Hi Simon
It’s Christmas Day and we’ve just finished a game of Articulate whereby we came across the mythical Biceps Land. I of course googled it and your page was the first to come up! On reading further I saw your error with Jesus – this seriously happened during our game too!! Also found myself describing ‘Gypsy’ under the nature category – the answer given back to me was bats (don’t ask)
Merry Christmas!
Becky
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Comment on Biceps Land by Becky
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Comment on Camping at Clachtoll and Badrallach by gardens of time
Hi, I read your blogs daily. Your writing style is awesome, keep up the
good work!
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Comment on Bargain Berths and advertising standards by Simon Varwell
Thanks for commenting Emma. How odd that you can’t book two tickets together at a low price. Have you complained to Scotrail about this?
Well done on the £29 ticket though – it proves they do exist!
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Comment on New year, new website by furniture pads
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Comment on Bargain Berths and advertising standards by Simon Varwell
Thanks for commenting Emma. How odd that you can’t book two tickets together at a low price. Have you complained to Scotrail about this?
Well done on the £29 ticket though – it proves they do exist!
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Comment on New year, new website by furniture stores in germany
I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout
on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself?
Anyway keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one
today.
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Comment on Luxembourg, by train by Margarette
Thank you, I’ve recently been searching for information approximately this topic for ages and yours is the best I have came upon so far.
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Comment on Biceps Land by Becky
Hi Simon
It’s Christmas Day and we’ve just finished a game of Articulate whereby we came across the mythical Biceps Land. I of course googled it and your page was the first to come up! On reading further I saw your error with Jesus – this seriously happened during our game too!! Also found myself describing ‘Gypsy’ under the nature category – the answer given back to me was bats (don’t ask)
Merry Christmas!
Becky
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Comment on New year, new website by decorating games
Hey there! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering
if you knew where I could locate a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having difficulty finding one?
Thanks a lot!
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Comment on Bargain Berths and advertising standards by Simon Varwell
Thanks for commenting Emma. How odd that you can’t book two tickets together at a low price. Have you complained to Scotrail about this?
Well done on the £29 ticket though – it proves they do exist!
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Comment on A second referendum by Thomas Widmann
While I totally agree that there will be enormous demand for a new referendum ten years after a No vote, the issue I can see is that Westminster will know that we might win it, so they’ll do their best to prevent it from happening. It won’t be at all like two years ago when a naïve PM thought it was a good way to bury Scottish nationalism.
That doesn’t mean a second referendum won’t happen, of course, but it might become a lot more like the current situation in Catalonia, and that will make it much harder to achieve a Yes vote.
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Comment on A second referendum by Simon Varwell
Hi Thomas, thanks for your thoughts. I agree that there is unlikely to be a second “Edinburgh Agreement” given the Scottish Government’s “once in a generation” pronouncements. The UK Government (of whatever colour) will hold them to that.
Instead, yes, it will probably be a Catalan situation, where the referendum will be held unilaterally by the Scottish Government. It could be messy and acrimonious, but the polls and mandate may be too strong by then for the referendum not to happen, even if the Scottish Government wanted it not to take place. In such a scenario, I can’t honestly see the UK Government stopping it happening – not giving their consent, yes; actively stopping it happening, no.
So September this year will save us a whole lot of hassle!
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by roddymacdonald2014
Excellent post which puts more flesh on the bones of my 2013 observation: Just who Hates the English?
logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/just-who-hates-english.html
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by Morag
A lady in the audience at the West Linton debate on 23rd June said much the same thing. She was convinced that England would refuse to buy any goods from an independent Scotland, apparently out of pure spite. And the more people in the hall challenged that (including Ivan McKee), the more stubbornly she clung to her conviction.
I wasn’t called ot speak, but if I had been I’d have said that as a long-time resident of England myself, she wasn’t describing the generous and tolerant people I knew. Sure, a few bitter individuals might be featured in the Daily Mail, but a few bitter people don’t wreck a country’s economy. One might also remember all the calls for a boycott of Scottish produce and travel to Scotland that were flying around when Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was granted compassionate release. Americans set up web sites to promote a South Africa style shunning of all things Scots. What happened? Nothing that anyone noticed. People get over these things faster that you realise.
However, if it were indeed true that the people of England are as spiteful, petty-minded and vindictive as that, if that’s how they really think about us and how much they value us, why on earth would we want to stay in a political union with the country?
Paradoxically, the West Linton lady who made the point was herself English, judging by her cut-glass RP accent.
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by siminstance
I would disagree that it is racism?
It is a lack of trust.
Successive UK Governments have chipped away the trust 5 million people should have in their ‘elected’ representatives to the extent that even people who intend to vote NO think they will renege on the Edinburgh agreement OR that they will cause further hardship to Scotland at the expense of their own voters.
There is a real fear, not of the English, but of the people in charge of the UK government and THAT is incompatible with democracy at its heart.
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by arthur thomson
Your observations are so right. However, the annihilation of innocent people in Iraq and the lack of any meaningful acceptance, understanding and remorse amongst British people of their culpability in this, reflects how we have all been socialised to be xenophobic. The independence referendum is making me question what I have avoided questioning too much in the past. I am someone who has argued for over 50 years (half a century) for Scottish self government and it is only through the debate that is going on that I am understanding more fully why I have so wanted it. Just one of many reasons has been the readiness of the British State to turn to violence. Scottish people need to distance themselves from this. Somehow, that message needs to be got across to those who live in Scotland. They alone can vote Yes to stop Scottish people being recruited, trained and used as killers in the name of ‘British Democracy’.
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by Rosa Alba Macdonald
I think it is more sinister than that – Milliband’s xenophobia – not on a practical but on a psych level, and he is using his children in a powerbrokering way.
Childrren are a currency worth more than an adult on the emotional market. Children in Need nets more than Adults in Need every would; pets are a slightly different matter but we shall leave them – no one has mentioned their pets in this yet although Kermit…
We have opened this interlocution of the negotiations with the highest emotional currency: children . Not our own (grand)children – like Tom Brown or Sillars but Eds. Ed has amplified and inflated that currency – where Wiles attempted deflation of the YesChildren in her perversion of fact; the MacTrapped kids were relatively uninflated – of children with xenophobia, not just any xenophobia but Marks and Spencer’s children’s fears.
What is decidedly bizarre is the subversion-inversion of – if you like – subject and object. We the Scots vote Yes, and the impact on the English (Object) is… With Milliband’s example we have the Millikids and Dad as Subject and us as Object. The exhortation is thrown out that our vote Self-Determination, that even Hillary and Obama, far less the Chinese Premier clearly tried to avoid saying was anything other than a matter for us, should be predicated not on the best interests of self, neighbours and nation but on the whimiscal impact on the Millikids (and maybe the Camekids – let’s not be exclusive; the name suggests Scots forebears). We become object and not subject.
This really clearly underlines the perception of our nation, worth and resources by rUK: we are objects (of use and income), who should not vote on the grounds of our own best interests. It subverts Self-Determination as much as misappropriating of UKGov funds for the MacTraooed Children Brochure or for these polls which have not been published but have informed terms of discourse for the not-in-it-to-win-it officially UKGov, No Borders, and Better Together/No Thanks.
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by Simon Varwell
Thanks for your comments thus far, folks.
Roddy – well put.
Morag – very odd. There’ll be worse scare stories to come, which I suppose means they’ll look increasingly ridiculous to folk in the middle ground.
Siminstance – I see what you mean. Though there is a link between how we expect rUK’s (or any democracy’s, for that matter) government to behave and how we can predict its people expect that government to behave. Often trust (or lack of) can be extended to a whole nation, leading to stereotypes and prejudicial views.
Arthur – yes, quite right. An insular attitude means we don’t care about foreign deaths quite so much. It’s a dangerous situation to develop such a complacency.
Rosa – I’m afraid most of what you wrote went right over my head, but you’re right in that “think of the children!!” is always good for headline-grabbing political stances.
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Comment on Some huge news by Ryan
Congratulations Simon! Hard to believe it’s been more than 10 years since you were introducing me to haggis and good scotch in Inverness!
Funny that I should read this on a morning where I’m struggling to find an easy way to share some photos and videos of my boys with their grandparents in Canada. The transition hasn’t been bump free, as I was a compulsive over-sharer, but also is a bit easier than I expected. The hardest part, as I had already publicly shared 3 years of photos, was going back and tracking them all down and unpublishing them (as well as the awkwardness of asking friends/family to delete them if they had reshared them in any way). But with that behind me, it’s nice knowing I’m giving the boys a clean slate to make a mess of themselves 
Congratz again. Hopefully one day we’ll be on the same continent again and we can catch up in person.
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Comment on Foreigners 2 by iain taylor
Thanks for articulating the unease I’ve had about the tactic, and the divisiveness it fosters. That can only be negative whatever the vote in September.
I’ll just float the flipside. English born people living & working in Scotland who (to me) have stated they’ll up and leave if Scotland votes yes. Implicit in that attitude is the view that Scotland is jolly nice when run from WM (they hold the purse strings) but not if run by the people who live here. Seems pretty colonial…
I haven’t heard that kind of view from any of the Irish, Polish, Slovak, Swedish, French or Canadian people I know who live here. The opposite, in fact.
What you articulated is closely linked to the “SNP anti-English” racism peddled by many in the No campaign.
I’ve been active in the Yes side for over a year, and have never heard a single anti-English sentiment expressed. Anti-WM all the time of course, with particular venom directed at the Scottish MPs, Lords etc who are pro Union.
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