to. I was really caught up with the whole Mo Farah/Jessica Ennis-inspired Super Saturday at the Olympics – delighted at the success of British athletes, but later that day, when Ki stepped forward to take the decisive kick for South Korea against GB, I punched the air with joy. The whole Burns Night thing feels like someone else’s party.
In fact, it’s worse than not having an affinity with a British cultural institution, our Celtic community is marginalised by competitors in the south. If Scotland, which is perhaps more bound-up in tribal football culture than anywhere on the planet, had EQUAL access to the UK’s cultural markets, would we feel so excluded?
I know there are many who are happy with the way sentiment is going right now, but if those intent on saving the union want to get busy on some urgent nation-building, they should set about removing the two-tier cultural divide which keeps our club, our community, from the top table. We pay an obligatory BBC tax to subsidise an England and Wales league, our non-tax-based pay TV money goes the same way. This is a distorted market, with Scotland obscured by an England-Wales cartel. As a result we’ve been drained of talent and financial muscle for a century.
Football is not controlled by politicians, but it can be, and is, influenced by them. Westminster is speaking with a more unified voice than I’ve ever known right now. Its voice should be clear: Scotland needs equal access to the UK’s cultural markets, including football.
Our exclusion is intolerable, unfair, has fermented disaffection and must end, irrespective of what happens next week. Why would Westminster politicians be unable to say this?
Let’s hear you.
The fantastic new edition of CQN Magazine is out today. You can read it, for free, here, at it’s dedicated site (don’t try to read on the graphic below).
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Snake @21.09 – Yep; whilst there was media control the last time out over this (long time ago it seems), now there is the very real evidence that internet bampottery is capable of assisting dramatic change. The MSM have been shown up again to be simply puppets to the agenda of the government, and been found out.
HH
Jobo- holes in one and now a sub 90 round, soon upon will be counting your scores in “level 4’s”
HH
Bale rescues Wales from a real disastrous result, one more to rescue my bet please !
weeminger
So all of those Labour MPs pretending to defend privatisation are powerless to do anything about it, not that they would stop it anyway
They’re fully signed up to make the UK the IMF-lab for a ‘developed’ country.
From the biggest economy in the world to a basket case in 100 years, you couldn’t balls it up better than Britain.
VP
You don’t see it because you come to the KSC via
Uddingston
croppybhoy
Sorry for the late reply, do the sums, quite simple. Oil revenue and whisky revenue divided by 6m people, as against divided by 65m people. Either you can’t count very well or your a tory. No brainer for me. KTF.
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
I’ve voted yes too.
Funny they asked an American yesterday about the vote.
He said ‘why wouldn’t they vote for their own independence’
If only it were so simple.
Justafan – as far as I’m aware NHS Scotland is still classed as under sovereign control so exempt from ttip. Betterr informed fol’kk than me tthink so too
He’s no finished. He’s only 28.
Brilliant:)
Thanks Ryecatcher . Was sure Alan Brazil was the man for some reason.
Just a stupid Jambo, funny though.
Did big Sammy wear harmony hairspray ?
Can anyone remember ‘The Mouse that Roared’ with the comedic genius Peter Sellers as the despotic leader of a tiny little banana republic, who declared war on America?
Laughing here thinking of who wee Eck could declare war against.
Bob – yep. I’ll be voting yes. I wouldn’t guarantee the NHS is safe in an independent Scotland, just safer.
Rye…
Freedonia!
Coneybhoy
21:17 on 9 September, 2014
My input on indy debate
In Ireland we pay (in euro);
60 to see GP
100 to be admitted to A&E
90 for a steroid inhaler
200 per child for school books(600 if using ipads and then but books online)
55% tax
Water charges coming in
House tax in already
Only the skint get free med, only well paid get private med from employer, middle earners pay for private(you need it)
No child care breaks like in the UK
Oil found on West coast but we can’t afford to extract it so Shell have it for a song
No ability to vary interest rates to suppress a boom
Worth thinking about
————-
That might be relevant if FF or FG were governing Scotland.
Keeping the faith …
At first I thought it sounded like wee Gordon Strachan humouring the brain dead Jambo in the clip, but can’t ever remember WGS doing a radio phone in.
Deffo not Brazil…..Was it maybe Arthur Albiston?
Comedy gold anyway.
weeminger
100% agreed
it’s a pragmatic decision
Westminster are the experts at wasting trillions of pounds
To expect them to change after doing the same thing for 40 years continuously is verging on insanity
With the money available the Scottish Govt has most delivered, including setting aside money for the CG2014 without additional funds from London.
Roon ye, Oranje.
Dutch arrogance does them again..
Wee
Thanks for that point of clarification -but that makes the NHS line being punted an exaggeration bordering on a lie does it not?
To me too many promises to too many people to be financially viable
As someone who has worked over 30 years and will be retiring in about 5 years I have no wish to take risks with my hard earned pension
Call it being selfish but thems the apples!
Plus the fact that I cannot stand Wee Eck and his gang of tartan Tories!
HH
schoolboy defending fae the Dutch, 2-1 Czechs FT
Justafan…..
Aahhhh….Peter Sellers so sadly missed.
Absolute comedy genius of a man….
I still laugh out loud at this scene from the Pink Panther…….
Clouseau: Does yer dewg bite? Inn Keeper: No Clouseau: Nice Doggy (bends down to pet a dachshund – it snarls and bites him) I thought you said yer dewg did not bite! Inn Keeper: Zat . . . iz not my dog!
Bale keeps Coleman in a job,useless manager.
Tallybhoy
Stefan Johansen is not my type of player. What did he do there? Poor centre mid.
croppybhoy
so you prefer bliar, thatcher?
how would they have voted?
hating wee eck is a smokescreen, being a fearty might not be something to proud of, but its more truthful than saying you don’t trust (insert any politician you care to mention)
I have no idea about the future either and I’ve paid into a pension for years, my view is, if the govt are going to dip it, they will regardless of my political view, better to at least make a positive decision while you have the chance, than regret it for years after, millions have had their pensions dipped in the UK before and mine being dipped wouldn’t make it the first, or the last.
In germany we pay 500 euro per month health insurance (50% of which is payed by the employer) on average that is – private healthcare is about 850 euros a month.
Visit to doctor, pay receptionist €10 before you go in.
Prescription charges vary, anti biotic a and painkillers about €28.
Wages are higher tho. It balances out I guess.
1000 euros a week for the average working man
croppybhoy
With all due respect Alex Salmond will be gone in 10 years.
You are not voting for him.
You are voting to get rid of Westminster, not for 10 years, but for ever.
Delaney’s
Agreed on Scarlet Johansen…..
Something about him strikes me as an eternal water carrier,who has very little football intelligence.
Would have made Vidar Riseth look like Zinedine Zidane if they had played together.
tictaewin – the UK has National Insurance at something like 9% of your wage. On top of Income Tax.
Its laughable hearing Gordon Brown going on about the financial sky falling down on an independent Scotland when he raised Corporation Tax, NI and every other form of indirect taxation when Chancellor.
Alex Salmond is mortal, the country is immortal.
Meciar was gone not too long after Slovakia got independence and has tried to get back in several times and failed.
croppybhoy
I think you’ll find your pension is guaranteed. I worked for 52 years and retired 3 yrs ago. I have absolutely no concerns about my pensions, and some of them are coming from down south. Wee Eck, he will not win an election in Scotland if we vote for Independence. Nor will the SNP. I say that in the hope we uncover some proper socialist Labour, not New Labour, candidates. I’m convinced they are out there, but seeing the state of the party, they are holding their guns till the time is right. KTF.
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
Squire
mrs doing well tonight…after we both went for turkish bath followed by oil massage. Her back feels 100% better afterwards.
Must admit, i enjoyed having gorgeous young thing straddle me whilst rubbing oil into my back !!!
Thank feck wife was in next room…lol
Rye
Hahaha classic ad forgot. Thanx for rekindling that scene in my mind. Sellars, Secombe, Mulligan are genius’ of life.
Well done to Marin Cilic in winning the US Open. It was too late for me to watch it last night but I have just seen it tonight. Cilic played some match even though Nishikori was second class.
I saw Cilic live in 2009 when Croatia played Chile in the Davis Cup in my beloved Porec. He looked huge until Ivo Karlovic stood beside him . At 6ft 11 he made even Cilic look a bit small.
Love my tennis.
call me Gerry.
aye but what was happening in the room next door :-)))
Croppybhoy
Good luck to you being able to retire after 35 years, like I have worked for 30 years and paid into civil service pension for of that.
ill be working for another 20 years I would imagine.
There you go ghuys, do the sums…….
@scotbot: French TV news depicts an independent Scotland as being richer than France & Germany.
#IndyRef Image via @YesDivit » http://t.co/TPHVLUGUUN
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
Thanks for all the kind wishes and witty remarks. My 5 minutes of fame right enough. Well, until I win the Kano Open this coming Friday… ;-)
Night night and please be nice to one another ;-)