Scottish things and people that I like

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.

Do you read yr own paper? Top scientists (badly short of funding, doubtless) did a study showing the DFMB wasn't an urban myth.

(What's true however, is that everyone makes em wrong. You have to seriously, seriously freeze the Mars bar first, so that when it's fried the batter and the outside is meltingly soft, but the inside is cold and rock.)

Stew OTM with Scooby Snacks, but a deep-fried pizza wins my heart every time.

is made in devon or somewhere, innit? buckfast vomit is usually scottish, though, aye.

Do you read yr own paper?

i find it hard to see past all the mistakes :)

"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 used to live for the Maggie - it was the one place I insisted on visiting (to partake in their renowned "Scooby Snack") whenever I visited Glasgow. But it's a young man's burger, really, I'm getting too old.

I didn't know about the Devon thing, but surely it should be left out because it tastes like cough medicine?

I'm going to go for shortbread. And the Loch Ness Monster, because I was fascinated by it when I was small (or when I was wee, as I should say on this thread.) Also - T The Park was great because I wasn't the only stupidly pale person frying in the sun.

Also, x-post - I liked Soma too.

Ben Nevis

West Highland Beaches

Lucky Tatties

The Arches

Hogmanay

i have never experienced the "real" electric brae. i should. although isn't it just full of cars rolling slowly into each other?

John Byrne - Fantastic painter and playwright, you might have come across some of his work without realising it as he has been commisioned to do album covers for The Beatles and Gerry Rafferty among others.
He wrote Tutti Frutti which was a big deal in Scotland, in the late eighties and deserves a DVD release but this, I'm told, is somehow stymied by rights/credits issues.
He also wrote an incredible trio of short tragicomic plays set in 1950's Paisley called The Slab Boys trilogy which are worth checking out.

Lewis Grassic Gibbon - a turn of the century author who wrote a series of books called 'A Scot's Quair', concerning a young womans life growing up on a remote Croft, it's a rite of passage tale with the slightest mystical flavour. You might say he's almost like a Scots Steinbeck, it's great stuff.
There's a film apparently being made as I speak but I don't know if it's just going to be dealing with the first book 'Sunset Song'.

Lots of experiments with footballs and small children.

http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ddb/teaching/hume/hume.jpeg

ihttp://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/images/maxwell2.jpg

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~awarwood/omega.html

Scared the living shit out of me as an 7 year old.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2005/02/21/17166.shtml

Madchen OTM about Deuchars IPA. Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted is a good un too.

John Byrne is pretty awesome. I've never seen Tutti Frutti though. Apparently the reason it's never been repeated is that the BBC are being funny about royalites for the old rock n roll songs used on the show, but that always struck me as rather dubious.

Alexander 'Greek' Thompson. Renowned architect who made Glasgow look like it does, whose buildings have all too often been demolished or left to crumble by shortsighted/corrupt (ahem) local councillors.

The Barrowlands ballroom!

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