The Bremen Bod Blog

  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...

  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...

'Shoplifters of the world Unite and take over Shoplifters of the world Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over' The Smiths  There was one of those awful phone ins' on BBC Radio Scotland this morning about the stratospheric increase in shoplifting of all kinds - Organised criminal shoplifting, casual shoplifting by kids, violent shoplifting, shoplifting for addiction and desperation shoplifting being driven by extreme poverty.   There were the usual 'hangin is too good fur them' callers and the 'have a go merchants' alongside the Marxists types who believe that all human behaviour (including shoplifting) can be explained away by social conditioning and economic inequality.   The general consensus seemed to be that incidences of shoplifting have indeed gone through the roof recently, (this is evidently true here in Inverclyde too) shoplifters have apparently become emboldened by a lack Police and a courts system which doesn't seem to be especially int...

  ‘Let us pray for each other, let us pray together that the Lord will grant us unity and help the world so that it may believe.’ Pope Benedict XVI It has been said that the during the 19 th century, the women of Gweedore in County Donegal used to wear brightly coloured Paisley shawls to Sunday Mass. It is believed that these beautiful Paisley shawls were brought back from Paisley by Irish textile workers returning to Donegal. Contemporary Traditional Latin Mass enthusiasts might be surprised to learn that the women of Gweedore also wore Paisley pattern handkerchiefs as head coverings, rather than Spanish lace mantilla veils. This quirky little historical fact points to a long standing and well established, two-way movement of people between the counties in the north of Ireland and Paisley, over many centuries.   Indeed, in 1812 Fr William Rattray of St. Mirin’s records that almost 73% of all marriages in Paisley were Irish born couples, mostly coming from Antrim, Doneg...

  'His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is... where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all.' Captain Faramir The Two Towers   I'm assuming we're all just going to carry on as normal, as if North Koreans aren't on European soil? North Korea is participating in the invasion and occupation of a sovereign European nation and yet it has barely made the news. Obviously, there's the usual omerta from all the Morning Star, Socialist Worker and Stop the War, Trots and Tankies. Similarly, there is an equal measure of silence from all those supposedly virulent anti-communists, who like to hysterically brand any form of socialised healthcare and welfare as 'communism', amid an actual communist invasion of Eastern Europe. There is also silence from the so-called 'defenders...

I am making this fraternal appeal for solidarity to all trade unionists, socialist friends and ‘comrades’ in Scotland on the Left, who care about defending the marginalised and fighting against inequality, because this issue is truly a social justice issue. I appeal, not on behalf of social conservatives or religious fanatics but on behalf of ordinary families with elderly relatives who are concerned about the new Assisted Dying Bill. I appeal on behalf of parents and grandparents of disabled children and grandchildren, who are deeply worried about the future implications of this proposed legislation and the message this most recent Assisted Dying Bill sends to their loved ones. At first glance, the Assisted Dying Bill Scotland looks and sounds a little like the type of good end of life care that goes on in all our fine hospices, with its somewhat misleading language around freedom from suffering being made available to all those who are terminally ill. Or assisted dying only being off...