Scottish things and people that I like

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1. Alasdair Gray (writer)
2. Ivor Cutler (poet, musician)
3. Belle and Sebastian (pop band)
4. The Wicker Man (horror movie)
5. Boards of Canada (pop band)
6. Iain Banks (writer)

I like these all for basically the same reasons, and not because they're all Scottish. There's a certain pastoral surrealism shared by all of them. The Wicker Man for instance, is the only horror movie I can watch with a hangover. Boards of Canada are at once relaxing, nostalgic and also slightly sinister. Why is this? Are they all feeding off the same thing? What's the link other than Scotland?

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

5. Boards of Canada (pop band)

I always wonder how much their *surroundings* has created their sound. Didn't much care for the first album, but the follow-up was great.

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

the link is heather

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha! I was thinking of starting a thread like this this morning while on the bus - because I've been reading a book called The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention Of The Modern World.

(Already, my namesake has incited a mob to riot through Edinburgh, breaking windows to protest the Act of Union. I wonder if he's related. I don't have nearly enough rabble-rousers in my family already.)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:44 (twenty years ago)

What's the link other than Scotland?

Well, Alasdair Gray and B&S are well-acquainted. At one stage AG was going to illustrate a B&S songbook, but I don't think it got very far.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

Also, The Wicker Man was loosely based on the circumstances surrouding Isobel Campbell leaving the band.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

[chokes on his tea]

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:52 (twenty years ago)

Ivor Cutler was once married to Britt Ekland, but she left him for Peter Sellers after an argument over the relative merits of Music Has A Right To Children and Geogaddi.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:56 (twenty years ago)

This might not be the point of this thread, but I've decided it's shocking how little I know of *actual* Scots history and culture outside the cartoonish colonial version I learned from my grandparents and parents.

I found it interesting that the Protestant insistence on educating every man woman and child, so that they could better read THE SCRIPTURE had far longer-reaching effects in raising education itself to a kind of religion among Scots, even after the Presbytarian frenzy had passed.

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:57 (twenty years ago)

You probably know more than most Scots though ;-)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

Also, the strange double-naturedness of the Scots, on one hand the reputation for being bloodthirsty barbarians who paint themselves blue and hurl themselves at the English, and yet the ultimate, almost parodic genteelness of the twee worldview of B&S, almost as if it's a an exaggerated reaction to the former (see also Momus). Is that all about the Highlands/Lowlands divide? (Though if my grandparents were anything to go by, the Highlands were OK, but Glaswegians were beneath contempt in their barbarity.)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

7. The light. When Ailsa and I were driving down the M74 on Friday evening, when it wasn't properly daytime but hadn't quite reached dusk either and there were some stormy looking clouds around but a bit of clear sky as well, the colour of the the hills was just amazing.

8. Irn Bru bars.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

Or Irn Bru itself for that matter.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

I recommend the movie Braveheart for a thorough, accurate portrayal of stuff.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:12 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha ha! :-)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

See also Brigadoon.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

http://www.hillcity-comics.com/anime/brigadoon_04.jpg
O.M.G.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

So what really *is* accurate, then? I have the feeling there has to be a middleground between Ring Of Bright Water and Trainspotting.

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

7. (obvious but negated) poet Robert Byrnes (surname may be spelt incorrectly)

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:19 (twenty years ago)

Burns

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:21 (twenty years ago)

(Or, "famous Irish poet, Robbie O'Burns" as my father would rant at the television every year the local newstation made silly errors of nationality.)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:22 (twenty years ago)

Alisdair Gray is a total dude. Dunno about pastoral surrealism. Lanark is very much an urban novel, perhaps the greatest Glasgow novel, arguably the finest British novel of the last 25 years. Go into Oran Mor after 5pm and he'll be sitting having a end of the day pint with his assitants (he's working on the mural for this converted church/art centre).
I gave that Enlightenment book to a friend ages ago and still haven't got it back/read it. Boo!

― Stew (stew s), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

To be honest, my knowledge of Scottish history gets a bit patchy after about 800, so I'm not really sure myself.

All the tartan and shortbread stuff is bollocks, of course - clan tartans were invented by aristocratic Walter Scot fanboys in about 1820; and ever since "Highland Dress", of the non-military-uniform kind, has been *extremely* posh, the favoured clothes of moneyed landowners like Mohammed Al Fayed. Kilts, incidentally, were invented by a Lancashire mill-owner, slightly earlier.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

yes, but poshboys in kilts = MAJOR K-ROWR, Mg-ROWR EVEN GIGA-ROWWRRRR!!!

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:25 (twenty years ago)

optimo!

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

Especially if they have long dirty hair? ;-)

(xpost)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

U forgot

8. Your Dad

― battlingspacemonkey (battlingspacemonkey), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

So what really *is* accurate, then?

try glasgow more :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Is The Wicker Man Scottish, or just set in Scotland?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

http://lsc.mit.edu/schedule/archives/design1996/old_terms/Sp96/Graphics/Braveheart.3.gif
L: Kate
R: Long dirty hair, kilt

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

Incidentally, the Scottish [Gay] Pride march usually features lots of fit men in mini-kilts. Minikilts and bondage leathers = faintworthy rowrness.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:30 (twenty years ago)

Eeewww! Eeeewwww!!! Offend not mine eyes with that Gibson rogue!

(Where *is* that photo of bare-chested Ewan MacG in a kilt?)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:31 (twenty years ago)

Minikilts and bondage leathers = faintworthy rowrness.

(on men or women, I should add)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:31 (twenty years ago)

We're forgetting Highlander. Super accurate - a Scotsman playing a Spanish immortal, a Frenchman playing a Scottish immortal.
"Ma bonny 'Eatherrrr" etc

― Stew (stew s), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:32 (twenty years ago)

Anyone remember Trial By Night, STV's yoof version of Question Time? I went on it a few years back and Howie Nicholsby was unveiling his new range of kilts in denim, pvc, camo etc (as infamously modelled by Jack McConnel at Tartan Week in NYC last year) Most of us thought they were a nice wheeze but there were these self-styled clansmen who looked like extras from Braveheart who were up in arms. They were still tutting about it after the show. "If it's no tartan it's no a kilt!"

― Stew (stew s), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

Mmm, those sort of people don't like reminding that modern tartan patterns - and the idea of 'clan tartans' - are only 200 years old at most.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:38 (twenty years ago)

My gran to thread: "Men in skirrrts? No, dearrr."

(I am Duncan MacCLOUD of clan MacCLOUD and I will have yerrrr head!)

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:40 (twenty years ago)

They also don't like reminding that kilts are actually a type of skirt.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

Is The Wicker Man Scottish, or just set in Scotland?

I don't think it's very Scottish at all. It's "British".

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Plus I'm not sure how "Scottish" Ivor Cutler is, he seems more Jewish to me

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:44 (twenty years ago)

DL
U forgot

8. Your Dad

Oops, sorry Dad.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1680000/images/_1682371_rabflowers150.jpg

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

Now you're talking!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

Is that true about Alasdair Gray and Belle and Sebastian? That would've been wicked!

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 11:55 (twenty years ago)

all these posts and nobody's mentioned deep-fried mars bars yet. i'm convinced they're an urban myth.

also: nobody's mentioned chewin' the fat, mogwai, absolutely, aereogramme, single malts or haggis. this suggests my appreciation of the country in which i live is rather different to many other people's.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

Or potato scones and Tunnock's Teacakes

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:07 (twenty years ago)

good point.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Whatever happened to the Stone of Scone anyway?

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

They can take our freedom but they cannae take our Stones!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

mmmmm, scones.

― It Is What A Man Does Which Demeans Him, Not What Is Done To Him (kate), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 12:13 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 356 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

whaddya mean marcello?

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

No Irvine Welsh on this thread - does everyone hate him the noo?

Och aye

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

cocteau twins, jesus and mary chain, prefab sprout, trash can sinatras, orange juice, aztec camera, joseph k, nick currie and the bad seeds... are th e housemartins scottish?

― Mr Jones (Mr Jones), Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:43 (nineteen years ago)

You die, ya bass

― Vitbe... *pause*... Is Good Bread (Dada), Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

William Topaz McGonagall - the poets' poet!
O and cheese'n'burger with salt and sauce on the way home from the pub - yum!

― indolent girl (indolent girl), Thursday, 4 May 2006 11:05 (nineteen years ago)

whaddya mean marcello?

Different sections that can be read in any order, the sidebars of blockplags/diplags/etc., author's interjections, artwork: everything in it cries out to be hyperlinked with everything else in it (see also Life: A User's Manual, The Unfortunates, Arcades Project etc. etc.).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 4 May 2006 11:07 (nineteen years ago)

www.consolevania.com

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 4 May 2006 11:23 (nineteen years ago)

prefab sprout ur fae Durham ya tumshie

― JohnFoxxsJuno (JohnFoxxsJuno), Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

Boyle Family
http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/about/boylefamily.jpg

― Stephen X (Stephen X), Thursday, 4 May 2006 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

What does "gadgee" actually mean? Is it like saying "shitboy" up north, or "buster" down south, just a way of showing disrespect for someone without it being too aggy?

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 18 January 2008 13:46 (seventeen years ago)

It's just a word for any random wee guy about town. Not always disrespectful.

(I'm from the wrong coast so I might be talking shit)

― onimo, Friday, 18 January 2008 14:03 (seventeen years ago)

mad wee guys are radge gadges

― onimo, Friday, 18 January 2008 14:03 (seventeen years ago)

It's just a general terms, like "bloke" where I come from, but I'm not sure if it has connotations elsewhere.

xpost

― ailsa, Friday, 18 January 2008 14:05 (seventeen years ago)

Is it Romany? Apparently a lot of slang on the East Coast (Scotland AND North England) is. So I've been told.

― Tom D., Friday, 18 January 2008 15:07 (seventeen years ago)

I'm reading Christopher Brookmyre books and learning all kinds of new slang! I like his books, there's some Scottish things.

― Laurel, Friday, 18 January 2008 15:10 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

That last Brookmyre book on the serial killer big brother stuff was badly written drivel.
Easily his worst book and the only real clunker he's published, the one before it about spiritualism was great.

― Sandy Blair, Saturday, 6 June 2009 17:30 (sixteen years ago)

Scotland is no bad.

― languid samuel l. jackson (jim), Saturday, 6 June 2009 17:31 (sixteen years ago)

think that should be the new motto instead of Nemo me impune lacessit.

― languid samuel l. jackson (jim), Saturday, 6 June 2009 17:33 (sixteen years ago)

Scotland Isnae Bad

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Saturday, 6 June 2009 17:51 (sixteen years ago)

I liked Leith, being asked if I wanted "salt and sauce," and the Glasgow Necropolis.

Also: Robert Louis Stevenson.

― Virginia Plain, Monday, 8 June 2009 01:34 (sixteen years ago)

Alcholism?

― "too worldly to compete on /b/" (King Boy Pato), Monday, 8 June 2009 02:04 (sixteen years ago)

AC/DC?

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Monday, 8 June 2009 02:08 (sixteen years ago)

two years pass...

Limmy's Show

― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 17:28 (thirteen years ago)

seven years pass...

I like Scottish banknotes but am more than a little irked by English shopkeepers' unwillingness to accept them. What gives?

― pomenitul, Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:01 (six years ago)

Imagine how much more irked you'd be if you were Scottish.

Scottish banknotes are unusual, first because they are issued by retail banks, not central banks, and second, because they are technically not legal tender anywhere in the United Kingdom – not even in Scotland.[1][2] As such, they are classified as promissory notes, and the law requires that the issuing banks hold a sum of Bank of England banknotes or gold equivalent to the total value of notes issued.[3][4]

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:23 (six years ago)

Imagine how much more irked you'd be if you were Scottish.

I do think about that fwiw.

So why do they exist in the first place? Is it a botched, nigh contemptuous symbolic allowance?

― pomenitul, Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:26 (six years ago)

and you can still execute a Scot with a crossbow if they try to pay for horseshoes with ye counterfitte currencies between maundy thursday and whit sunday.

― calzino, Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:31 (six years ago)

95% of scottish notes test positive for traces of ground-up shortbread iirc

― provisional ilx (darraghmac), Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:54 (six years ago)

All the more reason to prefer them to their English counterparts.

― pomenitul, Saturday, 14 September 2019 09:59 (six years ago)

So why do they exist in the first place? Is it a botched, nigh contemptuous symbolic allowance?

Apparently banks in England used to be able to print their own notes too:

Until the middle of the 19th century, privately owned banks in Great Britain and Ireland were free to issue their own banknotes. Paper currency issued by a wide range of provincial and town banking companies in England,[3][4][5] Wales,[6] Scotland[7] and Ireland[8] circulated freely as a means of payment.
As gold shortages affected the supply of money, note-issuing powers of the banks were gradually restricted by various Acts of Parliament,[9] until the Bank Charter Act 1844 gave exclusive note-issuing powers to the central Bank of England. Under the Act, no new banks could start issuing notes; and note-issuing banks gradually vanished through mergers and closures. The last private English banknotes were issued in 1921 by Fox, Fowler and Company, a Somerset bank.[9]
However, some of the monopoly provisions of the Bank Charter Act only applied to England and Wales.[10] The Bank Notes (Scotland) Act was passed the following year, and to this day, three retail banks retain the right to issue their own sterling banknotes in Scotland, and four in Northern Ireland.[11][12] Notes issued in excess of the value of notes outstanding in 1844 (1845 in Scotland) must be backed up by an equivalent value of Bank of England notes.[13]

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Saturday, 14 September 2019 10:03 (six years ago)

I think it's more a case of lets give the Scots their little freedoms, keep the fuckers on side.

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Saturday, 14 September 2019 10:05 (six years ago)

... little being the operative word.

― The Inner Mounting Phlegm (Tom D.), Saturday, 14 September 2019 10:05 (six years ago)

Interesting, thanks.

― pomenitul, Saturday, 14 September 2019 10:32 (six years ago)

Cullen skink
Haggis
Vegetarian haggis
Innis & Gunn beer
Bruichladdich
Castles

― El Tomboto, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:39 (six years ago)

I will now answer the thread question in boring fashion

Cullen skink
Haggis
Vegetarian haggis
Innis & Gunn beer
Bruichladdich
Castles

― El Tomboto, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:41 (six years ago)

ludacris otm

― provisional ilx (darraghmac), Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:41 (six years ago)

lol wtf how did I xpost myself with an edited version

― El Tomboto, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:42 (six years ago)

that mangoes on the run beer by innis & gunn is so good

― calzino, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:43 (six years ago)

three years pass...

Ferguzade, Scotland's version of Lucozade.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBo_PvkX0AAYwRI.jpg

― A Drunk Man Looks At Partick Thistle (Tom D.), Monday, 23 January 2023 12:03 (two years ago)

"DAUGHTERS keep radiant on it". This can't be real!?

Vague and fond memories of those Chewin' the Fat sketches that were ads for a beer you drank in the morning: "it's never too early for a Fusilier".

― verhexen, Monday, 23 January 2023 12:08 (two years ago)

It's 100% genuine.

https://www.doyouremember.co.uk/memory/ferguzade

― A Drunk Man Looks At Partick Thistle (Tom D.), Monday, 23 January 2023 12:09 (two years ago)

It was from Forfar, you couldn't make that up!

― A Drunk Man Looks At Partick Thistle (Tom D.), Monday, 23 January 2023 12:10 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0CYB5V9e64

― Cry for a Shadowgraph (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 23 January 2023 13:03 (two years ago)

It's weird because Lucozade isn't that far from Irn Bru, anyway, in terms of taste and spiritual sustenance.

― Ward Fowler, Monday, 23 January 2023 13:07 (two years ago)

This is deep Glasgow lore, but this place popped into my head the other day.

I even wondered if I might have imagined it, but I definitely visited at least once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-DvmtFGTdI
https://stvfootagesales.tv/content/buck-rogers-burger-station-glasgow/
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/history/glasgow-burgers-rogers-station-14717048

― MaresNest, Monday, 23 January 2023 13:10 (two years ago)

five months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA3JH5tfTYg

― Renaissance of the Celtic Trumpet (Tom D.), Thursday, 29 June 2023 19:49 (two years ago)

James Kelman is fantastic.

Wish Bill Forsyth would direct a new film

― beamish13, Thursday, 29 June 2023 21:33 (two years ago)

Ah yes this video is a classic

― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Thursday, 29 June 2023 23:02 (two years ago)

NTS: Must rewatch Gregory's Girl

― Stomp Jomperson (dog latin), Thursday, 29 June 2023 23:04 (two years ago)

Housekeeping (1987) is just a masterpiece. I really wish his original cut of Being Human (1993) was commercially available

― beamish13, Thursday, 29 June 2023 23:07 (two years ago)

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