There was a tosspot on the telly this morning. Not on our telly specifically, I mean he wasn't standing in our living room masturbating among She Who Must's collection of little porcelain piggies*, he was in the BBC Breakfast studio. And technically he wasn't actually physically pleasuring himself, as Ofcom tend to disapprove of that kind of thing while the viewing public are eating their Wheatypuffs. But I was inclined to shout "Posstot!"** at the TV, nonetheless.
They were debating the whole Act Of Union that 300 years ago made Scotland and England into one big happy family. Borrowing each other's frocks, bitching about boyfriends and who keeps drinking the milk from the carton... are those little soggy bits of Weatypuffs in there? And how is the UK celebrating this momentous occasion? Street parties? Fireworks? Mass naked Sumo wrestling in a vast tub of jam and porridge? No, they're issuing a commemorative £2 coin. Rock and roll.
But the anniversary is a great excuse for the media to stick microphones in people's faces and ask: "Should we all fuck off and go our separate ways?" If not for that, I doubt most people would have remembered. I certainly didn't. Not till I turned on the telly and found a permatanned posstot fondling his figurative genitals.
It probably didn't help that he'd gone to University in Aberdeen and described the place as having horrible weather***. But what got my goat, shaved its bottom and gave it a good spanking, was the comment that often gets trotted out by permatanned posstots whenever the whole Scotland / England separation thing comes up: Scotland gets much more per capita out of the union than anyone else. Which basically means we're all a bunch of freeloading, ungrateful bastards and how dare we not support the English football team. *ahem* The person on the other side of the table raised the question, "What about the Scottish oil?" And the orangey cockweasel's response? "The oil belongs to all of us."
Which again is a pretty much par for the course. When an athlete from Newcastle wins something at the Olympic games, it's a Gold For England! When someone from Glasgow or Aberystwyth does the same thing, it's a Gold For Britain! (I blame the media) Why should oil be any different?
And the really sad thing is that people like the orangey cock-weasel always seem to be the ones you see on the telly mouthing off (just as up here it's the 'Remember Bannockburn!' mob mouthing off in the pub -- remember Bannockburn? No, it happened in 1314 so I wasn't there, and neither were you. Or your parents. Or their parents. Or their parents' parents' parents. It was nearly seven hundred years ago for God's sake: get over it.) Normal people, don't -- really -- care. That's why we're celebrating with a £2 coin.
I have to say that I've not really got any strong opinions on whether Scotland and England should stay conjoined, or be surgically parted. I wasn't too keen on a Scottish parliament -- not for political reasons, but because I figured one lot of freeloading, corrupt, power-hungry bastards telling us what to do was bad enough, without lumbering ourselves with another layer -- but it's made some reasonably good decisions. And some crap ones too. Should England have its own parliament? Why not, if it wants one. We've got one, the Welsh have their assembly, be a bit unfair to say that England aren't allowed to play too.
Perhaps then we could have a reasoned, adult debate about the future of the UK, instead of dragging up all the old prejudicial bollocks about freeloading, football and the clearances.
So what do you think, oh lurkers of blogdom: Scotland, England and the act of union. Discuss.
* That's right: she collects porcelain toes. It's a Fife thing, I think.
** Because I am polite and do not want to traumatise my cat with rude language.
*** Yes, I know I've cast the occasional aspersion on our metrological delights, but I LIVE here. Criticising your own home town is an unalienable right. Anyone else doing it needs a stiff kicking. This is the way the world works.