He's Back Inside

Remember this guy?

I have an awful feeling this story's not going to end well.

Well, he's back in again.

"His arrest in July came just three days after he had been freed from prison in Perth, 30 miles to the north, after spending six years in solitary for previous offences involving nakedness.

Sheriff James Williamson told Gough, who has also refused legal representation, that he was concerned that he had not met or co-operated with social workers drawing up the background report ordered. The sheriff said: "Will you meet with them and assist them?"
When Gough responded, "No, not really", Sheriff Williamson said he had been left with no choice but to jail him for five months. "

I don't blame him for rejecting the social workers and psychiatrists. But he's engaged in a political struggle (one with which I disagree), hoping that the legal system will be the first to blink. In England, maybe - I wouldn't put it past some judges to agree that the right to expose yourself = basic human right. In Scotland, no way - especially not for a 'Sooth-moother'*.

The sad thing is, he's been inside for five years. And the longer he's inside the more he's invested in the struggle and the more inclined he is to throw good years after bad.












* Shetland expression used about anyone from south of Orkney.       

Friday Night Music - Scottish Honour Killing I

One of the few things I agree with Andy Newman about is his defence of the average Ibrahim in the mosque, when faced with liberal accusations that Muslim culture is homophobic and sexist to a wholly unprecedented and outrageous extent.

After all, Ibrahim's views on homosexuals ('punish them'), adulterers ('punish them'), a woman's place (in the home raising kids), abortion (murder) and 'loose' women from another culture (use them) would have struck a chord with most Brits, and pretty much all male Brits, in "Elder Days Before the Fall" - the Fall being the 60's Cultural Revolution.

Where I differ with Andy is that, like Dave Osler, he sees Muslim immigrants as instruments to fulfil his political ends rather than rational actors with ideas and ends of their own  - the ostensible end in Andy's case being the strengthening of the British working class to the point where the downfall of capitalism is a realistic prospect. How's that project going, Andy? Are the UK working class stronger or weaker than in pre-diverse days?  And how are the capitalists doing relative to the workers - better or worse? Really? How odd. You'd have thought all that diversity would have strengthened the movement no end, wouldn't you? It must just be a coincidence that Andy and the Institute of Directors are of one mind when it comes to the desirability of mass immigration.  

I digress. And I mustn't push the parallel between Muslim immigrants and antediluvian Brits too far. Slaughtering one's daughter for bringing dishonour on the family was never a part of that lost Brit culture. Even the modern leftie slanders against the family whose daughter "got into trouble" turn out to have been greatly exaggerated.

Save perhaps in the one part of the UK, a couple of hundred years back, where the mores of the Punjab (and even more the NW Frontier) would have been quite understood - the Highlands of Scotland before the Forty-Five. As Thomas Macaulay put it :

"He would have found that life was governed by a code of morality and honour widely different from that which is established in peaceful and prosperous societies. He would have learned that a stab in the back, or a shot from behind a fragment of rock, were approved modes of taking satisfaction for insults. He would have heard men relate boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked on hereditary enemies in a neighbouring valley such vengeance as would have made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent, but honourable. He would have seen, wherever he turned ... that disposition to throw on the weaker sex the heaviest part of manual labour, which are characteristic of savages. He would have been struck by the spectacle of athletic men basking in the sun, angling for salmon, or taking aim at grouse, while their aged mothers, their pregnant wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of oats.

And yet ... it was true that the Highlander had few scruples about shedding the blood of an enemy: but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies and hospitality to guests."

It may just be a coincidence, but the only traditional British song I know where a daughter is killed for damaging the family honour is from Aberdeenshire. It's also beautifully sung here by the late Ray Fisher :


"Oh, father, mother, sisters all,
Why sae cruel to your Annie?
My heart was broken first by love,
Now my brither's broke my body"

January 1, 1917

Telegraph - "A soldier has been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province."

It was New Year's morning, and I lay thinking of my boy, and wondering what this year would bring him. It was early in the morning before I slept. And it seemed to me that I had scarce been asleep at all when there came a pounding at the door, loud enough to rouse the heaviest sleeper there ever was.

My heart almost stopped. There must be something serious indeed for them to be rousing me so early. I rushed to the door, and there was a porter, holding out a telegram. I took it and tore it open. And I knew why I had felt as I had the day before. I shall never forget what I read :

"Captain John Lauder killed in action, December 28. Official. War Office."

It had gone to Mrs. Lauder at Dunoon first, and she had sent it on to me. That was all it said. I knew nothing of how my boy had died, or where - save that it was for his country. But later I learned that when Sir Thomas Lipton had rung me up the previous night he had intended to condole with me. He had heard on Saturday of my boy's death. But when he spoke to me, and understood at once, from the tone of my voice, that I did not know, he had not been able to go on. His heart was too tender to make it possible for him to be the one to give me that blow - the heaviest that ever befell me.

It was on Monday morning, January the first, 1917, that I learned of my boy's death. And he had been killed the Thursday before ! He had been dead four days before I knew it ! And yet I had known. Let no one ever again tell me that there is nothing in presentiment. Why else had I been so sad and uneasy in my mind ? Why else, all through that Sunday, had it been so impossible for me to take comfort in what was said to cheer me ? Some warning had come to me, some sense that all was not well.

Realization came to me slowly. I sat and stared at that slip of paper, that had come to me like the breath of doom. Dead! Dead these four days ! I was never to see the light of his eyes again. I was never to hear that laugh of his. I had looked on my boy for the last time. Could it be true ? Ah, I knew it was. And it was for this moment that I had been waiting, that we had all been waiting, ever since we had sent John away to fight for his country and do his part. I think we had all felt that it must come. We had all known that it was too much to hope that he should be one of those to be spared.

The black despair that had been hovering over me for hours closed down now and enveloped all my senses. Everything was unreal. For a time I was quite numb. But then, as I began to realize and to visualize what it was to mean in my life that my boy was dead, there came a great pain. The iron of realization slowly seared every word of that curt telegram upon my heart. I said it to myself, over and over again. And I whispered to myself, as my thoughts took form, over and over, the one terrible word : " Dead ! '. I felt that for me everything had come to an end with the reading of that dire message. It seemed to me that for me the board of life was black and blank. For me there was no past and there could be no future. Everything had been swept away, erased, by one sweep of the hand of a cruel fate.

Oh, there was a past, though ! And it was in that past that I began to delve. It was made up of every memory I had of my boy. I fell at once to remembering him. I clutched at every memory, as if I must grasp them and make sure of them; lest they be taken from me as well as the hope of seeing him again that the telegram had for ever snatched away. I would have been destitute indeed in that event. It was as if I must fix in my mind the way he had been wont to look, and recall to my ears every tone of his voice, every trick of his speech. There was something left of him that I must keep, I realized, even then, at all costs, if I was to be able to bear his loss at all. There was a vision of him before my eyes. My bonnie Highland laddie, brave and strong, in his kilt and the uniform of his country, going out to his death with a smile on his face.

And there was another vision that came up now, unbidden. It was a vision of him lying stark and cold upon the battlefield, the mud on his uniform. And when I saw that vision I was like a man gone mad and possessed of devils who had stolen away his faculties. I cursed war as I saw that vision, and the men who caused war. And when I thought of the Germans who had killed my boy, a terrible and savage hatred swept me, and I longed to go out there and kill with my bare hands, until I had avenged him or they had killed me too.

But then I was a little softened. I thought of his mother back in our wee hoose at Dunoon. And the thought of her, bereft even as I was, sorrowing, even as I was, and lost in her frightful loneliness, was pitiful, so that I had but the one desire and wish-to go to her, and join my tears with hers, that we who were left alone to bear our grief, might bear it together and give one to the other such comfort as there might be in life for us. And so I fell upon my knees and prayed, there in my lonely room in the hotel. I prayed to God that He might give us both, John's mother and myself, strength to bear the blow that had been dealt us, and to endure the sacrifice that He and our country had demanded of us.

Sir Harry Lauder, "A Minstrel In France". Captain John Lauder was their only son.

Who's "we", Paleface ?

Henry Porter in the Guardian :

'We will wear the great shame of these riots for a very long time. A great shock has been delivered to England's sense of identity blah blah blah wibble ...'

It was interesting to see how quickly the BBC responded to Alex Salmond's taunting and changed the "UK Riots" heading into "English Riots".

I'm not sure the BBC will want to take that laudable principle of localisation too far, though - are you ?






I just get a feeling from today's Guardian and BBC that it's back to normal as far as our rulers are concerned.They're all going to try and understand a little more and condemn a little less, having used up about five years worth of condemnation over the last week. Business As Usual ? We shall see.



UPDATE - a comment :

I am a teacher of English and taught in England for 15 years before emigrating to Australia in 1987.

In 2000, 2006 and 2009, I returned to the U.K. and did Supply Teaching at five secondary schools, two in London, three in towns a few miles outside.

All five had many moments redolent of 'Lord Of The Flies' , but the saddest and most revealing experience occurred at a school in Essex in 2000, as I'd taught at that school for 8 years when I still lived in England, leaving there in 1983. Thus I had not set foot in that school for 17 years and, amazingly, two teachers were still there. Both, so sadly, and independently of each other, while over-joyed to see me, said don't let what you see spoil your happy and positive memories of the school.

I'm not being alarmist - it hadn't just declined, it had plummeted.

I still vividly remember voicing my first concern with a Deputy as when we approached the entrance, which I'd so many times gone through, it was now necessary to enter a code in order to get in. When I said that was worrying, the Deputy disagreed, saying you couldn't have parents just being allowed to enter the school and assault staff. I looked sharply at him when he said this but he didn't notice. It is so obviously nothing more than a short-term, band-aid solution that clearly reveals far more worrying, serious, disturbing and underlying issues, concerns and realities that long-term just simply have to be addressed.

To be honest here, while looking at the scenes with incredulity, especially those from Tottenham and Enfield because these areas are where I was born, raised and still stay in when over over there, I just could not separate what was happening with what I'd experienced and witnessed in those five schools.

In a way, as unbelievable as it all seemed, none were that surprising.

Another World

Who says we didn't have diversity in the UK long before the Windrush docked?

Oft have I reflected on the differences, say, twixt the Central Belt of Scotland and a Banffshire or Aberdeenshire village.

I was in Manchester in 1974 on the day Glasgow Rangers played United in a friendly. At Victoria Station, I saw a strange sight - all the United fans, as they got off the trains, took off their scarves and put them in their pockets, or zipped their jackets up to the neck to conceal their United allegiance.

This should have been posted last night really, for the 12th. A small fraction of the Rangers support make their way past (I think) the Arndale Centre in Manchester, taking the pretty route to Old Trafford for the 2008 UEFA Cup final (what a pity Tommy Ducks is no more - I think they'd have liked it). Now there are some pretty wild boys in that city - but this is something else :




Admit it, for good or ill, you don't see a sight like that every day in an English city.

The tune is the mid-70s Fields of Athenry*, the words I think are a Loyalist song called "A Father's Advice", accompanied by disparaging references to the late Bobby Sands. Great drumming. It may be an optical illusion or a piece of dust in my eye, but I could have sworn I saw someone with a "**** Catholic Schools" banner...







* composer Pete St John is also responsible for another instant classic - The Rare Old Times, perhaps the only Irish political song that isn't about the English. You really would think there'd be more, given recent events.

Lament For The Makars

Wiiliam Dunbar's great ode to the Bards of medieval Scotland and England, freely adapted from the original by Laban the other night when feeling a tad deflated after the Baggies lost to Wolves.

Dunbar's also noted as being the first writer to get his four letter words printed. It's interesting to see that his great English contemporaries rank so high - no "effete ****holes" in the Dunbar bestiary - not English ones, anyway - and it's sad that many of the Scots he praises leave no surviving work. There's a worthy task for antiquaries and researchers - to find the verses of Stobo, Herriot, Blind Harry and the rest.

I, that hearty was and hale,

Am troubled, sick and like to fail,

Enfeebled by infirmity;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Our pleasure here is all vainglory,

This false world is but transitory,

The flesh is bruckle, the Fiend is sly;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

The state of man does change and vary,

Now sound, now sick, now blithe, now sorry,

Now dancing merry, now like to die;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Nought of this earth here stands securely;

As the wind shakes the growing barley,

So trembles worldly vanity.

Timor mortis conturbat me.

On unto Death go all estates,

Of Court, of Church, all potentates,

Both rich and poor of all degree;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He cuts the knights down in the field,

Full armoured under helm and shield;

Victor he is at all melees;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

That warlord merciless and wild

Tears from the mother's breast the child,
And sorrowing he leavès she;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He takes the warrior in his power,

The captain in the strongest tower,

The bowered beauty, all takes he;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He spares no lord for elegance,

Nor clerk for his intelligence;

His deadly stroke may no man flee;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Magicians and astrologers,

Logicians or theologers,

Their wits help them no more than me;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

In medicine the best practicians,
The leeches, surgeons, and physicians,
Find Death to have no remedy;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Poets and playwrights of our day

Play out their pageant, then away;

Spared not for their great faculty;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He has impetuously devoured,

The noble Chaucer, of poets the flower,

The Monk of Bury, and Gower, all three;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

The good Sir Hew of Eglintoun,

Also Herriot, and Wyntoun,

All taken out of this country;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

His sting has left the world bereft
Of Master Clerk, and James Affleck,

Of ballad-making and tragedy;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Of Holland, Barbour we're bereaved;

Alas ! He would not even leave

Sir Mungo Lockhart of the Lee;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

The Clerk of Tranent's also gone,

That wrote Adventures of Gawain;

Sir Gilbert Hay - ended is he;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He has Blind Harry and Sandy Traill

Slain with his shower of mortal hail,

Can Patrick Johnstone from it flee ?

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He's given Mercer his goodnight,

That did of love so lively write,

So short, so quick, of sentence he;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

He has ta'en Roull of Aberdeene,

And gentle Roull of Corstorphine;

Two better men you'll never see;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

In Dumfermline the race is run

Of Master Robert Henryson;

And Sir John Ross embraced has he;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

And he's now ta'en, last of all,

Good, gentle Stobo and Quentin Shaw,

All men might wish he'd left them be:

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Good Master Walter Kennedy

At point of death lies verily,

Great pity that such thing should be;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Since he has all my brethren ta'en,

He will not let me live alone,

And I shall be his next, you'll see;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

For death there is no remedy,

So for our death, prepare must we,

That after death, new life may be;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Auchinleck

I see that eight schoolchildren were shot at with a BB gun yesterday, in Church Street, Auchinleck.
















Photo - Michael McGurk/Daily Mail


Church Street is also where Labour MSP and Scottish Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson was given a traditional Ayrshire welcome (by this chap) on a visit to the local Co-Op.















UPDATE - via commenter dr cromarty, this :

"Police have been called to a junior football match in Ayrshire after reports that fans were fighting on the pitch. The violence flared at the game, between Cumnock Juniors and Auchinleck Talbot, which ended with a 3-0 victory for Achinleck.
Strathclyde Police confirmed that a disturbance had broken out at the game and that the incident was on going. The teams are playing a local derby game in the Emirates Junior Cup."

Friday Night Music - Strangeness and Charm

I've mentioned the glories of Lewis before. On Saturday at dusk not only the park gate is locked, but the swings and roundabouts chained up as well, in case any child should profane the Sabbath. The hospital's doctors have houses scattered across the island, so that remote communities have someone near - and I was told that a female doctor had been visited by a delegation, asking her to refrain from hanging up her washing on the Lord's Day - the washing in question being on an airer in the kitchen, but visible from outside.

On the more worldly side, everyone seems to drink a lot on Saturday night, and in the morning there's a lot of broken glass about in Stornoway. But 'when in Rome' - you respect the locals and on Sunday walk or go to church. If you are invited to a local home, the hospitality is humbling and the tea you get lasts you for the next two days. Small children, not yet school age, can play outside unaccompanied until dark, and I remember coming across a school on a main road, with the children's bicycles all propped against the outside of the school wall, by the road. Try that on the mainland.

And they do have this amazing church music - like nothing else in Britain. Or maybe in Europe.




Moving a little further south :

"The Clan Maxwell fared badly that day. In all, it is said that up to 700 Maxwells were killed, but this may be an exaggerated number. Many were wounded by downward sword strokes known as "Lockerbie Licks." And their chief, Lord Maxwell, who was one of the most powerful people in southern Scotland, was slain in cold blood by the Johnstones when he asked for mercy and offered to surrender. Although Sir Johnstone escaped punishment from the King for his actions, he did not escape the unforgiving hand of the next Lord Maxwell, son of the chief who was killed at Dryfe Sands. In 1608, Lord Maxwell shot Sir Johnstone in the back during a meeting held “under trust,” which rendered him an outlaw. Lord Maxwell was later captured and executed by hanging."

Maybe Not So Good...

"The Dundee United and Scotland footballer David Goodwillie has been charged with raping a woman at a new year house party in West Lothian."




(frivolous comments about what is after all a serious criminal offence may be deleted)

On Sheridan and Scabs

I don’t understand, so talk me through this one.

a) Tommy Sheridan visits clubs and fesses up to the SSP when the press find out

b) SSP advise him to ‘lay low and say nuthin’

c) TS decides to brazen it out in the libel court

d) SSP comrades know they’ll be called as witnesses, and as I understand they have no choice about turning up. Their only choice is whether to lie and commit perjury or tell the truth. They (mostly) tell the truth.

e) but TS rhetoric wins the day, and he brilliantly persuades the jury. Result!

f) and immediately afterwards he publicly calls the truthful SSP members ’scabs’ and announces that he intends to ‘destroy them’

Now at this point our SSP comrades, like Colin Fox, are socialists in good standing, who gave TS sensible advice that he ignored. TS, hitherto a socialist in good standing, asserts that their unwillingness to risk jail for his family-man reputation renders them ’scabs’ to be ‘destroyed’ by unspecified means.

OK. At this point, who are the good guys and who the bad guys? The people with the correct analysis or the guy who wants to destroy them because they wouldn’t put their testes in a vice for him? Not for socialism, not for a principle, but to perpetuate a false image of a Great Leader?

Now I’m not too sure about going to the police with affidavits and secret tape recordings. But one socialist has insulted and threatened to destroy other socialists - on completely insufficient and self-interested grounds. Don’t they have a right to self-defence - in the last resort, to destroy the man who’s trying to destroy them?

(this piece of course assumes that d) is correct. My whole analysis rests on the assumption that the SSP exec had no choice about testifying in court.

Is this correct ? I don’t know Scots law. Martin ?

If it’s not correct and they were under no obligation to testify, then my analysis falls to bits - because the exec should then, from an SSP perspective, have lain low and said nuthin - leaving TS in his own juice rather than adding their own.)

Tommy Sheridan Verdict Shock

When Tommy Sheridan won his libel case against News International four years back, I was gobsmacked. The evidence against him seemed so overwhelming that I couldn't possibly see him winning - yet, representing himself, he persuaded the jury that the Evil Murdoch Empire deserved a good shoeing - which may be so, but nonetheless it was a perverse verdict.

And, defending himself again yesterday against perjury charges, I thought he'd persuade the jury again with his five-hour tour de force :

"I've never been accused of a crime of dishonesty in my life.

"The News of the World, the Murdoch press and the Sun have tried to destroy me and my marriage. But you know what - I'm not frightened of them. I've fought them all my life and I will continue to fight them.

"I'm not frightened of Lothian and Borders Police.

"I'm not frightened of saying they should be ashamed of themselves for the way they've treated my family."

Sheridan then bowed his head, paused, and looked up at the jury.

He went on: "I'm frightened of you. I'm frightened of you because you can do something that the News of the World will never be able to do.

"You could separate me from my wife, you could make me break my promise to my daughter that I'd spend Christmas with her.

"Given what you've heard - and never mind the emotion, because you're not here to judge emotion - I ask you to believe you've heard more than enough reasonable doubt to convince you that I'm innocent of the charges that remain."

At this point, about 100 supporters packed into the public gallery applauded.

Impressive. But a guilty verdict nonetheless.

One thing I can't understand. Other than the alleged tape of Sheridan discussing the libel trial, made by a (presumably) former friend, the evidence against him seemed to be pretty much a rerun of the evidence first time round. Now that evidence seemed compelling, yet the jury dismissed it and found that he'd been libelled. I would have thought that a prosecution for perjury was almost an attempt to reverse a jury's decision, perverse though that decision may have been. Indeed, the BBC report explicitly states that the second jury ruled on matters of fact - and these were matters which had already been presented to the first jury. Isn't there an element of double jeopardy here ?

Any lawyers out there ? Does this mean that anyone exonerated by a jury despite what looks like strong evidence against them is liable to be done for perjury - on that same evidence ?


UPDATE - Martin Kelly puts it well :

"it is a public tragedy that Sheridan has managed to get himself into this position at a time when the people he has claimed to speak for and represent need a tribune of his political gifts more than they have ever done before...

I hope he takes the chance to use his considerable talent and intelligence to help those who come into contact with him. There may be any number of rudderless young men who could benefit from having a mentor like Tommy Sheridan."

Quote of the Day

Ross on the Scottish Commonwealth Games team and their doubts about their Delhi accommodation :

"if a country that contains Dundee thinks it might be verging on the unlivable, then we should take their word for it"

Saturday Night Music - Baron of Brackley

One of my hobby-horses is the biological and evolutionary underpinning of male/female relationships :

"Evolutionary psychologists postulate that the same physical and psychological drives prevail among modern humans: Men, eager for replication, are naturally polygamous, while women are naturally monogamous—but only until a man they perceive as of higher status than their current mate comes along.

Hypergamy—marrying up, or, in the absence of any constrained linkage between sex and marriage, mating up—is a more accurate description of women’s natural inclinations. Long-term monogamy—one spouse for one person at one time—may be the most desirable condition for ensuring personal happiness, accumulating property, and raising children, but it is an artifact of civilization, Western civilization in particular. In the view of many evolutionary psychologists, long-term monogamy is natural for neither men nor women."

Which in times past produced winner-take-all males - and an awful lot of losers :

Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

A situation which Christian civilisation was destined and designed to correct and struggle against. Although sin was always with us, any male proclaiming to the world that he took whatever he wanted was likely to be given short shrift by pre-1945 Britons. That was the cry of "primitive man", as far as they were concerned - people like the Papua New Guineans quoted in the foreword to Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" :

"Woman after woman, when asked to name her husband, named several sequential husbands who had died violent deaths. A typical answer went like this: "My first husband was killed by Elopi raiders. My second husband was killed by a man who wanted me, and who became my third husband. That husband was killed by the brother of my second husband, seeking to avenge his murder."

The wife welcoming her husband's killer to her bed is a narrative with a literary pedigree and plenty of historical exemplars. The ballad of Brackley, based on a Deeside raid in 1666 by Farquharson of Inverey against John Gordon of Brackley, is a grim example where the husband's death sentence consists of the words 'if you were a man you'd go out and fight' - at odds of fifteen to one.

From Dee side came Inverey whistlin' and playin'
And he is to Brackley's gates ere the day is dawnin'
Saying, Baron O'Brackley oh are ye within?
There are sharp swords at your gates, to gar your bluid spin

Oh rise up my husband and turn back your kye (cattle - LT)
For the lads frae Dunwharrum are driving them by
Oh how might I rise up and turn them again
For where I have one man I'm sure they have ten

If I had a husband the like I have nane
He'd no lie in his bed and watch his kye ta'en
Then up spake the baron, said gi'e me my gun
Saying I may go out but I'll never win home

There rode wi' bold Inverey full thirty and three
But along wi' bonny Brackley just his brother and he
Twa gallanter Gordons did ne'er the sword draw
But against three and thirty, wae's me, what is twa?

Wi' swords and wi' pistols they did him surround
And they pierced bonny Brackley wi' monys a wound
Frae the head o the Dee, tae the banks of the Spey
Oh the Gordons will mourn him and will ban Inverey

Oh came ye from Brackley's, and was you in there?
And saw ye his Peggy a-rivin' her hair
Aye, I came by Brackley's, and I was in there
And I saw his bonny Peggy she was makin' good cheer

She was rantin', she was dancin', she was singin' wi' joy
And she swears this same nicht she will feast Inverey
She laughed wi' him, danced wi' him, welcomed him in
And she kept him while morning whae slain her good man

There's grief in the kitchen, there's mirth in the hall
For the Baron o Brackley lies dead and awa'
Then up spake his son from his own nurse's knee
If I live to be a man 'tis avenged I'll be

UPDATE - Robert Whelan, in the foreword to Patricia Morgan's "Farewell To The Family" put his finger on where modern warriors are coming from.

"We have created the classic conditions for the emergence of a warrior class: separation of economic activity from family maintenance; children reared apart from fathers; wealth subject to predation; and male status determined by combat and sexual conquest."

Presented in slightly idiotic socialese, this Atlantic piece describes urban warrior culture :

"At the heart of the code is the issue of respect--loosely defined as being treated "right," or granted the deference one deserves. However, in the troublesome public environment of the inner city, as people increasingly feel buffeted by forces beyond their control, what one deserves in the way of respect becomes more and more problematic and uncertain. This in turn further opens the issue of respect to sometimes intense interpersonal negotiation."

Ha ! That's one phrase for it.

UPDATE 2 - new blogger Hexe Froschbein ("Frog-legs the Witch" ?) points out in the comments that Christian culture was neither the first nor the only monogamous culture (never said it was, mind). Thoughtful Romans (a/c/t 'I, Claudius') considered the Germanic tribes to have a particularly strict code of sexual morality, which contrasted favourably with that of decadent Imperial Rome.
She links to this text-and-audio of Tacitus' Germania - "Tacitus’ descriptions of the Germanic character are at times favorable in contrast to the opinions of the Romans of his day. He holds the strict monogamy and chastity of Germanic marriage customs worthy of the highest praise, in contrast to what he saw as the vice and immorality rampant in Roman society of his day, and he admires their open hospitality, their simplicity, and their bravery in battle. One should not, however, think that Tacitus’ portrayal of Germanic customs is entirely favorable; he notes a tendency in the Germanic people for what he saw as their habitual drunkenness, laziness, and barbarism, among other traits."

I think we should remember, however, that from these noble savages sprang the French.

Reflections On Elections

Well, so much for Cleggmania. I arrived in an empty polling station at 8.20 last night, commented on the emptiness and was told that it had been really busy, and they reckoned perhaps 80% of the names on their list had already voted.

I took this in, thought about the Lib Dem surge and my daughter's Catholic school, decided I'd never forgive myself if they took the seat, and voted Blue Labour, having decided on seeing the candidate list outside that I'd go for UKIP (we only got one, Tory, election leaflet this year and I didn't even know who else was standing until I saw the list).

I was sorry to see that Shaun Bailey didn't get in.

Outside of that, the salient feature seems to be that Scotland is decoupling from the rest of the British mainland. While the Tories (probably aided a tad by all those English immigrants to Wales) gained seats in the Principality, the Labour vote held up in Scotland (Gordon Brown actually increased his majority) and the Tories still only have one seat there. While the SNP didn't gain any seats, Alex Salmond must surely think it no bad thing that politics north of the Border is becoming so different to politics south of it.

What I can't understand is why Labour are hanging on up there. OK, Scotland hasn't got mass immigration on the English scale, but I would have thought the many other factors which have told against Labour nationally would count there too. Is it the huge State sector in Scotland ? Massive electoral fraud ? Sympathy for an embattled administration with more than its fair share of Scots - anti-Brown sentiment interpreted as anti-Scottish ?

I dinna ken. Any ideas, anyone ?




(and outside, the Dow Jones is taking a massive hit, the Greek debt crisis rumbles on, perilously near the cliff-edge, and the pound is wobbly. All those put-off or lied-about spending and taxing decisions await. Do we need a National Government ? We certainly won't get one.)

Words Fail Me

Passing sentence, Judge Beckett told the two 15-year-olds that in determining the punishment part of their sentences he took account of their age, and the fact that the boy who struck the fatal blow had been doing well at school.

Dies Irae 2 - Bill McLaren

Another great British icon gone. Teacher, Cassino veteran, and an enthusiast whose love of the game went straight to the heart of the listener.

Grit-Banditry ...

.. the shame of our cities.

Beautiful Nairn

A seaside town in the Highlands has been ranked in second place on a list of the world's top five "emerging" travel hotspots for next year.

Travel website Trip Advisor put Nairn, on the Moray Firth coast, behind first-placed Troncones in Mexico.

The former Victorian resort was described as a "perfect base" for exploring the Highlands.

It was ahead of El Chalten in Patagonia, Patara in Turkey and Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany.

Discerning travellers have been aware of Nairn's charms for a lot longer than tripadvisor's been around :

All ye tourists who wish to be away
From the crowded city for a brief holiday;
The town of Nairn is worth a visit, I do confess,
And it's only about fifteen miles from Inverness.

And in the summer season it's a very popular bathing-place,
And the visitors from London and Edinburgh finds solace,
As they walk along the yellow sand beach inhaling fresh air;
Besides, there's every accommodation for ladies and gentlemen there.

Then there's a large number of bathing coaches there,
And the climate is salubrious, and very warm the air;
And every convenience is within the bathers' reach,
Besides, there's very beautiful walks by the sea beach.

The visitors to Nairn can pass away the time agreeably,
By viewing Tarbetness, which slopes downwards to the sea;
And Queen Street is one of the prettiest thoroughfares,
Because there's splendid shops in it, and stocked with different wares.

And there's ornamental grounds, and lovely shady nooks,
Which is a great advantage to visitors while reading their books;
And there's a certain place known as the Ladies' Beach,
So private that no intruder can them reach.

And there's many neat cottages with gardens very nice,
And picturesque villas, which can be rented at a reasonable price;
Besides, there's a golf course for those that such a game seeks,
Which would prove a great attraction to the knights of clubs and cleeks.

The surrounding scenery of Nairn is magnificent to be seen,
Especially its fertile fields and woodlands so green;
Besides, not far from Nairn, there's Cawdor Castle, the ancient seat
Of the noble Thanes of Cawdor, with its bold turrets so neat.

And its massive proportions is very imposing to see,
Because the arched entrance is secured by a drawbridge and a fosse;
And visitors will be allowed all over the grounds to roam,
Besides shown over the castle if the Earl is not at home.

The scenery surrounding the castle is charming in the summertime,
And the apples in the orchard there is very fine,
Also the flower-beds are most beautiful to see,
Especially in the month of June, when the birds sing merrily.

Then there's the ancient stronghold of the Bays of Lochloy,
And visitors when they see it will it heartily enjoy;
And a little further on there's the blasted heath of Macbeth,
And a hillock where the witches are wont to dance till out of breath.

And as the visitors to Nairn walk along the yellow sand,
They can see, right across the Moray Firth, the Black Island so grand,
With its productive fields and romantic scenery,
And as the tourist gazes thereon his heart fills with ecstasy.

And Darnaway Castle is well worthy of praise,
And to oblige all visitors there are open days,
When they can see the castle where one thousand warriors in all
Oft have assembled in the Earl of Randolph's Hall.

And in conclusion I will say for good bathing Nairn is the best,
And besides its pleasant scenery is of historical interest;
And the climate gives health to many visitors while there,
Therefore I would recommend Nairn for balmy pure air.

A Few Shotgun Blasts From the Curate's Coppice

The IPPR are right !

An exodus of high-skilled immigrants leaving Britain should have us more worried than the current debate allows, a thinktank has claimed. Research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests the number of 're-migrants' - those who come to work in Britain but return to their country of origin soon afterwards - is set to remain on the increase for several years to come.

In the year to September 2008 the number of non-British nationals leaving the country rose by 30 per cent... It recommends that, as well as attracting these higher-skilled workers to come to Britain, ministers should consider doing more to dissuade them from returning home.

They came over here, stabbed the Poles the locals just didn't want to stab, and now they're off home !

A judge has issued police with a European Arrest Warrant in their hunt for a second man who has fled the country to avoid being jailed for an horrific knife attack in Bradford. Remigiusz Klata, 26, of Seaton Street, Barkerend, Bradford, was due to be sentenced yesterday. But the court was told he was believed to have fled bail to his native Poland having already admitted his part in the unprovoked attack on fellow countryman Artur Wojtowicz.

Mr Wojtowicz suffered multiple stab wounds to his shoulder and hand and was also struck by a bottle in a two-hour orgy of violence at his home in Newforth Grove, Bowling, Bradford, on February 17, 2007. After he had been stabbed with a kitchen knife, Mr Wojtowicz was urinated on by his attackers in a final act of indignity.

Rafal Kamil Krajewski, 31, then of Manningham Lane, Bradford, and Grzegorz Holubowicz, 29, of Parsonage Road, Tyersal, Bradford, were jailed for a total of 16 years at Bradford Crown Court last month. Sentencing went ahead in the absence of Krajewski, who is also on the run – again believed to be somewhere in Poland, after he skipped court bail last Christmas. Once caught he faces nine years in prison. At yesterday’s hearing, the court was told that absent accomplice Klata had previously pleaded guilty to attacking Mr Wojtowicz.

Recorder Jonathan Sandiford adjourned sentencing to the first available date after November 1 to give police more time to try to recapture Klata, as well as the missing Krajewski.

This story is another in the Reality 1, Satire 0 genre. Julie Bindel's not going to like it one bit.

The refusal to move a pre-operative transsexual prisoner from a men's jail to a women's prison is a violation of her human rights, says the High Court. Deputy Judge David Elvin QC quashed Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to keep the 27-year-old, who cannot be identified, in a male prison.

Referred to as "A", she is serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape, committed when a man.

That's up there with the schizophrenic strangler in the next black cab you stop :

London taxi drivers are planning to demonstrate against a paranoid schizophrenic killer being allowed to study to become a black-cab driver.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, strangled his wife in 2000 and was jailed indefinitely for manslaughter in 2001.

Just don't query the fare !



I've said before that the ire projected at the anti-immigration BNP would, in their absence, be projected at anti-immigration UKIP. Here's the kind of stuff you'd see - via former Euro-MEP Richard Corbett - he lost his seat when Nick Griffin got in, ironically.



Told you so department. Laban :

Now when Labour supporters talk about 'working class' or 'working people' - they are most often referring to NON-working people - the underclass - unemployed and unemployable despite the boom years.

News :

“It means they’ll save about £109 million on housing benefit,” said Mr Orr. “But against a spend of almost £16 billion a year this is marginal. For the 40% of tenants who pay their own rents the average saving would be about £1.36 a week. But, the majority of tenants we’ve spoken to would rather keep their services and see new homes built than have reduced rents."

Or, washing the golden stat from the mud - 60% of "social housing" tenants don't pay any rent. 60% !

Laban can remember the days when 'social housing' was full of people who worked for a living.



The website of David Rudkin - the Bromsgrove High School teacher and playwright who had a huge critical success, never quite to be repeated, with 'Afore Night Come'. Memory is failing, but I seem to remember playing bridge against him at Aston Fields Working Men's Club as was.




"the council is prepared to voluntarily grant a reasonable amount of expressions of freedom"

Decent of them, I'm sure.

The Orange Lodge will have to pay thousands of pounds in costs under secret plans being drawn up by police and council chiefs, if traditional parades continue.
The Scotsman can reveal that the Lodge will be warned that unless it contributes a share of the estimated annual £1.5 million policing bill, a new law restricting the number of marches could be invoked. The threat signals a tougher approach to the parades, especially in Glasgow, where city bosses have run out of patience after discovering that the city now hosts 250 parades every year – more than Belfast and Londonderry combined.

Glasgow city chiefs say financial penalties would also apply to Irish Republican marches which are increasing in number. Other councils, such as West Lothian and West Dunbartonshire, are understood to be observing developments and plan to introduce their own charges if the plan is invoked.

I can see the police's point. Idiots on either side try to disrupt the marches and it costs a bomb. But what price is freedom ? Couldn't the idiots be given exemplary sentences instead ? I suppose that's not the Scots way.

The Bonnie Bonnie Banks ...

Whenever I drive along the A82 out of or into Glasgow, I'm struck by the contrast between the 'schemes' of Dumbarton and the glorious scenery of Loch Lomond just up the road. Why don't the youth abandon the jellies and Buckie, get out into the dowie dens and get some healthy outdoor excercise ?

I see. They are.

Scotland's first national park is to ban camping in three beauty sports in a bid to eradicate violence and vandalism at drunken parties. The tough measures proposed by the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority (NPA) will herald an end to the right to virtually unfettered access to one of Scotland's most popular visitor destinations. Having pursued policies weighed in favour of conservation and education, the NPA now believes greater prevention and enforcement is necessary to meet its long-term goals of easing visitor pressure and "eliminate" the drunkenness, vandalism, criminal damage and assault plaguing the bonnie banks... "It's the type of camping that wasn't envisaged when the Scottish Outdoor Access Code came into being" said park ranger Graeme Archibald. "It was supposed to allow people to go out into the countryside and enjoy it, not turn up with alcohol and party all weekend."

Enforcement officials working on the ground in Loch Lomond told Scotland on Sunday that the current system of funding rangers and police officers to patrol the park's 720 square miles is "not sustainable" in the long term. Instead, they insist, officials need the "right tools in the toolbox", pointing to a catalogue of crime and anti-social behaviour over the summer season. It includes one incident where a fight between two groups in Sallochy Bay quickly escalated. As a result, a lit barbecue was thrown through the window of a car, destroying the vehicle. On some evenings, as many as 90 people can congregate at Sallochy, most of them under the influence of alcohol.

Hmm. And acccording to the comments, it's just as bad down at Loch Doon, not so far away from Auchinleck.