Posts

Glasgow's Terrible Beauty

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  I was very interested in to read recently that a couple of the statues currently removed from George Square in Glasgow, for restoration and repair as part of the Square’s renovation, will be returned without their swords. Glasgow City Councillor Graham Campbell explained - “They are the military figures Colin Campbell and Sir John Moore. I don’t think anyone in this lifetime will have seen the statues fully with their swords. I understand that these statues were restored with bronze swords constructed and added back to the statue. “I don’t understand why we just didn’t restore the statue and conserve it as was and symbolically disarm it. My question is who gave the instructions to restore it to its original condition because I don’t understand why that was felt as necessary as it would have added cost to this. “I am making the point that I want those statues not to come back as I don’t think we should be celebrating the military history of the empire massacring people who were en...
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The Disappearance of Rituals and the Stone of Destiny

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Once we Scots eventually get over the heinous crime of King Edward stealing our Stone of Destiny in the first place, there is then a controversial argument to be made for Scotland thanking England for keeping the Stone of Destiny safe for centuries. As you could argue that the only reason the Stone still exists today is because it was kept in England. This is because there is a reasonable possibility that the Stone may not have survived the destructive cultural revolution of Calvinism, John Knox and the fanatical Covenanters. For example, look around Scotland for all our ancient manuscripts, relics and shrines: they were mostly all destroyed during the iconoclast's year zero. We also forget that the Stone was used to crown our Scottish Stuart kings’ centuries after it was taken. Even when it was ‘heroically’ stolen in the 1950s, the activists managed break it by splitting it in two, it had to be repaired. The contemporary politicisation of this relic simply does not stand up ...
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The Strange Death Of Bonfire Night (Here's To The Burgundy Lido Part 2)

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  Perhaps somewhat unusually for a Catholic family, we used to absolutely love bonfire night when I was wee. My Dad and my older brother were right into it too and I always remember the feeling of excitement in the run up to those dark, cold clear skied autumnal evenings, spent out the back green, marveling at our wee fireworks display. Dad would get a box of Brocks, plus a few sparklers too and my Mum would make hot chocolate. Good old days! Yet, I’m not sure how our society has manged to shift from our dads setting off a few catherine wheels, roman candles and mini rockets out our back gardens in the 1980s… …To riot police defending themselves from huge gangs of masked youths in towns and cities across Scotland, using fireworks as missiles to attack them . Meanwhile, Police chiefs now spend every Guy Fawkes night at national control centre, coordinating tactical response teams throughout the night, like Wellington at Waterloo. How this shift has taken place within such a short ti...
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A Greenock Spark That Lit the Hammers’ Flame

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  For we long-suffering Scots Hammers — and especially those of us who are Greenock-born devotees of West Ham United — today is a day of quiet reverence, almost sacred in its significance. For on this date, the 17th of September 2025, we mark the bicentenary of the birth of Donald Currie — Greenock born on the same day in 1825, and departed this life in 1909.   Currie was an industrialist of formidable energy, a shipowner whose vessels stitched together the trade routes of empire, a parliamentarian, and later a generous philanthropist. But for us, who trace our loyalties not through stock markets or shipping ledgers but through claret and blue veins, his most luminous legacy lies elsewhere: as the first chairman, founder and financier of Old Castle Swifts F.C.   The Swifts were a works team, forged in 1892 from the sweat and sinew of Scottish shipyard workers toiling in West Ham, East London. When the club dissolved in 1895, its embers did not die. Instead, they wer...
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Drei Pfeile - Yesterday, Today and Forever

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  "Gentlemen, the time will come when men must stand or fall by their actions – when all human pageantry shall cease – when the hearts of all will be laid open" Thomas Muir of Huntershill Ever since the days of the Iron Front ( Eiserne Front) in 1930's Germany, Christian Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats, Anti-Fascists and Trade Unionists have rallied to the Three Arrows symbol ( Drei Pfeile). The three arrows represents our left-wing opposition to the extremism of Monarchism, Nazism and Communism,  in defence of democracy.   I was recently reminded of the Three Arrows and the Iron Front while reading former Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard's semimetal tribute to Scottish Communist Willie Gallacher. You can watch the entire nauseating video here   https://fb.watch/ATdEgPfiIz/ The FB post alongside the video is entitled ' Communism is the philosophy of hope and faith in humanity'. O f course, Communism is not the hope and faith in hum...
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Edinburgh’s Economy Outperforms London - A Glasmanite Townie Response

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  Edinburgh’s Economy Outperforms London, whoopee doo! Crack open that rare bottle of Glenlivet single malt and if your first name happens to be something like Boyd, Crawford or Sinclair and you work in Edinburgh’s business, financial services or university management sector, then take the rest of the day off and head down to The New Club for lunch.     This statistic being shared as some kind of good news story, should give us at least some cause for concern, mainly because cities don't have micro-economies, nations do. Edinburgh is not some sort of city-state of Sparta or the Free Hanseatic city of Bremen and its wealth does not trickle down to the rest of the nation. The concentration of wealth and capital in big cities and the abandonment of small towns is the exact opposite of what devolution was meant to deliver. For example, the fact that Boyd, Crawford and Sinclair running the banks, businesses and universities in Edinburgh have all manged to accumulate h...
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Memory Is Our Strength And Look After Your Mum

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  On Thursday night I arrived home from yet another excellent Morrissey gig in Glasgow, with enough time to quickly stick on some tea and toast. Then settle down to watch the live vote counting coverage from the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. I was especially interested in this election because I felt that some of the online abuse and criticism directed towards the Labour candidate, arising from his bumpy interview on Scotland Tonight, a few days earlier, was quite outrageous. Some folks seemed to feel that this was the most offensive thing they'd ever witnessed. Simply because the candidate didn't answer one question especially well, big deal. All this criticism made me wonder if we really do want ordinary people from the actual community as our elected representatives, who look and sound like us? I'd assumed we were all sick and tired of professional, career politicians. I thought that's why people had embraced anti-establishment populists like Trump...
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