Mon pays

I've never been particularly patriotic. I remember learning about the Scottish Wars of Independence in primary six and feeling something resembling pride. I wasn't so thrilled watching Braveheart, all I saw was Mel Gibson. But I remember the trip to Stirling and being annoyed that there was a union jack flying in Stirling Castle. The whole class was fired up in a Scottish rage against those damn English although this probably didn't mean anything since just the year before we were fired up in a British rage against the Germans after doing the Second World War. We would shake our fists at the one Mercedes in the teacher's car park. I was outraged when my little sister did not study the Wars of Independence. Instead her class did some Enterprise rubbish. To this day she knows little about William Wallace and doesn't know the story of good ol' Rob and the spider in the cave.

I have never sung the national anthem bar the once in primary seven when we all sang it among other songs. I have nothing against the English and feel having a national song about how we killed those evil English bastards is ridiculous. Even the lyrics make no sense "It's in the past now and in the past it must remain" so lets all sing about it every time we play football? And besides we signed it all away in 1707 so why sing about it? I wouldn't even sing it if we were playing England. I used to go to Scotland games regularly but some of the people who go, god. It's shameful. I've been going to Celtic games every week for 8 years and never experienced people as bad as these Scotland fans. Drunken racists who've punched, kicked and groped me over the years. We stopped going a while ago but since we were playing Italy and we had a chance of getting a ticket my dad bought them. Thankfully, the people around us yesterday were reasonable. There was a guy who called the female football team a bunch of lesbians and the guy who walked straight into my bruised knee at the end (which made working today a fuckin nightmare) but it was fine. I had fun with my dad mocking the group sitting behind us. (Do you ken? Naw I dinnae ken, do you ken? Aye I ken.) I knew how important the game was. We were playing Italy. If we won not only would we proceed for once but we would have won against Italy of all countries. Yet, I just couldn't get excited. And it was hard to feel anything when we let in a goal within the first minute.

I cared when it was drawing close to the final whistle and it was a draw. I cared when McFadden missed what would have been a perfect goal. I cared when we lost so unfairly. But I went home and I got over it.

Saying this I did vote for the party whose primary aim is independence. Do I want independence then after arguing that I don't like our national anthem, mock the way we speak and don't hate the English even a little bit? I don't really mind. I voted them because it would shake things up, I liked their other policies and wouldn't it be hilarious if we became independent while Gordon Brown was still prime minister and suddenly he loses his British nationality? Hell yeah it would.

On a completely different topic, guess what's on TV again? Come with us now, on a journey through time and space, to the world of the Mighty Boosh!