Scottish things and people that I like

Ah yes - I forgot the hankies!

and this ...

So on my birthday weekend, I had to suffer girl-cleverer-than-me getting her card read out by Glen

this explains everything, stet :)

Glen Michael was in fact my first "gig" in Cumbernauld.

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?

I don't think I'm particularly twee. I feel a sense of kinship with people like Alasdair Gray (I met him years ago in Aberdeen) and also with people like Stuart Murdoch, and also with Robert Burns. The gentleness in these people might be described as fierce, and, as in "The Wicker Man", there's a strong pagan sensuality and Celtic lyricism. My own ancestors were Gaelic speakers from the Hebrides (mainly the island of Mull, which my mother has written an excellent book about), and at least two of them (the McKechnies, Angus and Donald) won the bardic crown at the Mod for poetry in Gaelic.

i tried to visit mull once but the clouds poured down for two straight days and it was the most i could do to just see its outline across the harbor.

Also Tracer Hand OTM. So many top words. Like "cushty", "gallus", "chankin" and "chips"

I like scenery and unfounded belief in crappy national football teams and tattie scones and butteries and wee pubs in the Briggait where men play banjos and "Dignity" by Deacon Blue and what Madchen said about the light (she forgot to mention me pointing out that the scenery stopped just south of Gretna) and hills and heather and the pool halls upstairs from the Scotia and the Woodside, and also the Woodside itself, especially its jukebox, and picnics in Kelvingrove Park and the view from the top of the hill at Daviot down to Inverness and the Black Isle and placenames like Acharacle and Ballachulish and single track roads with bemused sheep on them and the way the deer come down off the hills in the Highlands at dusk and the Trash Can Sinatras and the Old Man of Hoy and Christopher Brookmyre and the salmon leap at the Falls of Shin.

And some other stuff too.

I forgot that most of all I love Gregory's Girl and Belle and Sebastian.

2. Eat a buttery
A traditional Doric delicacy, the Aberdeen buttery rowie is a gloriously Atkins-unfriendly combination of flour, yeast, salt and fat. Don’t be put off by the rock hard specimens they serve in Halls – get yourself to a local bakery for the real deal. Eaten with a nice bowl of homemade soup, there’s nothing better to fortify you against the North-East winter.

Absolutely and Still Game. The book Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Ivor Cutler and the Incredible String Band. Some of the ned slang/retorts. "Away an run up ma ribs" etc. Irn Bru and anything Tunnocks. Oh and Altered Images. Scotch broth, Abroath Smokeys.

Other good things: Mackies honeycomb icecream, Highland cattle, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Still Game (xpost!), Archie Gemmill's goal against Holland, West Highland accents.

YOu know, all these things "feel" the same, even Momus. It's like, I dunno, a droll yet twee grimness.

God, yes. The phrase "yer maw" is fantastic.

Yes, they do, but I think you can do that if you just pick things that are similar. I mean, Eddie Reader, Taggart, Thingummyjig and Joey Deacon Blue don't feel like that.

Anyway, while you're mulling that one over, here's a random alternative list of non-pastoral, not gently surreal, uncosy spokespersons of a nation:

Janice Galloway (writer)
Bobbie Gillespie (musician)
Wattie Buchan from The Exploited (punk)
Bill Drummond (artist)
George Galloway (politician)
Elaine C. Smith (actress)
Alex Ferguson (sports mananger)
Peter Mullen (actor/director)

Excellent at swearing, all of them.

Add Rosie Kane and you've pretty much got the antithesis of the spokeslist I would make.

Yeah, Gregory's Girl is great. Much love for Local Hero too. Still not seen That Sinking Feeling though. Must seek it out. What's Bill Forsyth up to these days?

Whisky Galore!

Takin' Over The Asylum

Robbie Shepherd (presents the Scottish country dancing programme on BBC Radio Scotland and spiks the Doric. His Doric column (boom boom) is the best thing about the Press & Journal. He's a dude, min.

Doric chat up lines: "Fit like ma bonny quine?"

Yer maw! Fannybaws! Whit!

Still Game is great of course (and it's on in ten minutes, hurrah!) but Navid deserves singular praise. "Ye mad shagger ye!" "Quality."

Bud Neill - surrealist Glaswegian cartoonist of the 50s. Created Lobey Dosser, whose statue sits on Woodlands Road. The strip transplants an East End community to the Wild West. Sheriff Lobey Dosser rides a two legged horse called El Fideldo and his arch nemesis is Rank Badjin. Its sensibility is remarkably modern, rich in references to pop culture of the time. Really odd and funny. http://netsavvy.co.uk/lobey/

Taking Over the Asylum is utter genius and if you search it on ILX you'll find me calling for repeated repeats for the rest of all time. Or something. I wuv it. David Tennant! Ken Stott! Katy Murphy!

I have oddly high levels of affection for both Robbie Shepherd and The Beechgrove Garden.

The old Old school - The Rezillos, The Skids
The prophets without honour - The Thanes, Gin Goblins
The new school - Sluts of Trust, Sons and Daughters

I'm so bored with: our WONDERFUL post-punk heritage

- Loch Awe
- Morar
- Glenfinnan monument
- Glasgow Celtic
- Scotch Pie
- Deuchars IPA
- Pub opening (by which I mean closing) hours
- Bert's Bar, Stockbridge
- The table football machine that I played in the pretty cool pub in Newtown
- The Forth Rail Bridge
- Belle and Sebastian
- The spring sky in Lothian

"Can't remember the last time I had a bloody boner. I tell I lie. Judy Finnegan, before she went shakey."

The Star Bar?

I like the Forth Road Bridge best actually.

I like pubs that stay open 'til 3am and pubs that open at 4am.