Yet another new blog

Clearly, some of you are having a hard time right now. It's not because you're dealing with brexit, though that would only be right, given that we're about to lose our rights as European citizens. From where I stand, it really seems to be because you're not getting what you wanted - a second independence referendum. I want to say a few things to you: I'm not a member or a supporter of the SNP, but I've taken an interest in politics for a while (that means I'm old). If you joined the SNP because you only had one goal in mind - another independence referendum - and you're now so disappointed you're threatening to leave the party, I would say to you: just go, because you're no use to the rest of us out here. You know - people like me who belong to a different party or to no party at all but want independence for Scotland just the same as you do. You come into the category of what I would call a 'fair-weather-friend'. Great fun and very...

I was born in 1948 and got my education through a family that believed in socialism, democracy and people giving each other a leg-up in life. The other group that influenced my early days were the teachers I came across, especially in secondary school and at university. These people had served in the second world war all over the world. Some had seen things they preferred not to talk about. But they came back to Scotland with the same belief in democracy - and education was paramount. They had mostly been denied a university education in the 1930s and they made up for it after 1945. They drank in knowledge, argued with their university tutors, questioned everything and went on to become astonishingly well-read and challenging teachers. Our schools were suddenly full of clever, well-educated young working class people. Mr Chips was out. Night school was in. The women left behind to run the country during the second world war had the same attitude: ambition for ourselves and ot...

It must be so boring living in other parts of the world, where people only have to deal with earthquakes, bushfires, explosions in nuclear power stations, war, invasion by the Americans and the occasional asteroid. Here in Scotland we've cornered the market in threats to our existence. If it's not our oil and gas running out, windfarms killing off the birdlife, fish farms poisoning the seas, it's our ageing population draining us of cash, failing public services, hospitals killing people, crime - and so on. Surprisingly, none of this is true. Most of the bad news from Scotland is actually quite good news: Monday's big news on the BBC Scotland website today is:  'Sixth person tests negative for Coronavirus.' Now there's a new challenge for us: coastal erosion. Scotland is falling into the sea. It's odd this: I could swear about a decade ago, the country that was falling into the sea was England - mainly the east coast of England. In fact, I...

You can set your clock by it: this is the time of year when Robert Burns gets a wee night. All over the world, people with Scottish connections - and with none at all - organise a night of poetry and music to celebrate the life and work of one of Scotland's finest poets, who was also a great collector of Scottish songs and poetry. We owe a great debt to Burns (and to the Burns Federation which has kept his work alive since 1885).  I've been to a few Burns Nights in my time. In Russia, Canada, the USA and all over Scotland. I've sat through brilliant presentations, especially by young people, and sadly a few clunkers too, like the version of the song Ca' the Yowes Tae the Knowes by a lassie with a lovely voice who had been taught - or allowed - to sing the song in English, starting off: Call the Yowes To The Knowes. Perfect diction, but unfortunately not even a nod to the Scots language. This was in Burns Country in front of foreign visitors. I only hope they didn...

There are plenty other languages spoken in Scotland but we have 3 native languages: Scots, Gaelic and English. It would be no great loss if English wasn't a native language in Scotland any more.We'd still have two native languages. They are 'native' languages because, by and large, they can't be learned or spoken anywhere else. I've been trying to think of another European country lucky enough to be in our position. Switzerland has 4 recognised languages. Belgium has 3, as does Luxembourg. I say 'lucky' because I think having more than one language is a blessing - and a tremendous advantage not just when it comes to going on your holidays but in education, in understanding other people's cultures and in creating a kind of empathy for other speakers. In the Scottish Parliament the other day, the Scottish Tory spokesperson for education, Liz Smith,  had a go at Western Isles Council (the Comhairle, as the rest of us call it) and its new policy of m...

Mountbatten Mountbatten Windsor Saxe Coburg Gotha Or all of the above. It seems all this was discussed at great length in the UK in the 1940s and 50s. But in the 70s, things had moved on. I started teacher training in 1973 and soon discovered the subject of the queen's family name was a major topic of interest, along with her children, her husband, her (auld witch of a) mother and her extended family. This was before we had 'Neighbours' on the telly so we were always looking for entertainment. Not that anyone in Glasgow was interested in what we called 'the auld biled bean' but her sister was a bit of a goer and, after an affair with a divorced man, had been married off to a well-connected society photographer - who turned out to be gay. It said so in the papers. That marriage was going down the pan by 1973 and in all the "ladies' staffrooms" of Glasgow's schools, the hot topic was: would Princess Margaret be the first royal to get divo...

Call it 'Britain', the House of Windsor, the Crown - whatever you want. I like the title Ruritania. Google it and you'll find a whole culture (cult?) devoted to Ruritania. It has a queen, Anastasia, and a large royal family who wear fancy uniforms and big hats and have adventures. Ruritania has a nobility, castles and palaces, somewhere in Central Europe. Its royal family is descended from someone called Rupert who is much admired. All this despite the fact that Ruritania doesn't exist, has no population and therefore no gross domestic product to pay for anything. It does seem to have a huge population of largely uneducated peasants, all faithful to the royal family, and a small group of anti-royalists done up in fancy uniforms who are out to destroy the Ruritanian concept, whatever that may be. Ruritania has shown some pretty weird tendencies since the first books by Anthony Hope appeared. Most notably some truly awful films which mirror the Fascist tendencies of...

I joined a Facebook group about - I thought - life in the 50s, 60s and 70s. There were a few funny reminiscences posted to start with but then it began to get very dark, very political and far from funny. It looked like people were joining the group so they could write things like: 'My parents battered me when I was little, but it didn't do me any harm'. That'll be why we have our fair share of psychopaths and perverts in Britain then. Or 'This isn't the country I grew up in'. Well, I can't say where you grew up but the Britain I grew up in wasn't that different from Britain today. Some claim 'Britain isn't a safe place to live in.' And it gets nasty from now on: the bit of Britain I live in has seen a cut of 40% in violent crime in the past generation but it's obviously going to be different in other places. To my knowledge, Britain is not full of people wielding Kalashnikovs and shooting each other. It turned out the person wr...

Of course, politics has no place in the NHS. So when Glasgow's new Southern General Hospital had to be named, choosing to call it 'the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital' was not political. Not at all. Those of us who wanted to call it the Mary Barbour (after the first female Baillie in Glasgow who defended the needs and rights of women in Govan) or the John Aitken (after a dedicated local doctor in the Victorian era who served the poor of Govan so well) were told by - I think - the chair of the health board of the time - that he had decided on the name to avoid political disagreement. Not that QE or the UK government contributed a brass farthing to the cost of building or equipping the hospital. No, we - the tax payers of Scotland - are paying for it. Of course. And that's definitely not political. When I was in the QEH, I really wasn't well enough to join in chat about politics, although one SNP supporter kept me entertained with her savvy approach to Scott...

I'll write down things I remember learning about the NHS as I go along. It costs £100,000 to buy an ambulance. That only gets you the vehicle. You also need cash to train the paramedics to staff the ambulance. And you need to pay their wages. And keep on updating their skills. You also need £150,000 to pay for the equipment inside the ambulance that will save a patient's life on a regular basis. And that needs to be regularly updated too. The total cost per ambulance is about £1,250,000. The Greater Glasgow area needs 12 of these ambulances, fully equipped, constantly up-dated and staffed by dedicated, trained professionals. Anybody got £15 million quid floating about? The Job: I don't care how hard you work at your job. There is no tired like NHS tired. There's the physical slog up and down the corridors. Nobody runs, but sometimes you hear 'purposeful' footsteps as nurses, doctors, auxiliaries and porters move into action. Not everyone gets a long e...