Tub Thumping

Tags

Auld Alliance, Better Together, caber, Cowal Games, Edmund Burke, Ian Paisley, Jonathan Swift, spurtle, tub thumping

Mrs Connolly, what are you clutching to your bosom? Murgatroyd inquired.

He was continually astonished by the reading material that she propped

up on the recipe stand while she stirred the porridge.

I don’t want Edmund Burke to get splashed, she replied.

Burke!  You’re not reflecting on revolution, are you, Mrs C? jibed Diana.

There’s an atmosphere of insurrection out there, countered Mrs C, and I

for one am not going to be found knitting while heads roll.

So, what does he say about civil disunity? Murgatroyd asked.  Here, let me

take over the spurtle.  Read us some of his more salient points.

Hmm, Mrs C tidied her hair and turned a few pages.  I like the bit where he

uses the metaphor of a breached castle.  It reminds me of our pele tower.

Yes, here’s a good bit-

You possessed…the foundations of a noble and venerable castle.  You might have built on those old foundations….you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished…you had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe.  These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions.They make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets moderation; they produce temperaments preventing the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations.

That’s brilliant, Mrs C. Diana enthused.  Now that Ian Paisley has gone, no one speaks forcefully like that any more.  I suppose they were of the same race as Jonathan Swift and knew how to pack a punch.

Indeed.  He goes on:

…you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.  You began ill because you began by despising everything that belonged to you…Under a pious predilection for those ancestors, your imaginations [should] have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour…..Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to respect yourselves….you would not have been content to be represented as a gang of [Tartan] slaves, suddenly broke loose from the house of bondage, and therefore to be pardoned for your abuse of the liberty to which you were not accustomed, and ill-fitted.

I can’t imagine a current politician telling it so straight, Murgatroyd stated.

He really whips it up after that, sir.  Listen:

Would it not have been wiser to have, what I for one, always thought you, a generous and gallant nation, long misled to your disadvantage by your high and romantic sentiments of fidelity, honour, and loyalty; that events had been unfavourable to you, but that you were not enslaved…  You would have had an unoppressive but a productive revenue.  You would have had a flourishing commerce to feed it.  You would have had a free constitution; a potent monarchy; a disciplined army…and not..that monstrous fiction, which by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it can never remove.

Compute your gains : see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment when they [will] become truly despicable.  By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation….

France?!  exclaimed Diana.  I thought he was talking about Scotland.  If only

Alistair Darling had taken a leaf out of his book, the ‘Better Together’ campaign

would have sounded a lot more passionate.

The porridge is ready, dearies. Mrs C closed the book carefully, placing a ‘Just Say

No‘ bookmark in page 34.  But this is the real stuff tae pit hairs on your chest.

I suppose there are parallels between the two nations.  After all, youse’ll have

heard aboot the Auld Alliance?

I say, suggested Murgatroyd, why don’t we have breakfast readings every

morning until next Thursday? Then we can be prepared to collar any pollsters

or canvassers if they dare to put one of their leaflets through the letterbox.

So long as they’re not proselytising members of some sect, laughed Diana.

Same difference, stressed Murgatroyd.  It’s time to get tough with the

anti-intellectual opposition.  All these Utopias need busting and

Burke is the heavyweight to add ballast to our case.

And he waved the spurtle round his head like a caber thrower

warming up at The Cowal Games.

 

Ovulation? Devolution?

Tags

Alistair Darling, artificial insemination, Better Together, biofuel, Chris Packham, devolution, Edinburgh, endangered species, food banks, kipper, National Geographic, ovulation, panda cub, panda diplomacy, phantom pregnancy, The Referendum, Tian Tian, Tuan Tuan Yuan Yuan

Murgatroyd and Diana were having breakfast in the spacious kitchen.

Radio 4 was blaring out, so Diana turned it down.  There was an

announcement about the Edinburgh panda’s possible miscarriage.  It was

getting past its date, by all accounts.

Och, said Mrs Connolly, turning an oatmealed kipper in the frying pan,

the poor wee soul.  No’ like that other creature wi’ the dark circles under

his eyes, who thinks he represents all the endangered species.

You don’t mean…? queried Murgatroyd.

I do indeed, Mr Syylk.  I will personally hold him responsible for any

political miscarriage.  There’s been a lot in the press aboot ‘faking it’

and he’s an expert.

Do you mean phantom pregnancies? Diana asked.

Aye.  There’s one o’ yon Edinburgh wildlife charities that believes this

whole thing is a misguided attempt to improve protection for the wild

population in its native habitat.  It says it is time to leave the species

in peace.

Hmm, said Diana, crunching some toast.  I find artificial insemination

distasteful, especially at breakfast.

Ah cannae help it, countered Mrs Connolly.  There’s a definite parallel

here. We share the same mountainous landscape with areas of

torrential rain and dense mist, not to speak of heavy cloud cover.

They have strong jaw muscles for crushing the opposition.  As someone

said:’ Many people find these chunky, lumbering animals to be cute, but

[they] can be as dangerous as any other’..politician- eh, I mean bear.

Oh, I get it, laughed Diana.  I used to have a subscription to ‘The National

Geographic’ and there was an article which said much of what they process

passes as waste.  Maybe if the oil runs out, they could look into converting

panda effluvia into biofuel.

They are very territorial, added Murgatroyd.  However, the cubs usually

have their eyes opened after fifty days, or so.

Aye, well we don’t have that long to hope that the youngsters’ scales will

drap aff their een, affirmed Mrs C.  She flipped the kipper expertly onto a

warmed plate.

The species tend to be restricted to small, isolated populations, which will

always pose a risk of extinction.  They also choose to feed the strongest

and ignore those who cannot crawl, let alone stand.  Murgatroyd was really

entering into the spirit of it all.

Ach, that’ll be the drink, Mrs C shook her head.  It’s no’ all aboot food banks.

And inbreeding, surely? added Diana.  Etymologically their name means ‘parti-

coloured’, but some of them seem tarred with the same brush.

Mrs C giggled.  Weel, as the great man himself has said, ‘There are more

pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs.’

Diana thought for a moment and then said, Let’s hope that the vote is

negative. It does seem unfair that Scots elsewhere in the United Kingdom

cannot express their wishes in The Referendum.  Like Tian Tian, they feel

that they have had no choice in the matter.

It’s like the panda pregnancy, as I say, Mrs Fotheringay.  Foreign bodies can

provide a false positive.  Positive results are meant to follow successful

devolution.  I mean ovulation, but who knows?

And hopes may be dashed, even in a full term pregnancy, Diana reminded her.

Well, Alistair Darling knows all aboot Labour, Mrs C quipped.  And where has it

got him?

Oh, he’s quite good at panda diplomacy, Murgatroyd said, in fairness.  Tuan

Tuan and Yuan Yuan means ‘re-unification’!  Just thought I’d throw that in.

Maybe we should do an exchange then? Diana posed the question.

Ach, they’re a’ the same, opined Mrs C as she wiped the chopping board.

They a’ look docile enough but they can a’ be aggressive.  One o’ yon

conservationist chappies- Chris Packham?- argued that conservin’ them is

possibly the biggest waste o’ money. Pandas and politicians.  Baith.  Even

if they are croodpullers.  Anyhow, the current yin has a window of opportunity

tae produce something, or maybe he will jist reabsorb the barely formed

foetus o’ his notional Plan B.  And she decisively rubbed her hands on

her pinnie.

Ah, fur wan, know how Ah’m votin’.

Ice Bucket Challenge

Tags

barmkin, Better Together, Cunning Little Vixen, First Minister, Flower o' Scotland, Flower O'Scotland, Ice Bucket Challenge, Kelvingrove, mote and beam, Oh Scotland, Pele Tower, Purgatory, Sassenach, Scotland, Scottish Play, Snodland, snowploughing, sporran, Trident, Wee Eck, Wyvern Mote

Murgatroyd and Diana settled down in the barmkin to watch The Debate.

Murgatroyd sensed that there were many diasporan Scots- was that the

same etymological root as ‘sporran‘?- who felt somewhat aggrieved that a

Sassenach such as himself could vote on their country’s future, so he

wanted to be fully informed and astute in his response.  He had tried to

follow some of the arguments on his tablet, but found that he kept

re-playing The First Minister’s Ice Bucket Challenge instead.  He liked it

when Wee Eck said, Dae it again!  No doubt that would be his cry if the

result in September didn’t please him.

Mrs Connolly came in with a tray of salmon sandwiches.  Murgatroyd

felt ashamed that he had ever suspected her good self, or her son, of

theft.  Forced bonhomie led him to ask her how she intended to vote.

Oh, Scotland!  Scotland! she quoted.

Again, Murgatroyd was impressed by the standard of the natives’

education.

..nation miserable

with an untitled tyrant,

when shall you see your wholesome days again?

He thought that this might be from that Flower O’ Scotland song. He

hummed a few bars to show solidarity.

No, Mr Syylk!  It is your own National Bard.  The Scottish Play.

She went on:

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself.  It cannot be called our mother, but our grave;

where nothing is, but who knows nothing..

I didn’t think Alistair did too badly, Murgatroyd remarked, trying to be

impartial and failing.

If that’s the best they can do, Mr Syylk, I intend to emigrate, like past

millions.

Fare thee well!

These evils thou repeatest on thyself

have banished me from Scotland.

Yet my poor country

shall have more vices than it had before,

more suffer and more sundry ways

by him that shall succeed.

Surely not, Mrs Connolly.  Murgatroyd was at a loss to reply to such

moving rhetoric.  Maybe she should have been representing the

‘Better Together‘ campaign at Kelvingrove.

Diana just thanked her and took two generous-sized sandwiches

from the tray. Mad!  All of them.

But, it was only a few weeks since Diana would have thought a barmkin

was some kind of Scottish oatcake.  It was amazing how she had been able

to see Murgatroyd more clearly, the scales having dropped from her

over-prejudicial eyes.  What was all that about motes and beams?  Maybe

her stay in The Tibetan Centre had helped her to move on.

They were going to have a trial reconciliation. (Sonia had said that she

had seen it coming.)  She always said that.

Anyway, it seemed fortuitous that Dru had accompanied Great-Aunt

Augusta back to Snodland Nursing Home for the Debased Gentry.  That

meant Nigel was able to give Sonia a lift home in the hired van.  Dru had

decided to leave her harp at the Pele Tower, so there was room for

Sonia’s luggage.  In fact there was plenty of room for a dismantled Trident,

if Alex and Co had wanted to send it down south.

Nigel’s concentration was being hampered by Sonia’s inquisition on his

relationship with Dru.  How could anyone be more intrusive than his own

mother?

Diana and Gus were already back at school, fielding disgruntled parents

and snowploughing their enquiries, to grit the path for the incoming

Headmaster.  The term stretched before them like a path through

Purgatory.

Gus was annoyed as he had been sent a postcard from Wyvern Mote,

from Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe, commenting on the wonderful concert

and praising Dru’s musicianship.  Snod knew, with that unerring classroom

intuition developed over decades, that the missive meant that Dru had

taken him there.  He had seen them, tete-a-tete, during the interval, no

doubt arranging to meet up after Dru had dropped Aunt Augusta back at

the care home.  Musicianship?!  Hah!  Cunning Little Vixen!

Gus did not approve of her having led Nigel on.  His own past

experiences returned to haunt him.  He had seen the look in

Nigel’s eyes as he sang some of the more romantic ballads. Poor

fellow!  His vocal timbre was developing, but his charisma was,

like the proverbial gas, at a peep.

Furthermore, there was an issue which now loomed larger than the

outcome of a referendum: if Dru were to strike up a liaison with

Maxwell Boothroyd-Smythe and it should become permanent, then-

Heavens forfend!!-he might end up step-grandfather to that bolshie

Juniper and her odious younger sibling, the biggest bete-noire of St

Birinus’ Middle.

He would like to empty a bucket of something else over that

particular parental head.