Scottish things and people that I like

8. Irn Bru bars.

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.

(xpost)

U forgot

8. Your Dad

try glasgow more :)

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

(on men or women, I should add)

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

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

8. Your Dad

Oops, sorry Dad.

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.

PS: I've never seen that song book.

Tattie scones are great. Anyone ever had a Scooby Snack from the van outside the Botanics? Burger, cheese, bacon, sliced sausage, fried egg and a tattie scone in a burger bun. I had one to soak up the booze coming back from a Hogmanay party last year. Never again.

Every town in the North East claims to have invented the deep fried Mars bar. Go to Peterhead and one shop proudly proclaims to be the originator. Go to Stonehaven and you'll get the same.

Ivor Cutler's Life In A Scotch Sitting Room is indisputably Scottish and indisputably wonderful.

Chick Murray!
Dick Gaughan!
Monorail Music!
Orange Juice!
Edwin Morgan!

"the maggie"? i've never been brave enough. also, if i'm outside the botanics i'm either a) visiting mrs fiendish's sister, who lives up the road, or b) trying to get the fuck away from the west end in that crappy little taxi queue. in either case, death by burger would only be a hindrance.

I heard he's spent most of his life in very squalid surroundings. He deserves to be rich.

Have you read any Edwin Morgan? He modernised Scottish poetry by rejecting the narrow nationalism of McDiarmid (who is, nonetheless, great) and being hip to the Beats and modernism. Like Gray he has an ability to capture Glasgow as it is and also recast it as his imagination wishes. There's a playfulness and cosmopolitan quality to his writing. He translated Miakovsky into Scots! He's suffering from cancer sadly, but he's still writing. He was a lecturer and tutor at Glasgow Uni for years. My parents were both taught by him and agree he was the most inspiring lecturer they'd ever had. That blows my mind.

mad wee guys are radge gadges

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

xpost

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

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

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.

Scotland is no bad.

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

Scotland Isnae Bad

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

Also: Robert Louis Stevenson.

Alcholism?

AC/DC?

Limmy's Show

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

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]

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?

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.

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

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

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]

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

... little being the operative word.

Interesting, thanks.

Cullen skink
Haggis
Vegetarian haggis
Innis & Gunn beer
Bruichladdich
Castles

I will now answer the thread question in boring fashion

Cullen skink
Haggis
Vegetarian haggis
Innis & Gunn beer
Bruichladdich
Castles

ludacris otm

lol wtf how did I xpost myself with an edited version

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

Ferguzade, Scotland's version of Lucozade.

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

"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".

It's 100% genuine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

James Kelman is fantastic.

Wish Bill Forsyth would direct a new film

Ah yes this video is a classic

NTS: Must rewatch Gregory's Girl

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