After Scotland regains its independence, British nationalist zoom blogger Effie Deans must be preserved for the nation as a national treasure. If we ensure that we have bilingual roadsigns pointing to her location, she’ll be so confused that she’ll never be able to move anywhere ever again and innocent towns like Fort William will never have to be burdened with her presence.
Well I say ‘she’. There are persistent rumours that Effie is in fact a male academic who for reasons of his own has chosen to channel the persona of a former schoolgirl from a posh Fife academy for young gerls who has become infused with the spirit Barbara Cartland. I have no idea whether this rumour is true or not. But then according to British nationalist zoomers on social media I think I’m a dog, so who am I to judge. But I digress, which is exactly what Effie did repeatedly on her journey to Fort William.
On Friday the ineffable Effie penned a blog article about her alleged travails in the Highlands as she attempted to drive from Aberdeenshire to Fort William, only to be confounded by those pesky bilingual road signs. In an anguished blog post, Effie bewailed how she was repeatedly confused by Gaelic road signs. So much so that she claims that it became extremely difficult for her to find her way to Fort William. This is quite remarkable, seeing as how Fort William is exceptionally difficult to miss. There’s one road in and there’s one road out. There is no by-pass. There is no snaidhm spaghetti, which is Gaelic for spaghetti junction, en route to confuse the unwary monoglot English traveller. (And that quip will probably set off some British nationalists jeering that Gaelic has no word for spaghetti without the slightest awareness that by the exact same standard, English doesn’t either.)
Of course the real reason for Effie’s complaint was to seek some excuse to attack Scotland for daring to be different from the rest of the UK. In so doing, British nationalism has now officially become indistinguishable from stupidity. You can only fail to find your way to Fort William if you are incapable of remembering to look for the A82. The town has a huge big mountain on one side, and a loch on the other. It’s really very difficult to miss it. But no amount of Gaelic road signs can divert a British nationalist who’s out to seek a victimhood complex.
We’re back in the 80s with idiotic complaints about the Gaelic language that really ought to have been put to bed decades ago. And we’re back in the 1980s with the casual racism about people from Scotland and Wales which is to be found in the English Conservative media. Today the Telegraph thinks it’s hysterically funny to publish a cartoon by its resident Empire loyalist Matt showing an airport test centre with a table displaying a leek, a rugby ball and some daffodils, with a caption reading, “We’re testing passengers returning from Portugal to see if they show any signs of being Welsh.” Oh how we laughed. There is quite literally no other ethnic group, with the exception of the Scots, about whom an English newspaper would be happy to publish a racist slur like that. Ewch i ffwcio chi eich hun, Matt.
It could just as easily have been a jibe at the Scots. We’re interchangeable for a certain type of English Conservative. But don’t dare complain about it. It’s just a bit of banter, and only a humourless Celt with a chip on their shoulder would find it offensive. Just wait a wee bit, there will be a sheep shagging joke and one about a tight fisted alcoholic Scotsman along any minute.
Can you imagine the outcry if The National had published a cartoon showing a table displaying a bowler hat, a bunch of roses, and a cricket bat with a caption saying “We’re testing passengers returning from Portugal to see if they show any signs of being English”? The paper would have been reported to Polis Scotland quicker than you could say Sean Clerkin. There would be an hour long special about it on BBC Scotland with Glenn Campbell looking really sad as he interviewed DRoss going on about the sickness at the heart of nationalism.
After many and repeated complaints by the Conservatives and their allies about Sean Clerkin’s banner which reads “England get out of Scotland”, Sean has been arrested. Reportedly he’s been charged with displaying an offensive banner and breaking a bylaw which prohibits the display of unauthorised banners at the airport. Whatever you think of Sean Clerkin, his banner is not as overtly racist or offensive as the cartoon which is appearing today in the Telegraph. That’s a cartoon which can only be interpreted one way – it is drawing an exact parallel between being Welsh and a virus which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left untold others with long term debilitating illness. There is no other interpretation which can be placed on it. But it’s just bantz. Only a chippy nat would get upset about it.
Sean’s banner may be poorly worded, but in order to assert that it’s a racist call to remove English people from Scotland you have to actively interpret it that way. It could just as easily be interpreted as a call to have English politicians in Westminster removed from influence in Scottish politics. To be clear, I don’t approve of Sean’s banner. I do not think it was remotely helpful to the independence cause because all it did was to provide our opponents with ammunition to use against us. However if those British nationalist politicians who have been complaining about it to the extent that it was reported it to the police do not condemn that cartoon in the Telegraph with equivalent vigour, then they are guilty of gross hypocrisy.
Yet again we see British nationalism in its single minded pursuit of victimhood status while it refuses to confront the racism and bigotry which infests its own ranks. This is a repeated and persistent pattern of behaviour, and it’s one that we’re going to see a lot more of as British nationalists see that Scotland – and Wales – are slipping out of their grasp. British nationalism in Scotland is on the road to irrelevance. Put that on a Gaelic roadsign. Oh. I just did.
And finally. A wee message for Effie Deans, who has been complaining that she’s being attacked (there’s that victimhood martyr complex again) by Scottish nationalists who don’t even speak Gaelic : Tha thu ag innse tul-bhreug, Effie. Cha do thachair e. Oir ma thachair e gu dearbh, feumaidh tu a bhith cho dall gu bheil thu mì-fhreagarach airson dràibheadh – agus tha e gu SpecSavers an aon àite a bu chòir dhut a bhith a’ dol. Dè am fear a th’ ann?
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Wee Ginger Dug 
Sean Clerkin doesn’t do the Independence cause any favours by acting like the stereotypical Nationalist that the BBC and the rest of the media would have you believe, we all hate the English and it’s only because we hate them so much that we want to end the Union. At least the impression they try to portray so as to undermine the Independence movement in the eyes of the wider public, especially in England and the wider International community.
For that reason, I wish he wouldn’t do it but that does not mean that I think he should be arrested for doing it, I think the opposite, he is as entitled to his opinion as anyone else is, because I might disagree with it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a valid opinion.
I can’t see this coming to court, at least I hope it doesn’t. I can’t see what law he is supposed to have broken but I’m no expert. I’ve seen a lot worse from the other side, George Square shenanigans recently and outbreaks of “Rule Brittania” spring to mind. They do themselves no favours in prosecuting this, I hope it backfires and they are shown to have blown off another foot with their heavy handedness.
In any say African or indeed many countries if the road signs were in the language of that country and in fact often accompanied by translations to other languages would the people of the country next door be complaining, of course not
When I lived in Spain I constantly heard English people complain about how Spain would be a great country but for the Spanish people in it even though Spanish people have gone to great lengths to learn other languages including English in order to communicate and do their business, even the English are confused by their own language and criticise local dialects and accents yet still they belittle and complain about others, I hasten to add not all English folk behave this way this is a particular type of which Effie Deans professor emeritus of Edinburgh University is one
Now I’ve no idea whether Effie Deans is Scottish African or English I’m sure if we asked Tory MSP Murdo Fraser he’d be able to supply that answer, but for a very long time she/he has displayed the same anti everybody who’s not one of her, for want of a better word, tribe
You could say being Scottish is the new black but funnily enough the law says that Effie Deans nor anybody else is allowed to offend black people because it’s racist yet Effie Deans and her ilk continue to offend Scots of all colours because her credo of British Nationalism does not recognise any other race but White British Nationalist where there is only one language, the language of exceptionalist superiority
Dont know anything about the Fife schoolgirl, but the only Effie Deans I’ve heard of was a character in Scott’s ‘Heart of Midlothian.
She was going to be hanged for child murder when her baby was fund dead, but her sister, Jeanie, walked to London and got a pardon for her from the king and/or queen of the time.
And Jeanie Deans inspired a rather elegant paddle steamer forbye.
Rather than a steaming dabbler.
“…of which Effie Deans professor emeritus of Edinburgh University is one “
I think you’re confusing her (not difficult, it seems) with ‘Batshit’ Jill Stephenson. Mind you, they may be the same person (has anyone seen them together in the same room?)
I think if you’re going to use agit prop then you need to make the message clear and unambiguous. “England get out of Scotland” doesn’t make sense. I fail to see how a court could convict someone on that unless it is his bad English grammar.
OTOH we are all now talking about him. So a point to SC.
Had to see what the name Effie meant.
The name Effie is a girl’s name of Greek origin meaning “pleasant speech”. Effie is the old-fashioned short form for Euphemia.
You would have thought that anyone would be interested in words and speech with a name like that. Sort of a Victorian sounding name ideal for a keen Britnat,
I am glad that it is now official. That British Nationalism has become indistinguishable from stupidity.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
as always I love reading your work Paul but in this instance it has simply highlighted that I am probably not getting my money’s worth out of Duolingo, I have been practicing every day for 10 months and I didn’t understand even half of your wee message to Effie 🤣
Seo mar a sgrìobh am fear-an-taighe againne :
“You are telling a total lie, Effie. It didn’t happen. Or if it really did happen, then you must be so blind as to be incapable of driving — so the one place you ought to be going is to SpecSavers. Which one is it?”
that’s brilliant thank you
Glad to be of help. The online dictionary is here :
https://www.faclair.com/index.aspx?Language=en
🙂
I completed the duo lingo course and still couldn’t understand it.
Duolingo only provides a very basic introduction to the language, not fluency. It’s a platform which gives you a foundation from which to improve your knowledge of the language.
I need to find a class where I can practice, shouting “halo m’eudail” to my dogs in the woods just isn’t good enough
This guy is great Gaelic with Jason
Subscribe to his channel loads of videos
Great will watch and share…thanks.
As a Welsh-speaking Welshman I am well used to this sort of nonsense. It doesn’t even register with me any more. It can be counterproductive to pay it any heed.
‘Still have I borne it with a patient shrug’ is the way forward. Idiots thrive on their social media attention.
Incidentally if you need any translation done, happy to help
We of course in Cymru had a long battle to get any mention of our language onto roadsigns, and the same old arguments (subsequently comprehensively debunked) about confusion, safety, cost etc against Cymraeg in the 1960s now seem to be at play in Scotland.
Thanks to Cymdeithas yr Iaith and other campaigners actively painting out English only signs or otherwise defacing and removing and destroying same are we anywhere near as successful in getting Welsh signage. But the battle continues for the survival of the language – as it must and as it must for Scottish Gaelic.
You have our support in this, Scotland.
I would point out to my compatriot that he is not alone in touting for translation work. It’s all to the good that it strengthens our hand in portraying the language as a vital, living commodity and essential part of our culture – something the racist Matts of this world can not begin to understand, and this after centuries of oppession and official neglect.
Just a wee point to WGD, though. There is a typo in your Welsh phraseology when you advocate Matt to … ahem … fornicate with himself. Please read, “Ewch i ffwcio chi eich hun, Matt.” Thank you for your support – I’ll collect my coat and tip on the way out of the door.
Diolch yn fawr.
I confess I spotted the use of the verbal noun for the imperative too, but was too polite to comment … and tbh couldn’t immediately think of the correct form … diolch yn fawr am hynny 🙂
Well … you must remember also, that I’m a Gog. The Hwntws would say something else again. But, I think we would be united as one to decry Matt and his stupidity (and crass xenophobia).
And did you know of the more euphemistic,
Cerwch/Ewch i grafu
= Go to scratch.
But would even a hwntw use the polite 2nd plural in an insult?
Well I don’t speak Welsh. I just found it in an online list of Welsh insults.
No problem – but online Welsh language materials (usually produced by non-natives and learners are often quite poor. You might find the same problems with Scottish Gaelic materials.)
As Marco says, ‘mynd’ is the verbal-noun, the dictionary entry and the equivalent of ‘going’ or sometimes ‘to go’ in English. What we need is Cer (Southern Welsh – informal) or Dos (Northern Welsh – informal) or Cerwch (Southern Welsh – formal) or Ewch (Northern Welsh – formal). The all mean ‘Go!’ as an imperative.
I concede I may have been over-polite in ascribing the ‘formal you form’ to Matt. But, I’m usually a polite kinda guy, so I naturally thought of that first. If you want to use ‘Cer i ffwcio dy hunan/Dos i ffwcio dy hun, Matt’ (note the change in pronouns to the singular, informal, too), then I think everyone will be quite happy. Other than Matt of course. But who cares about him?
Cofion gorau.
And for my students everywhere. A veritable gold mine.
http://www.rhegiadur.com/
Wrth siarad am gywiriad, ond dw i’n gweld ‘typo’ yn y rhegiad diwetha?
Beth dw i wedi ei golli, marco? 🙂
“ei gymSysgu” tybed? 🙂
??
http://www.rhegiadur.com/
Tan “hufen y ddraig”
Cywir, marco – da iawn. Ond nid fi sy’n gyfrifol am y Rhegiadur. Dw i’n cymryd dy fod ti’n gwybod sut i ganfod yr ymadroddion eraill.
Wyt ti’n nabod Will Patterson, gyda llaw?
If you want to take this elsewhere, I’m sure WGD will give you my email address.
Cofion,
Diolch am y cywiriad, Ci Bach Melyngoch / Thanks for the correction, Wee Ginger Dug.
Annwyl Paul, please excuse the unnecessary pedantry from my fellow Cymry and thanks for raising this issue.Even today in over 40 per cent of the Welsh land surface, Welsh is the first language of almost the entire local population, and we still get complaints about bilingual signage. The struggle to get this in the first place took years and saw hundreds of people imprisoned. Really, hundreds. The town of Cardigan, for example, is known and referred to as Aberteifi by all the locals for miles around, but the struggle to get the real name on the sign posts was immense. Good luck yn yr Alban.
Pedants? Commenting on this blog? Never!
That reminds of the time my husband and I stopped to ask a guy in France where the nearest B&B was. He looked at me, my husband, me again 👀, pointed at me and said, ”you? me? You want to sleep with me tonight? So much for my command of French. 😀
But wait a minute Petra, you did however break that uncomfortable stance that is often experienced with complete strangers by requesting assistance with your slightly less formal approach.
Plus as a fall back you probably had just negotiated a bed for the night. Did it include breakfast?
Good thing you didn’t say you wanted to ‘kiss’ him, Petra. (See ‘baiser’ in any good French-English dictionary).
I’ve done French, Latin, German & Gaelic and passable at French only. However I did manage to translate bits because from mountaineerings days recalled that in Welsh, ‘w’ has s ‘u’ sound!
Da iawn, for attempting, romiveda!
Don’t quite see where you get the ‘u’ sound for the vowel ‘w’, though. ‘W’ is either like ‘ooh’ (if short) or ‘ooooohhh’ ( if long/carries a circumflex accent).
Feel free to come back to the (second*) best country in the world at any time!
* Delete as applicable.
Code talkers. Americans used Navajo and other native language speakers to talk on radios during WWII in the Pacific Theatre, bewildering the Japanese.
Gaelic must be a similar Scottish secret code.Why else would you speak something other than the king’ s English?
Apparently, everywhere outside England proper is “reservation” land, filled with natives speaking native languages, doing native things, dressing in native clothes, and eating native foods.
This could lead to a national identity, self worth and self respect, heritage and history.
Pride.
Oh, no.
I seem to remember from somewhere that Welsh was sometimes used during WWII as a ‘code’ to confuse the Germans …
Marco,
P’nawn da!
It was used most recently during the Yugoslavian Civil War – to bamboozle the Serbs. (Or at least that was what was said at the time.)
Obviously, it couldn’t be used during the Malvinas/Falklands War as there were speakers of Cymraeg on both sides during that.
And as for World War I. Cymraeg was proscribed by the military elites – all correspondence with the ‘mother country’ had to be done through the medium of Engl;ish. (I’m sure Scottish Gaelic speakers can confirm that from their own history.)
Having recently read ‘Rhyfel Ni’, by the late Ioan Roberts, -an account of the Falklands war as seen from both sides, the actual possibility that any Military communications attempted in Welsh In order to confuse the invading Argentinian army, whilst being theoretically possible, seems unlikely.
(Scottish readers may be unaware that Welsh settlers voyaged to Patagonia in the 19th.Century. Their descendants having integrated and intermarried, aspects of Welsh culture still remain and the language still survives with regular cultural exchange between Wales and Patagonia).
Well we know where we’re going
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowing
But we can’t say what we’ve seen
And we’re not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out
Yeah
We’re on a road to nowhere
…
“BREAKING Harrowing scenes in Wales, as English speakers are distracted by dangerous bilingual road signs” – Britannia PR – Twitter –
– https://twitter.com/Britanniacomms/status/1167447513324032005
Via the always excellent Sarah Mackie on twitter.
Previously – the Tory Lying Spivs, Crooks and Shysters party: ‘A far right English nationalist party’; ‘not really better than a Farage party’. – Sarah Mackie on Twitter –
– https://twitter.com/lumi_1984/status/1297217029326417923
There’s an ongoing attack on Scottish culture by the British nationalists, from Gaelic place names, to the Saltire being displayed on the front of Scottish fire engines, tell me in which other sovereign nation would there be a complaint about its national flag upon its emergency vehicles, none is the answer.
The Anglicisation of Scotland has been in the making for over 313 years now, and rears its ugly head whenever it veers of course such as in the Gaelic livery of our police cars and ambulances. I for one wasn’t taught Scottish history at School, I had to teach myself, I ask you what other country doesn’t teach its children about its own history? Scotland has an illustrious history of ingenuity and vision, that prompted Winston Churchill to laud the Scots just behind the Greeks, in advancing mankind.
British nationalism in all its forms wants to see Scottish history and culture subsumed into UK history, from road signs to Alex Salmond changing the administration to the Scottish government, none are seen as welcome by the British nationalists.
Yes there’s currently a swell in people wishing to learn Gaelic, but more can and should be done to teach Scottish children there on own history.
As for the British nationalist zoomers, after independence they’ll become completely irrelevant.
Effie Deans has been around for while.
Lots of headstones over the last 300 years and old photos.
And been internet active since at least 11:38 AM – 22 Sep 2014 on twatter and/or faceboak.
When He/She or It/They was being all kind and sympathetic and failing to understand that it was not the internationalists that needed to accept the result.
But the wastemonster that needed to live up to the VOW which they all agreed to and signed in bad faith.
Here’s another that shares the exact same values as Effie Deans and yet wants us to believe that they are not British Nationalists.
Andrew Bowie Tory MP in an “I’m not a Nationalist, honest guv” article for Conservative Home tells us the following:
https://archive.vn/grKWL
Gies me the boak anyway, he really is trying so hard to be relevant and in the meantime, his right wing supporters fail to get the message.
Far-right protesters descend on Dover singing ‘Rule Britannia!’
https://archive.vn/k41ML
He must be so disappointed that his message seems not to be heard by his target audience, oh dear.
“To be British was understood; our greatness self-evident and accepted.”
I know he’s a Tory but to actually write that, haha I don’t think he knows what that sounds like.
Unpretentious and definitely not “flag waving” British Nationalism LOL
Is he a graduate of Eton?
Scotland: Know your enemies. Number 52954:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bowie_(politician)
Although I’ve been a fan of Effie Deans’ work for a while now, I wasn’t aware s/he was, in fact, a drag act!
Sean Clerkin being arrested for, let’s face it, his usual shenanigans, seems a bit more sinister, though. Like Effie Fiersdean, he’s a harmless eccentric, so suddenly upgrading his threat level does seem like someone who doesn’t ‘get’ Scotland flexing their muscles.
Has anybody else noticed that those defending the union have been a wee bit more strident over on Twitter over the last couple of days?
Not only were the GERS figures brought down on tablets by Moses, but I’ve noticed a bit more name-calling while I’m being disagreed with.
Effie Deans a character in one of Walter Scott’s novels
http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/midlothian.html
Effie Deans…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heart_of_Midlothian
Waverely station also takes its name from a Walter Scott novel, Scott might have arrange rotund George III’s jaunt North of the border, but he’s under rated somewhat in my opinion. Not only did he rediscover Scotland’s honours he also helped secure Scots law and the Scottish currency.
Effie Deans is a writer of several books and speaks several languages including Russian and lived in a closed Russian City with her Russian husband. She works at Aberdeen University which as we all know universities are great places where spies are found and made when it is on behalf of Russia. This was no accident what she wrote regarding the Gaelic language as she knew it would cause a stooshie as so many of the points were off the edge.
Why did she do it? Well there was the HS2 possible controversy in Scotland and she wanted to engage anyone she could so as to divert their attention from the issue and it must be said she did it brilliantly causing a bit of the usual outrage.
Strangely The Moray Language Centre just launched its strategy for setting up a Gaelic Lifestyle Centre in Edinburgh plus a new initiative for students who wish to learn conversational social Gaelic Superfast. Know how to learn Gaelic cuts down on Time, wasted energy, money, and disappointment when students can learn Gaelic really well within 6 months or a year.
We are not sore at Effie Deans or Euphemia Deans as she has given us the opportunity to let many more people know about the Infra-structure and facilities required for developing Gaelic throughout Scotland.
Nonsense, Effie Deans doesn’t exist other than as alias and is certainly not a staff member of Aberdeen University.
The story about aRussian husband etc was all part of the disguise .
The website is just a britnat blog
Has Effie never heard of Satnav?
“For a few years as a child while my father helped build an oil rig, I lived in a very remote part of the West Highlands near to where Boris Johnson tried to go on holiday with his family.”
That would probably be Loch Kishorn.
“A week ago, I went for a day trip in the direction of my former home. I set off very early because I wanted to get from Aberdeenshire to the West coast and back again in a day.”
It is a four-hour drive to Kishorn, and the correct route goes nowhere near An Gearasdan.
“I lost my way repeatedly on my journey to Loch Duich”
What the **** was she doing going along Glen Coe to Loch Duich? That route takes you to Kyle of Lochalsh and onto Skye. OK, you can double back up past Plockton and up Loch Carron, but has this stupid bint never used an on-line map to plan the route, check for likely loo stops and work out how long the journey will take? Yes, you can get there and back in a day, but it is a long day, and if you are not used driving that sort of journey you will be a danger to others on the way back along the A96.
On bilingual road signs…
Twitter has an image of a Japanese road sign which is in both Japanese (presumably) and English. When in Greece we find most road signs are in Greek Cyrillic with an English (ish) equivalent – and Greek stop signs say “stop”.
Doric road signs for Doric speakers would be quite fun. There are many planned villages with inappropriate names, New Leeds for example, built on top of something else. Aberchirder, at the non existent mouth of the none existent river chirder, is some way inland built on top of Foggieloan, and usually referred to as ‘Foggie’.
Ms Deans, who claims to be an employee of the University of Aberdeen, though the staff register lacks any entry – so is probably a lowly employee who does not qualify for an entry, and has plenty of spare time to concoct endless rants – night porter possibly, needs to be careful the UofA proxy server log files don’t contain entries which suggest a breach of the acceptable use policy.
Aber (obar in Gaelic) in Scottish place names doesn’t always mean river mouth. It can also mean confluence as well. The -chirder part isn’t a river name. Aberchirder supposedly means the confluence of the dark water. It’s Obar Chiardair in modern Gaelic. Ciar is a Gaelic word meaning dark grey, dark brown, gloomy. The -der/-dair part at the end is dobhar in older Gaelic and means water or stream. Obar is a Pictish word which seems to have been borrowed into the Gaelic that was once spoken in North East Lowland Scotland.
Ciar Starmer – it all makes sense now.
It can also be Eadar which means between as in Aberdeen between the two rivers.
dobhar does mean water, as does the word Ber. a word which predates the split of celtic into p and q varieties. Inber, Aber and Cumber were used across the celtic speaking world, perhaps originally expressing slight differences of meaning but that different areas settled on different preferences, eg there are inber’s in wales but are outnumbered by abers, the reverse is true in ireland and the west coast of scotland. (applecross=Abercrosan is referred to in the Annals of ulster as Cumbercrossan) however, in pictland inbher and aber survived in equal amounts, eg fife 8 inbhers and 8 abers (4 of which retain both, eg abernethy/invernethy) The idea that pictish was a p celtic language has taken a huge dunt in recent years and this aber/inber split can no longer be seen as a p/q celtic divide. The kingdom of Strathclyde, which existed up until Malcolm canmore’s time, we know spoke a p celtic language, often called Cumbric, has no aber place names at all!!
It must be hard reading a sign that says A82!
I hope it is raised in parliament. Why are unionists such numpties?
My work life experience.
They bully and sneer when in authority, and dutifully obey, without debate, when subordinates.
I never experienced any other nation, in my extensive work travels like them.
If we were Jewish Muslim or ethnic we’d be protected under hate and race crime laws
Kinda odd position to be in in this so called Union where the English insist we’re all one country but if the UK was one country Scottish white people would be an ethnic minority would we not
So Scotland is only a separate country for the purposes of insults and abuse which is only aimed at the white Scots (because they’re not allowed to insult the non white or religiously different Scots) but one nation when it comes to the use of anything we have
British Nationalists have a lot of rules about who they pretend not to abuse
Kezia Dugdale says Independence will unquestionabley happen should the SNP win the 2021 election with a majority, nice of Kezia to admit something true now that she is no longer under instructions to say differently
As a non Gaelic sleeker I have this week successfully navigated my way from Glasgow to Fort William and on to Uig on the Isle of Skye – I found the road numbers helped…
”Revealed: SNP ministers rejected a £190m UK government bailout for universities because it would gift Westminster too much control over Scottish education.” https://mobile.twitter.com/magnusllewellin/status/1301757314798682113
………………………………..
There’s loads of really informative links from Ann on the Indyref2 site today. Check them out.
https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-saturday-5-september-2020/
I took 30 lessons in Gaelic in the early 90s the first half was taught by a Cornish guy who lived on Lewis for loads of years and became fluent in Gaelic, the second half was taught by a native of North Uist with a distinctly different accent and sometimes slightly pronunciation of Gaelic to the first guy. Confusing or what!! Anyway I learned and remember more Gaelic from Runrig songs than the lessons. They very helpfully have a song which names most of the major towns and cities in Scotland in Gaelic including An Gearasdan(Fort William ) Courtesy of Google maps I just had a wee virtual drive over the Ballulish bridge and guess what the road sign at the far side of the bridge says Fort William in big distinct letters right below the Gaelic name for the town. All roads signs have the same format. If Effie can’t read these signs she really needs to go to Specsavers or learn how to read. Only time I have seen road signs just in Gaelic was on the West coast of Harris in the mid 90s but we managed to find where we were going. I am guessing they might have added the English by now so they don’t lose tourists in the Atlantic. My mum had an Aunty Effy which I always thought was a hilarious name. However the Effy mentioned in Paul’s just sounds like another obnoxious whinging unionist nonentity
In other news …
Ricardo Lameduck in trouble according to the Guardian tonight.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/05/scottish-labour-leader-richard-leonard-defies-new-moves-to-oust-him
A grassroots campaign demanding the resignation of Labour’s leader in Scotland, as well as an explosive no-confidence vote by its ruling body, are both being drawn up by party insiders attempting to topple him ahead of crucial elections next year.
Can someone start a fundraiser to keep R L in his job ?
I couldn’t care whether he stays or goes. I really don’t think Jackie Baillie or Anas Sarwar are going to save them, this is the end of the road for the Labour party in Scotland.
Night of the long knives for SLab once again? Get rid of Mr Leonard and then what? Who will replace him? Sarwar or Baillie? Both a recipe for further disaster. The only way that they can survive now, imo, is for them to embrace Scottish independence in the hope that it’ll be a fresh start for them when we acquire our Independence and that some bright youngsters will come forward and join them. Then again there are others (older 😀) who have been totally disillusioned and alienated by the party (more so by Tony Bliar), such as Tommy Sheppard, who may rejoin them. Meanwhile the penny (facts) seems to have dropped for Kezia Dugdale. Will she, with daddy and partner supporting Independence, do so too now? https://mobile.twitter.com/niven_graham/status/1301919669499158528
If not able to be a Baroness Kezia Dugdale was paid enough £££moolah she’d publicly support Scotland being nuked to save the Union, then her heart would go out to us for having to do it and any survivors would be in her thoughts and prayers
The Labour party in Scotland cannot exist in a post referendum Scotland, there would have to be a new style of opposition party, to even use the name Labour would doom them before they began, plus they would have a financial problem being cut off from Westminster funding as locally they don’t have two bob to rub together
Kezia Dugdale will always be one to watch, she’s not finished yet, and she’ll still cause trouble post Independence, there’s a former FM who likes her very much but said she was “Just in the wrong party”
There’s trouble coming internally as well as external, post Independence
Well I have my own opinion of who Effie is. Said person is also quite prolific and shrill on Twitter, and has a background in further education, and probably has a fair bit of time on their hands most days.
Just to quote Effie, “I usually block all Scottish nationalists on sight.”
At 53% and rising, I’m all but certain she doesn’t go out and about if the quote is accurate. More than half the random people she has to interact with are potentially enemies (from his/her perspective).
Of course, the ‘block on sight’ message is hinting at a politicians’ strategy. Block out alternative points of view. They might make sense. Or to quote a wall poster on my former public sector manager’s wall (spotted it on day one of the new job, and it did not fill me with confidence):
“I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
So I’d probably add any number of current, former or failed Labour and Tory politicians to the list of candidates.
It’s like ‘Where’s Wally?’, only there’s no real satisfaction if you find out who it is. It’s almost certain to disappoint.
She’s not a midwife who lives in Moniaive by any chance is she? Or is that just one of her followers?
I used to post on the “Lily of St Leonards” site. Before Effie shut down and deleted all the comments.
She has since claimed it was because they were negative and abusive. I was disappointed when I read that. I can only remember one “abusive” comment during my months on the site …. and that was from her “supporter” (singular) who referred to us Indies as “cancerous”.
Sure, our comments were “negative”. Of course they were. We disagreed with her. And, to be fair, her articles were so grotesquely stereotypical, full of inaccuracies and (in my opinion) insulting, it would have been surprising if they weren’t. But they weren’t “abusive” as I remember it. Perhaps that’s why she deleted them. To be rid of the evidence that would give the lie to her claims of victimhood.
I was commenting over on wings about the absence of a realistic plan B. Thing that strikes me from the outside is that a lot of Scottish independence supporters argue that because Scotland has an inalienable democratic stark right to be its own country then somehow this moral force will persuade the English establishment to just simply let it Go.
Maybe I am misreading it but it strikes me that any reading of history suggests that this is extremely unlikely
So Scotland you need a plan b a plan c and a plan z. Claiming moral superiority and democratic rights doesn’t cut it in the realpolitik of countries facing into existential threat.
In any project there are various fallback strategies that are discussed and set down such that all are fully ready to swing behind it on prompt to achieve the objective.
In an adversarial situation it is entirely different, strategies are known only to the few on one side, while the other side probe for clues from which to develop their own strategy to defeat it.
Unfortunately, this is where trust enters the equation, and the British State are past masters in sowing distrust, even if their Scottish media has failed to achieve it.
If only others recognise that demanding “now” “UDI” etc are just shrill cries in the wind to Unionists.
Unionists will have to listen to the people through the ballot box. Not to do so will have repercussions, with the EU, others and with the People. King Canut knew the inevitability of an unstoppable force. Johnson doesn’t and doesn’t care that the doesn’t!
Their credibility in the world stage post Brexit can be used against them.
Not recognising the democratic will of a nation will not win them friends except to despots. The will also help the independence cause. That’s their quandary.
Brian I read your posts and the counter posts. I admire your tenacity.
Unfortunately there are too many closet unionists called Stan pretending to be be pro independence encouraging folk not to vote for the SNP. Yip, The only party able to deliver independence with the help of the Greens. That is the facts as I see them.
If another Independence Party comes along with 10% of the vote and taking votes from Labour and Lib Dem’s I may be convinced. Any other party as I see it will take votes and hurt the Greens in particular and even possibly the SNP.
Why the SNP ? Well the full force of unionism will attack the snp and it’s current MP’s MSP’s (some who I have issues with).
No one can say for certain what will happen next year even with Brexit looming.
Go back 12 months what was CoVID 19?
We are however in a great position with 55% of voters wishing Independence. We need the SNP to win.
The “I will not vote for the SNP or I will spoil my ballet paper” bloggers are doing the Unionists work. Of course some are probably unionists.
For others ( see below) are … well make your own mind up!
Colin Alexander says:
5 September, 2020 at 5:25 pm
Who cares what the SNP think or say? I don’t.
I no longer even care what Joanna Cherry or Kenny MacAskill or Angus B MacLeod say either. They’ve continued to be SNP, so birds of a feather with Imelda Marcos Sturgeon and Ferdinand Murrell.
So, they can aw get tae…
and dear old Stan. ( maybe he just doesn’t Like Stanley as a name?)
Stan Broadwood says:
5 September, 2020 at 7:47 pm
Sturgeon truly is the “enemy from within”.
She is doing the damage to the Yes Movement that any Unionist scumbag would be proud of.
I fuckin detest the little self serving dictator.
She has no opposition in Holyrood, she has no Unionist media hounding her, she has no voices of dissent from within, she has a clear run to do as she pleases.
And still we hear of voters who say they will blindly vote SNP 1 and 2 next year.
We are our own worst enemy.
Well I for one can see through her plans to keep Scotland in a permanent state of limbo.
She needs to be exposed to as many outlets as possible.
She has decieved a large number of Scots with her being this Covid 19 street fighter.
Her true aims have to be exposed to our hard of thinking Scots.
She is a decietful little bastard and we have to become the champions of Scottish Independence.
The word has to be spread throughout all sources of media that the sweet little first Minister is infact a dirty little fraud.
— the misogynistic “ sweet little” is of a particular nasty mindset I fear. The “enemy” is not the FM but folk like Stanley.
Independence is in our hands we must support the independence movement -all that is good and positive and reject the negative, nasty comments which is designed to drive folk into “ I am not sure camp”
Sick to the back teeth of that particular website and its stupidity of demanding to know A.B.C or D. ad infinitum which even if they were told they would claim was a lie anyway, why folk can’t see through that biased hate agenda of troublemaking is beyond me, every day it looks like Alistair Darling or George Galloway writes this mince with the help of the Daily Express
It’s a lesson in attracting the society of the angry dispirit and subversive to amplify and extend one man’s hate obsession and determination to destroy because he can’t control, a classic example of Unionist socialism eating itself or the Tory tactic of burning the village in pretence of saving the larger town, and all based on not one single shred of evidence of the psychically obtained *facts* then deployed with believe me because I’m your friend rhetoric as the tool of that attempt at destruction
Of course Unionists are attracted by such a website, it’s a gift, a box full of angry noise with no substance, and when you open that box there’s absolutely nothing inside just more of what it came wrapped in
It’s not only BritNats in sheep’s clothing, it’s radical leftards who have irreconcileable political differences with the SNP and are consumed with jealousy at its steady increase in popularity (not least due to the SG’s performance over the virus crisis), and who evidently would rather see the whole independence project fail if they can’t get any popular support for their Nirvana. The kind of people who flirted with going back to Corbyn but now have nowhere to go, and it hurts. They may be all over a certain site now like a rash but thankfully for progress they are invisible to ordinary voters.
I’m sure there are a ton of alternatives to whatever strategy the Scottish government will employ to achieve Independence but will discuss absolutely none of them with anybody or they might as well just phone up the opposition and let them know so they can prepare to rubbish those too
Just like they were allowed to do in the last Scottish Independence referendum that Westminster organised orchestrated and controlled
Correct
Recently Professor John Curtice argued that the inclusion of a Plan B at this stage would only muddy the waters and help to take the pressure off Johnson. He added that this is not to say that the SNP shouldn’t have a Plan B, they should, however at this stage that plan should be for internal party consumption and not to be shared with the wider public or the Conservative govt.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18647081.independence-plan-b-take-pressure-off-pm-john-curtice-says/
I assume Effie’ll be equally ‘peeved’ at the Welsh road signs too.
But surely, Effie (if you’re reading this blog) you can read?
And read English as that’s what on those bye lingual road signs… you know, the part that says ‘Fort William’…
I’m reminded of the Matt McGinn ode to bees –
“He kept bees in the old town of Effen / An Effen bee-keeper was he / And one day the wee Effen bee-keeper / Was stung by a big Effen Bee”.
I’ll tell you who else I’m sick to the back teeth of, the demanders of the *we must have open debates* folk
No we don’t, politics isn’t some friendly neighbourhood Post Office where everybody drops in for a gab on a Sunday morning, then everything everybody gabbed about is all over the village and whispered right along the church pews during the sermon only to be distorted into something completely different by lunchtime
Politics is strategy secrets and deception all turned into polite language and done with fake smiles in the hope that your side can come up with better more devious stuff than the other side
So the folk with patches on the sleeves of their Tweed jackets full of their own self importance sipping Lattes in Bohemian style Cafes and scribbling their demands all over the internet can go and do one or stand for public office, politics is none of their business until the politicians make it so, that’s what we pay them for , so wait just like the rest of us and vote just like the rest of us on the proposals they come up with unless we’re asked to take part in the process by the offering of suggestions or phone ins or surveys
No society can demand to know every word of everything that goes on in politics, even the best democracies in the world could not operate like that or nothing would ever get done for the amount of objections before you even got started, there’d be more amendments and discussions about the amendments to the subjects before the subjects, for goodness sake it would be worse than being a Liberal Democrat in the Green party endlessly discussing the fate of the earthworm due to over predation by accidental cow munching
I’ll stop ranting now, I’ve got a cold, how can I avoid Covid yet catch the common cold, Ach!
A 600 page book on Scotland’s future, even with a question and answer section was critiqued for two much info.
Still got mine.
Oh dear, Fleet Street is worried again:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/06/if-the-union-is-to-survive-the-left-needs-to-shape-its-own-bold-and-hopeful-patriotism
Without the saltire – Scotland’s national flag – and its distinctive white cross and blue backing, there can be no union jack. Without Scotland, singing Rule, Britannia! while waving the flag becomes an impossibility. At the cabinet meeting of 21 July, Michael Gove, brought up in Aberdeen, passionately spelled out the mortal threat posed by Scottish independence to the survival of the government – and Toryism. It would lose not just the union, but all the symbols of Britain that went with it. Its legitimacy would be shredded.
Once again the British Nationalists talk of kinship between the Nations of Scotland and England and how it would be lost if Scotland chose Independence and that’s a British Nationalist lie right there, and they used the same piece of nonsense in 2014
No kinship is lost in the political separation between countries, our relatives and or friends will still remain so, they will not become foreigners as Alistair Darling tried to convince Scots the last time, the question of creating our own families as foreigners seems to only weigh heavily on the British Nationalists when it suits them, do we not have friends and relatives in European countries, do we not have relatives in America and many countries around the world, and do we in Scotland think of our relatives in other countries as foreigners, no we don’t
It seems the only people obsessed with calling other people foreigners as though it’s an undesirable unpleasant situation to be from another country are the British Nationalists who just created 27 borders with our friends and relatives, but when it comes to Scotland it’s somehow not alright for Scotland to be *allowed* to choose
Ah the British Nationalist who names the Scots as a Verminous people one minute then Kin the next when we wish to withdraw from their insults, oh and of course their theft of our assets, but the British Nationalist believes it’s acceptable for Kin do to that sort of thing
Even the leg they think they have to stand on is broken
What we see here is not a whit of concern for us as a part of their beloved Union, a Union that has long had the power to adapt to accommodate the legitimate concerns of its “peripheral” parts but just can’t be bothered, and once again it’s all and only about what it means for the standing of England.
Welsh Sion,
Thanks for the Guardian link. One part identifies the unionism mindset -even if the columnist think it is benign because he supports Labour.
“.. Scottish Labour needs to own events like these, alongside the Scottish BBC, the British Open at St Andrews and whatever symbol of union comes to hand, even Balmoral. Simultaneously, it has to offer a federal constitutional settlement offering Scotland entrenched autonomy. ”
For success in the Labour context is to “own” the bbc, the British Open ( I was always brought up that it’s is the Open), Balmoral!
So Scotland has to be owned for our own sake. How nice of the nice Labour man from England.
Rather, Scotland and no doubt Wales have to be owned for England’s sake.
Entrenched Autonomy? I can see Kelly, Marra, Baillie MSP’s and co puzzling over that one.
Independence is easier to understand.
Anyone caring for an academic discussion on bilingual roadsigns (specifically in a Welsh-English context), have a look here:
https://www.academia.edu/1160479/Hot_banal_and_everyday_nationalism_Bilingual_road_signs_in_Wales
Reminds me of the time a workmate criticised Gaelic for using English words. “Like what?” I asked. “Helicopter” was his reply. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.
Or as Paul says, “What’s the English word for spaghetti?”
or, “what’s french for deja vu” ?
One for the Covid 19 deniers
If there were to be an announcement that unidentifiable gunmen were running around your town shooting people at random would you stay in your home and or take precautions if the First Minister and Police told you to or would you deny there were any gunmen at all just because some clown on the internet told you all the dead people were a hoax and so far most people were only wounded
Funny how people will believe a mass shooting on the news in America yet deny a disease can kill them
please Paul, what ever you do, dont try crowd fund a legal challenge of any description. I’m losing the will to live.
Oddly craig murray hasnt published a crowd fund target or how much he has raised… wonder why?
I have no plans to get arrested. And no plans to sue anyone.
mmmm…. whats french for deja vu ? 🙂
Something tells me I’ve seen your post before, cat … 😉
It’s ‘day jah voo’, innit mate? Bon jewer!
aye, but it seemed apt here to Sion 🙂
if needs must Paul, I’ll send you a cake with a file in it 🙂
He didn’t promote this either.
http://www.crowdjustice.com/case/julianassange/
I didn’t see the telegraph cartoon myself, but if it was sold in Scotland, it might well be challengeable in a Scottish court. I mean, Welsh people do live here too right ?
Excellent article by Prof Robertson on Iain Macwhirter’s assertion that Nicola Sturgeon isn’t serious about an Indyref2. I wonder how he came to that conclusion. Prof Robertson is conducting a poll and finds that approx 75% of people so far do believe that NS means it.
Some interesting btl comments too.
I wonder what Gaelic speaking Unionists think of her attacks on their language.