Choose wisely Agnieska

I consider myself Scottish and that’s because I am Scottish.

I was born there and so was my dad which in most person’s books, including my own, is the measure of nationality. 

I can thus justifiably wear the kilt, enjoy haggis, drink more than is considered sensible, eat seriously unhealthy food and take the average European life expectancy, subtract ten years, before applying it to myself.

Yes I’m a proper Scotsman and think everyone would agree with this.

My mother is English though.

Proper English that is. Not a soft southern Oxbridge version, no the Barnsley, pit-mining, mushy pea eating Yorkshire English.

And this has always presented me with a small problem. Scotsmen are supposed to dislike the English, it’s in our DNA. So logically if I am to be a true Scotsman I should dislike my mum.

But of course I don’t dislike my mum, that would be stupid. Disliking her would have meant I would have missed out on all sorts of good stuff growing up, not least Yorkshire puddings and Rhubarb crumble. I like my mum a lot and so I also like the English.

There I have said it.

I also like Germans, Swedish, Italians and the Spanish. The French are another matter altogether but I don’t need to explain why.

Most of the time my collaboration with our southern girly soft neighbours isn’t a problem. I can keep it firmly in the closet. Football matches can sometimes presents a small issue though i.e. what do I do when 40,000 men are urging me to ‘stand up if you hate the English’?  I normally just stay seated and hope it quickly moves on to singing about the referee’s mothers penchant for goat sex.

If me admitting to having a fondness for the auld enemy wasn’t enough how about the fact that I am happy to support England during any major football tournament where Scotland isn’t present. Which as we know is all of them.

I also vote conservative.

Still consider me Scottish?

As a side note on my father’s side my grandmother comes from Bettyhill along the northern coast of Scotland. Her side of the family are dark skinned, Latino types. My father is, my sister is and I am to a slightly lessor degree.

Apart from being a very pretty village in the middle of nowhere legend has it that Bettyhill is also where some of the survivors of the Spanish armada made it ashore back in 1588. I therefore like to believe in some tight trousered romantic fantasy with my very distant ancestors being Spanish conquistadores. In this fantasy my great, great, great, great, great, great granddad rode his horse bolt upright. He wore a colourful feathered hat and had a beef burrito shoved down his painfully tight trousers as he galloped through South America slaughtering natives and stealing their gold.

But regardless of my ancestry, in terms of next year’s referendum on independence I am not considered Scottish.

I don’t live there so am not eligible to vote no matter how much tartan I wear or shortbread I eat. I sort of understand this. I have just outlined the case for me being Scottish but this is only my definition. It’s how I feel but where do you draw the line? If it was everyone who thinks of themselves as Scottish got the vote, there would be a lot of rotund Americans queuing up at the polling stations along with myself. 

So I get it.

The whole UK is a country of mongrels anyway if you go far enough back.

I can’t vote but if I was Agnieska from Poland enjoying her gap year working in a bar in Edinburgh how would I vote?

What’s out there to help me decide on what is probably one of the most important votes in the countries history?

And this is the whole point of the blog, there is nothing or at least nothing I have seen.

Well that’s not true, I will rephrase that, there is nothing of any substance to befit such an important decision. All I see is scaremongering on both sides.

Hastily thrown together you tube quality videos either backed by doom and gloom music (the no campaign) or stirring Braveheart type music (the yes campaign). Each are very high on rhetoric and imagery but anorexically thin when it comes to real hard facts. It seems as if both sides have decided the electorate are not capable of understanding the fiscal, administrative or other dull real world implications of such a divorce.

This is either horribly patronising or more worrying, both parties actually don’t know the real implications.

On the flip side of the discussion are my good buddies the English. Given the breakup of the United Kingdom has as much implications on them as it has on the Scottish surely they should have a say in it and a vote?

The counter argument here is that if one side of a marriage wants a divorce then it really doesn’t matter if the other doesn’t does it?

I don’t think this argument is true though. Given the amount of Scottish living in England and non-Scottish in Scotland surely it should be the decision of the majority of the whole country. Country in this case being the United Kingdom?

Anyhow regardless of the defined electorate the debate needs to start. Now and properly. We need to have a sober, factual debate. We need the soap boxes to be dusted off and we need independently funded and conducted research. We need decisions to be made and explained on fiscal policy, currency, interest rates, infrastructure, country/offshore boundaries, trident and a long list of other dull but very important things.

Without it the decision will be taken on a whipped up to a frenzy fear of the unknown or worse still some stupid romantic notion of a Scotland which hasn’t existed since Mel Gibson or a short gay Italian was running around the hills in a dress and make up.

For what it’s worth, my opinion is that I don’t want to have to apply for a Scottish passport and I’m not sure even if I would get one.

I also don’t understand how independence can be truly had if the currency is pegged to another country’s. I don’t know how defence would work. I don’t know how realistically we can rid our country of those nasty nuclear subs without giving England a serious headache. Do we really want to piss off England for that matter? Probably not. I don’t know how much the infrastructure of running a country would cost and I am not even sure if the offshore boundaries have been agreed. Who really owns the North Sea and its oil? What about the Queen? And the list goes on.

I sincerely hope before next September the list of unknown elements is reduced to a very small list. If not the arguments will be based on nothing more than the unfounded opinions of a few politicians. And I for one don’t want the future of my country (yes I still consider it my country) to be decided on the emotionally charged rhetoric from a cohort of individuals who have not really excelled in the trustworthy stakes in recent times. This applies to all colours of the political spectrum.

Get rid of the music, the bagpipes, the 1966/football based silly vitriol. Get rid of the comparisons with Norway, the voice overs by Sean Connery and the shots of Andy Murray holding a trophy above his head.  

Get rid of it all and get a proper debate going. Get lots of them going. Truly understand the real implications and then and only then can Agnieska take an informed decision.

But not me - cos I’m not Scottish enough.

In search of Dragons

The gestation period of alpaca is a year. Baboon 187 days and the black bear 220 days.

I know this because my internet searching today has taken me from the Magna Carta through a brief study of unicorns and ending up with an alphabetical list of the gestation periods of mammals. Don’t even ask me why.

Zebra; 380 days.

So what have I learned after an hour of clicking with little purpose? Well not a great deal actually. I have one or two golden nuggets to remember during a pub quiz and have a great deal of sympathy and respect for the female domestic white mouse (20 days).

Poor wee thing 20 days really is no time at all to have a crazy, shit did I really? and with him?? night, to popping out a few little baby mice. No time to paint the room blue or pink, no time to book your maternity leave, no time at all. Its tough being a mouse.

But if you think the mouse has a rough ride, spare a thought for the poor Alien out of the Alien movies. Theirs is somewhere between 5mins and an hour depending on the editing, albeit the female alien doest actually have to carry the young so its probably not a fair comparison.

It’s a relative size thing. Elephants are the longest, mice the shortest. So following his logic Karen Carpenter would only take about 3months and Pavarotti’s mum carried him for over 2 years. Probably.

Unicorns are strange animals. A horse with a horn. And according to my searching and the so called experts they don’t exist. You are as likely to bump into a unicorn in a field as you are a Jedi knight. But I am not so sure.

In a believable hierarchy of mythical creatures should one exist unicorns have to come pretty close to the top. Why wouldn’t a unicorn exist? If you can have a horse or a stripy black and white horse or even small hairy narky horses then why not one with a horn? 

Horns exist, horses exist so it’s a logical combination no?

The list of mythical animals is a long one. Each society has their own; big foot, Nessy, dog of Yama, leprechaun to name but a few. Dragons and unicorns seem to exist in most societies and appear in most continents around the world though. When I say appear, I mean have been depicted.

My favourite, for today at least, is the Loveland Frog. It lives in Ohio in the US and has the body of a human and the head of, you guessed it, a frog.

Can you imagine such a monstrous creature? Think of the ugliest person you know, imagine them with bad green skin and warts. If that wasn’t enough now imagine them being able to puff up their cheeks like bubble-gum and employing a curious seduction technique - that’s the Loveland Frog.

Is Yoda the last of his race?

So yes, Unicorns I think existed at one time and believe its only a matter of time before some anthropologist or bearded time team type proves it. That or we manage to recreate one from a mozzie trapped in amber. Dragons also, why not?

They could have existed. We have dinosaurs, we have flying dinosaurs so why not dragons? The fire breathing piece is a little problematic but if today we found a non-fire belching dragon I think it would  be reasonably big news regardless.

An animal was discovered last week. 

High up in the treetops of the Andes lives the Olinguito. Weighing in at two pounds it is a member of the raccoon family and for years has been mistaken as another raccoon, the Olingo. This ‘discovery’ was announced to much fanfare and news coverage. Pictures of the small, bored looking dull brown animal were plastered over websites or newspapers under misleading headlines like ‘NEW SPECIES OF MAMMAL FOUND!’ or ‘DISCOVERY OF THE DECADE!’.

Really? I don’t think so.

The Olinguito is just one or two DNA strands or two vowels and a consonant different to the Olingo and its not like it was found, Indiana Jones style, in some remote cave or jungle. The Olinguito has been sitting in plain sight in Zoos and in Peruvian casserole dishes for ever. This discovery is no discovery.

Strangely enough another animal was discovered in the last few years, a monkey no less and I don’t quite know why this had significantly less news coverage. This particular monkey known to the scientific community as the Lesula Monkey was discovered in Africa and aside from DNA differences it distinguishes itself with unique colouring and markings. Including blue testicles. As you might imagine the common name for the newly discovered monkey is the Blue Balled Monkey and why this didn’t precipitate a tsunami of headlines I don’t know.

Both are some way from discovering a Unicorn or a Dragon though.

Put me in charge of the Smithsonian Institute please.

Put me in charge and I would be diverting all the considerable resources and bearded anthropologist to hunt them down. To hell with analysing the DNA of raccoons or studying the colour of Monkey balls, lets go after the Unicorn or start a quest to find a Dragon.

If you want the headlines one of both of these would guarantee it.

I would ignore the frog-faced lady from Ohio though because that would just be silly.

Brown Shoes

When I wear brown shoes, a brown belt and jeans I think I look a little bit like a cowboy. 

And I like looking a little bit like a cowboy.

I think everyone should aspire to be one. 

As a wee boy I thought cowboys were cool. They were rugged, tough and everything someone living in a council estate in Scotland wasn't. My opinion on this hasn’t changed much over the years. Cowboys were cool in the 70s and they still are today.

So whenever I dress in my brown shoes and jeans I tend to walk a little bit taller and with a little bit of a sore arse swagger.

The problem is I’m not a cowboy and never will be.

It’s one of those depressing realities of life. I have as much chance of being a proper, bona fide cowboy as I have of becoming an astronaut, scoring the winning world cup goal for Scotland or being a rock star. At one point in my life all of these career options were potential choices for me. That was until I learned that I am short sighted, am not really that good at football and I cant sing. 

I also have a very annoying allergy to horses.

I work in Finance but this doesn’t stop me pretending every so often I am Jimmy Stewart or Clint Eastwood. It’s a compromise I have learned to live with.

Arseless chaps are wrong.

I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than a grown man wearing leather chaps with his bare arse hanging out.

Now, thankfully I live in a country where the odds of me bumping into a trans-whatever person in the street wearing such things are slim to anorexic but still, I’ve been to San Francisco.

Stop wearing them please, leave them to the proper cowboys and put them back in your closet where they, and a lot of other things probably, belong.

Being different is ok though.

Thankfully in todays society being somewhat left or right of center is tolerated and sometimes even celebrated. Minority groups all over the place live out their lives with very little fear of discrimination, persecution or other such things which have been left behind in the historical waste bin.

It’s allowed and society is reasonably happy to accept you for what you are or the lifestyle you choose.

Why is it though that some minority groups seem to be able to punch well above their weight when it comes to making noise or complaining about one such thing or the other?

Gay marriage is a good example.

Last month in the UK parliament spent hours discussing whether or not to legalise gay marriage. Which you would think on the face of it is a good thing. Same sex couples should be able to enjoy the same rights as everyone else, right? Of course they should.

But they already have the same rights. 

Its called civil partnerships and this offers same sex couples exactly the same rights as married people.

So what exactly were parliament discussing at length then? 

Well as far as I can ascertain, they were discussing the name and the location of the ceremony - i.e. in a church or not.

This is about the point I start getting annoyed. The discrimination piece has been dealt with and now we are discussing a word, really? Are there not more important things to be getting on with like putting out the raging fire of two wars or fixing some serious economic issues perhaps?

Like it or not, we live in a democracy and in that democracy there are minority groups which need protecting but there is also a large majority who are allowed to have a say. I don’t know the opinion of the majority but given the heated debates I have to guess they might be opposed to it for say, religious reasons. 

This group of people’s beliefs are every bit important as a minority groups, however inconvenient that might be.

Are we really just arguing about this? I did try to understand the debate but kept coming back to nothing more substantial.

Are we now at the point where there is so little to campaign about we are now marching through the streets for something as minor as this?

I accept there will be some people who want to celebrate their love for their partner in a church and call themselves married but really how many are there and is it really worth this?

Surely there must come a point when most of the important prejudices/injustices have been eliminated. The time for us all to live in harmony side by side on a keyboard. Surely then people should just stop complaining?

The status quo now isn’t that bad, really its not.

Could it be, and its just an idea, that if you spend your life demonstrating and campaigning  then its hard to stop, even when there really isn’t anything to complain about. Like the various impotent unions which are scrabbling and shouting about nothing in a desperate attempt to earn some legitimacy long after it has gone.

I'm no psychologist but perhaps wearing arseless chaps isn’t just an expression of who the man is. Perhaps the man mincing down the road also loves the attention, he loves it when people stop to point and stare. He wants something to complain about, something to fight against. He wants to be different but with the acceptance he is fighting for comes normality. 

It’s a catch 22 situation.

Anyway that’s just my heterosexual conservative opinion, nothing more and I'm probably wrong. It wont be the first time.

Mr Brokeback mountain man, feel free to wear whatever it is you want. Dress up as a S&M Dalek for all I care. Just do it somewhere private please. I know you crave the attention but trust me the vast majority of the population think you look silly and quite frankly you are frightening the kids.

Also stop shoving your public displays down my throat please.

I will most likely gag and then use highly offensive and prejudicial terms as I tell you what I and the majority of the population really think of your wardrobe choices.

Thanks.

Few years ago. Central Switzerland

I noticed them and sighed. 
From a distance there appeared to be at least six. Hanging around the vending machine, playing music and talking. A thick cloud of smoke hovered over them like a mini microclimate made up entirely of cannabis and tobacco. 

I kept going. Having run out of cigarettes at 11pm there was no way I was waiting until 9am the following morning for my next fix.

No, I would steel myself, fix an un-threatening, un-confrontational look on my face and show no outward sign of trepidation or weakness.

As I approached they stopped talking and turned to stared at me.

Teenagers. Four young men and two women. They each wore the same black on black uniform with multiple facial piercings. Rings, spikes, studs. Explosive hair with the consistency of red granite. Goths.

The music sounded angry. I couldn’t tell about their mood.

They parted to give me access to the machine and then reformed. It was a pubescent, rebellious pincer movement which effectively trapped me inside. No words were spoken.

My heart raced as I fished in my pockets for the correct change waiting for the verbal abuse to start and hoping this was as far as it would go. Sticks and stones.

I fed the coins in and pressed the appropriate code. The machine burst into life and a coiled silver spring started turning. I watched as the red packet slowly edged forward towards the drop. It moved with a glacial speed. They were silent, only the music continued, fast, loud and aggressive.

The pack stopped and the machine returned to its pre-coined, impotent and inactive state. The packet hung there, suspended by nothing obvious. According to a robot brain somewhere in the metal box it had done its job. Only it hadn’t.

The cigarettes were fixed balancing between the end of the silver coil and the drop. It was defying gravity, taunting me in front of a restless nocturnal feral pack. Shit.

I shook the machine but it remained. I shook it harder and the pack just wobbled, still balancing precariously over the abyss, infuriatingly refusing to budge. I stood back and pondered my predicament. The vampire thugs watched me. I could sense the circle closing.

I jumped as I felt a hand touch my shoulder. It was the largest of the kids, broad shoulders, eye liner. His head appeared to be weaponised. If he bent down and head-butted me would I find out the spikes were tipped with a deadly frog poison?

‘Entschuldigen’ he said quietly and motioned for me to stand back which I did without question not entirely sure what he was going to do to me. Gore me with his head or lick me to death with his spiked and studded tongue?

He did neither. He stepped back and kicked the machine hard. Very hard.

Hard enough I imagined to set off an alarm deep in the 24hr vending machine central control room which I assumed had to exist somewhere.It was also hard enough to make the packet drop.

I watched as he quietly bent down to retrieve the small cardboard box which he handed to me with a polite nod and a respectful smile.

‘Thank you, I mean vielen dank ’ I stammered taking the packet from him. I stood there for a second not quite sure what to do next. The remaining ghouls glared at me so I quickly took my leave, not wishing to test my good fortune any further.

I left them there to their music and rebellion and walked quietly back to my apartment, smoking. I was smiling as another preconception shattered around me.

There are times when I really like the country I live in, Switzerland.  

For all their music, hairdo’s and aesthetically rebellious appearances Swiss teenagers are just grown up versions of the little children I see every morning walking hand in hand to kindergarten wearing their yellow anti-traffic florescent vests. It’s going to take a lot more than some heavy rock, sex and drugs to sway your average Swiss seventeen year old.

Deep down, buried away beneath the clothes, the snarls and the cannabis they are still the friendly, law abiding, elder respecting kids they have been taught to be since birth.

And I for one like this.