Stuart McHardy

A GUID NEW YEAR?

stuartmchardy — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:23:53 +0000

And here we are in 2012 – a year of impending doom according to some, based on the fact that the Mayan calendar stops. While some analyses of the past could suggest we are indeed coming to the end of a World Age – i.e. one full turn of the precession of the equinox = 26,000 years approx.– what seems more likely is beginning of the end of the unitary British state. From my point of a view it cannae come quick enough and it has been a salutary experience seeing the outflow of ignorance and stupidity emanating from that festering cess-pit of malignity, the Westminster village and those who hang on t its (forked ) coat-tails. At least the OOPSY control of the British Establishment and State is out in the open (OOPSY = oafish Oxbridge public school yahoo). And we should remember that the Bullingdon Berties don’t just include Cameron, Johnson, Osborne et al in their numbers bit that the public face of ‘responsible journalism; at the EBC (no not the English Broadcasting Council but the Establishment one), the David Dimblebore is also an ex Bullingdon Club member. Hooray Henries Rule Ya Chaps! The outpouring of arrogant ignorance that emanates from Londonistan is wondrous to behold – they know nothing of Scotland’s history, culture or politics and see us as little more than another province – one whose real importance is that they can come here for some shootin’ and fishin’ with their various uber-rich pals. Despite such ignorance they presume the right to lecture us about our political situation – never has the post-Imperial hubris of the British Establishment been so obvious. I particularly like the spectacular hypocrisy of these blithering yahs and their lickspittles calling us subsidy junkies, when London, even setting aside the sickening spectacle of the economic splurge on the Olympic PR opportunity – takes the lion’s share of all British taxes to support the pampered, privileged numpties of the south-eastern elite closed-shop, while at the same time their Nimbyism makes sure that we are actually looking after Trident, to which they fervently cling in the utter fallacy that it maintains Britain’s status a world power. Eck the Fish was on song when he said the English are ready for Independence – we should do all we can to remind our English friends and relations that most of them have as big a problem as we do with the wealth-sucking, Shelob-like canker of the City of London, to whom the political establishment permanently bow the knee. ( I wonder where I put the phone numbers of Geordies for an Independent Scotland and the Yorkshire Liberation Army.) When we get away maybe they can begin to sort out this problem.
Great to hear Canon Kenyon Wright on the wireless (sometimes the EBC lets things slip through their Establishment myopia) reminding us all of the Claim of Right that was signed by all of Scotland’s Labour and the Lib Dem MPs in 1989.
We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.
We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following ends:
To agree a scheme for an Assembly or Parliament for Scotland;
To mobilise Scottish opinion and ensure the approval of the Scottish people for that scheme; and
To assert the right of the Scottish people to secure implementation of that scheme.
The signatories included one Donald Dewar whose supposed role as the father of the Scottish Parliament I will address in a later blog. It also included Messrs Darling, Kennedy and Campbell.
He was a signatory but what of the act that we now see the true alignment of British establishment politics – not the Lib Dems and Cons, but Labour and the Conservatives standing shoulder to shoulder to try and prevent the political will of the Scottish people being expressed.
It is also worth remembering that the UK is a signatory to the Declaration of Human Rights which includes the following from Article 21
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
However from the British political Establishment’s post-Imperial viewpoint all that is happening is that the natives are growing restless – time to send a gunboat or a few packets of coloured beads perhaps? IT”S TIME WE WERE AWA.

A New Thing Then

stuartmchardy — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:12:01 +0000

It was a long time ago, maybe five or six thousand years ago. In one way that’s not long at all when nowadays we reckon that humans have been around on this planet of ours for a million years or so. But when you see how things have changed these past few thousand years it surely is a long time now. Nobody remembers his name, though there are those who think a memory still echoes in one or other of the names we have given to the gods we have invented since then. And it was a man. For all we can know shows before that time, the people, in all their different places thought the world was made by a goddess of some sort, or another. An interesting creature that goddess, sometimes like the howling dogs of hell mixed with a psychopathic loathing of all life and other times like everybody’s mother – it’s just the way we try to tell the story of life to each other that causes the confusion. But when the change came, as there can be no doubt it came – slithering like a junkie thief in the pre-dawn hours when sleep is deepest – it was a man who did the deed. A simple thing, it seemed like a good idea at the time, what real harm could there be in such a small re-arrangement of things. Times must have been hard for him to get away with it – no family would allow such a thing, no secure community would have tolerated quite such a passing of responsibility. For what he did, that man, so long gone now, was invent something new. Living in a time when enough was plenty, he saw that he could get a little more, and others just a little less, by a judicious application of self-interest.
Maybe his neighbour’s house had fallen down, and being troubled times, the neighbour, recently come, with no extended family to call on to help him raise his walls again, Oh never mind, the smiling man said, I will help you. My sons and I will work alongside you, when we have finished in our own fields but, as you are a stranger to us and we do not know that you will help us if a time of need should come upon us, I have a plan. We will help you but for that help, as we are not of your kin, and we do not know you well, I would ask but a small thing, a little price, let us say a tenth of al the food you grow for the next five years,

For he saw the stranger had no friends or kin to help him, and more than that, he spied a chance to take back more than he would give from the weakness that the stranger had. And the stranger, new to the place, with no one to turn to for advice or succour, felt he had to agree. And it seemed to the stranger that he was being given help, sure he would have to give of his land’s produce for five years, but without a house and a comfort for his wife and children how could he work his land at all. And so when others came to theat place, and many did for the times were hard and the land there was good, he told the newcomers of the good man’s generosity and that if they asked him, they too might get help. And little by little the village grew, for the friendly man had food enough to spare and was always ready to help newcomers find a space to build a house and land enough to feed themselves, for just a small piece of what they themselves made from that land.

And at the end of the five years, the newcomer, though he was no longer that, looked around and saw that many of the people who had come to this fine and fertile place in the past ten years worked just as hard as he did, yet were poor. And the good man, well he never worked at all – why should he, he had made a new thing – a way of growing things that did not need the turning of the earth, the planting of seeds or the tending of crops. He had created something new. They call it poverty and it made the good man rich, and his sons and theirs still tend that invention to this day,

Wikileaks et al

stuartmchardy — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:57:02 +0000

So now we know what we have always suspected – that governments lie, cheat, murder and steal. The current witch-hunt against Assange shows up the ideas of justice and law in so-called western democracies as the sham they are. In Britain we not only have government for the rich, but by the rich and the media has hardly raise a whisper – which may have something to do with the fact that most senior media positions are filled by schoolfriends of the Bullingdon Bampots currently in residence in Downing Street. When leading US politicians call for Assange to be executed this is clearly not the same as terrorists – Muslim or otherwise – doing the same. The stench of hypocrisy is overpowering. However, remember– elites are self-selecting – nobody voted the rich in – they stole their way to the power and influence they have and it is particularly obnoxious that in the aftermath of the Great Banking Con that Barack Obama has shown his real colours by humbly accepting that the rich should pay even less tax. Here in Scotland of course we have Eck the Fish and his mates acting like rabbits before a ferret whenever they meet Bumfluff Trump.
The rich are people who are a virus in human society – they believe that their wealth, no matter how it has been gathered, is a sign of their essential virtue. This is clearly a form of insanity and the business as usual attitude of governments world- wide shows how widespread such ideas actually are. It is the activities of profit-driven corporations owned by the rich through the smokescreen of shareholdings that are endangering human life on our planet – but they simply believe that they ae so rich they can buy their way out of anyt situation that they cause to happen. The utter ineptitude of governance in the face of a wee bit of bad weather in the British Isles shows the idiocy of that idea. But then again there are none so dumb as those who think they know everything.

stuartmchardy — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:52:11 +0000

It was a long time ago, perhaps even five or six thousand years ago. In one way that’s not long at all, when nowadays we think we know that humans have been around on this planet of ours for a million years or more. But when you see how things have changed these past few thousand years it surely is a long time now. Nobody remembers his name, though there are those who think a memory still echoes in one or other of the names we have given to the gods we have invented since then. And it was a man. For all we know suggests before that time, the people, in all their different places on our planet, thought the world was made by a goddess of one sort or another. An interesting creature that goddess, sometimes appearing like the howling dogs of hell mixed with a psychopathic loathing of all life and other times like everybody’s mother – it’s just the way we try to tell the story of life to each other that causes the confusion. But when the change came, and there can be no doubt it came – slithering like a junkie thief in the pre-dawn hours when sleep is deepest – it was a man who did the deed. A simple thing, it seemed like a good idea at the time, what real harm could there be in such a small re-arrangement of things. Times must have been hard for him to get away with it – no family would allow such obscenity, no secure community have tolerated quite such a passing of responsibility. For what he did, that man, so long gone now, was invent poverty. Living in a time when enough was plenty, he saw that he could get a little more, and others a little less, by a judicious application of self-interest.
Maybe his neighbour’s house had fallen down, and being troubled times, the neighbour, recently come, had no family to call of to help him raise his walls again.
“ Oh never mind,” he said, smiling,” I will help you. My sons and I will work alongside you once we have finished in our own fields but, as you are a stranger to us and we do not know that you will help us, if a time of need should come upon us, I have a plan. We will help you but for that help, as we are not of your kin, and we do not know you well, I would ask but a small thing, a little price, let us say a tenth of al the food you grow for the next five years.”
For he saw the stranger had no friends or kin to help him, and more than that, he spied a chance to take back more than he would give from the weakness that the stranger had. And the stranger, new to the village, with no one to turn to for advice or succour, felt he had to agree. And it seemed to the stranger that he was being given help, sure he would have to give of his land’s produce for five years, but without a house and a comfort for his wife and children how could he work his land at all. And so when others came to the valley, and many did, for the times were hard in many places and the land there was fertile, he told the newcomers of the good man’s generosity and that if they asked he they might get help. And little by little the village grew, for the friendly man had food enough to spare and was always ready to help newcomers find a space to build a house and land enough to feed themselves, for just a small piece of what they themselves made from that land.

And being as they were all people who understood that a word given was a sacred thing, the bargain that was struck with each was nobody’s business but their own. The first year when the good man worked with his sons beside the first newcomer in the fields, the talk was all of what they shared, the pleasure in the ripening fruit, the beauty of the children as they grew. But the season after that, when the newcomer worked his fields he saw the good man sent his sons to do the work on his own land but did not take up a hoe, or walk behind an ox himself. And in the fifth year the newcomer broke his leg and his children being young, his wife with child and hard times looming, the good man simply said, “ Fear not, just let me help and our arrangement can go on for five more years.”
And at the end of the five years, the newcomer, though he was no longer that, looked around and saw that many of the people who had come to this fine and fertile place in the past ten years worked just as hard as he did, yet were poor. And the good man, well he never worked at all – why should he, he had made a new thing – a way of growing things that did not need the turning of the earth, the planting of seeds or the tending of crops. He had created something new. They call it poverty and it made the good man rich, and his sons and theirs have tended that very invention to this day,

New language

stuartmchardy — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:15:47 +0000

With the insanity of current so called economics it is suely time to start thinking of new ways of describing the utter imbecility of both politics and the media. So, for starters
Smuggit, verb: to make authoritative statements unconnected to reality in such a way as to suggest that anyone disagreeing is, by definition smug, arrogant and essentially ignorant, which is in fact a precise description of the person making the statement.
As in
Osborne was smuggiting again last night.

Who Stole Scotland

stuartmchardy — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 12:31:24 +0000

This is the title of a grand article by land campaigner Andy Wightman in the day’s Sunday Herald – http://www.heraldscotland.com/. It lays bear the underlying corruption of the land question in Scotland. This should be the start of a debate of just how we are all affected by the landownership question and it leads into further questions of the total complicity in this situation, of the law establishment in Scotland, many of whose members are themselves large-scale landowners, or are happy to take the tainted siller of the lairds, and of course the utterly contemptible refusal of Scottish historians to recognise the underlying realities so well laid out by Andy. To this day local people are still being cleared off Scotland’s rural land while rich people from anywhere in the world are allowed – encouraged? – to play with our soil as they see fit. The obscenity of the development at Menie is a clear example of this and it is all too telling that Trump’s vainglorious plans to create a haven for the super rich are supported by by none other than our First MInister. While like many other Scots I would like to see us independent precisely because we could begin to attack the land question in a free and open manner instead of hiding the truth through the essentially colonial structures that still clutch at the law and other institutions of supposed public benefit in Scotland, this does not mean that I am a member or even a supporter of the SNP. They suffer from the unfortunate fact that – as in all other parties thirled to Westmonster’s (sic) shonky concept of what constitutes democracy – seen cleary at the moment in its true colours to be government by the rich and for the rich – they have too many lawyers in their representative ranks.
The really good news in this is that this informative and accurate representation – however brief – of the horrors of the land question in Scotland – has been published by the Sunday Herald. Letters in support of their position would be a good idea as would be spreading the word to everybody that you know to be at all interested in the future of Scotland, about this article and Andy’s new book. I regulary forget to suggest (urge?demand?) folk to buy my latest book(s) but have no reluctance in pushing Andy’s.
On another but related tack I await further news from my MSP Malcolm Chisholm about the Scottish Government’s response to my concerns anent the arrest and imprisonment of the two journalists at the Trump development at Menie. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/film-makers-arrested-donald-trump-scottish-golf-resort#history-link-box

Democracy in Danger

stuartmchardy — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:45:27 +0000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/film-makers-arrested-donald-trump-scottish-golf-resort

This story is absolutely horrific – 2 journalists were arrested by the Fitlike Plod for doing their jobs, They were interviewing people – with permission – o the site of the disgusting new development at Menie when they were told to stop. They were investigating the ‘accidental’ cutting off of water supply to the local residents by contractors working for Trump. They were arrested and charged with breach of the peace – a catch-all offence if there ever was one and had camera, notes etc. confiscated.
This is potentially terrifying as it clearly shows that the local plod are working for the Trump interests, whether or not they are being directed by Trump’s minions or the local council – and you can hardly separate these two. Not only are the local council prepared to sell out Scotland’s soil to the highest bidder they are cleary happy to deploy the law in favour of a profiteering exploiter and against their own constituents. Apart from the national questions regarding the democratic accountability of the police in Scotland that this disturbing case raises it also is a shocking idictment of the position that Aberdeen Council have got themsleves into. Effectively it would appear that the law of the land is, like the Sands of Menie themselves, up for auction to the highest bidder. I have made moves to have a question asked in the Scottish Parliament about this and suggest that everyone gets in touch with their local MSP to demand answers from the SNP adminsitration whose blatant and gut-wrenching sucking-up to Trump and his entourage is in itself a dangerous indictment of the oft-trumpted ‘need for foreign investment’. Profits from such projects leave the country and the only local benefit will be in menial jobs. Add in the polluting effects of milionaires flying in in their private jets if Trump has his way, and you have a perfect storm of idiocy. Green Scotland! Och aye that’ll be richt. Eck the Fish is up to his oxters in this and it is time to remind the SNP that the new Parliament is ours not theirs!

stuartmchardy — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:41:04 +0000

Well the Festival madness lurches towards its close and my liver has survived a free pass to the Writer’s Retreat at the Book Festival! Like many othrs I was not impressed by Caledonia, a real pathetic attempt at dealing with one of the sadder aspects of Scotland’s often tragic hsotry. It seemed to be aimed at an aude ience of Sun reaqders and Big Brother devotees and the utter crassness of playing out at the end of the show with We’re On the Way With Aly’s Army was not only crassly insentive but downright insulting.After all the years of debate abut a National Theatre for Scotland this was shocking.
As usual some of the street performers have been fun but keeping the pubs opme till three is not always a ‘good thing’. For those not siurfeited with culture there is always Monday night at the Windsor where I continue to warble old ditties with my good friend John Greig.
Re the political situation I was speaking to an old friend who had voted Lib-Dem at the last debacle.His comments are unprintable but I am sure you can imagine. THe Bullingdon Berties are showing their true colours and if the social vandalism and buccaneering econimic insanity of this lot is doesn’t give the Scottish people a kick up the arse nothing ever will. Its time we were awa, lads an lasses, time we were awa.

stuartmchardy — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:44:12 +0000

So now we have it. A pair of public school and Oxbridge chaps in charge of British Governance again. Guaranteed ongoing profits for the Arms Manufacturers and other businesses owned by their friends while the mess created by the gangster behaviour of their other buddies n the cities has to be paid for by the poorest in society. So what’s new? What is slightly newish is the meeja’s utter obsequiousness in all of this. Listen to how often they tell you about what the money markets think? Without government taxes there are no money markets but to hear the (public-school Oxbridge dominated) meeja the money markets are an instrument of God’s will. The utter affront to democracy of the privatisation of shared resources developed with public funds and the ongoing commitment to weapons of mass destruction doesn’t even register in the awareness of the meeja. And as for what the true significance of the current stramash in the Gulf of Mexico means for the future of humanity, well, never mind, there’s a World Cup coming up. What is happening in Greece is a straw in the wind and the only response our so called political parties will be able to provide when the wind reaches us, is to arm even more of the police.
I am reminded of a banner from the 1820 Rising –Scotland Free or a Desert – well if Squintneb an the Cleg get their way there will probably be beating jobs on the shooting estates in August at least.
Och aye and for those who are interested my latest books are in the shops
A New History of the Picts and Tales of Whisky both published by Luath Press

stuartmchardy — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:12:44 +0000

And so I return – full of hope for an eventual Spring – the sun is shining and for the first time this year I have been out in sandals (no socks). What I hear you ask, has this to do with the price of mince or any other significant fact. The truth is nothing but it has been a long winter and now just as things begin to improve we are faced with media overkill of the posturings of a set of benighted idiots. Problems with the economy – ditch Trident and the air craft carriers on order. A but what about the jobs? Don’t make me laugh – Wee Gordie is just as keen on protecting the profits of the arms manufacturers as Slick Davie is – no matter how many children are killed, shareholder value rules supreme.
Anyway if there is anyone out there I had a great time last Thursday launching my latest book A New History of the Picts – a very successful night and hopefully tomorrow at the Galgael in Glescae (7 pm) will be as good. This book is an attempt to put together a cohernet narrative that sees the Picts as the indigenous people of Scotland who originally, from the Roman perspective included the Scots of Dalriada, the Gododdin and the Britons of Strathclyde – who were the ancestors of the Hihgland clans and the main building blockof wjat in io time became Scotland. Lots of new ideas but all based on the simple idea that to understand the Picts, the key is kinship not kingship. And the book is a thing of beauty itself.
To keep in the spirit of things old and Scottish I also have another wee book, Tales of Whisky hitting the bookshops, whihc like the Picts’ book is published by Luath Press. HAving spent much of thepast month telling stories and singing songs in scholls the next couple of weeks sees more public gigs. Next Monday, as ever I will be singing in the Windsor Buffet with John Greig and on the 21st will be performing at the opening of an art installation by Dorothy Aitchison at Burnmouth Arts Centre with John Malcolm – Jist Oorsels as we are known (or not).
New courses at Edinburgh Uni’s OLL are the Darker Side of Scottish History and Arthurian Scotland starting next week for any of you who are tough enough!!!!