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carmen_ljMy Read 50 Books yearly challenge thingie has got off to a RUBBISH start, cause the second book I picked up this year is a slightly dense history that claims it is for lay-people as well as actual history people but I HAVE MY DOUBTS. It's lucky it's about something I'm dead keen on, as otherwise I'd be so easy to give up since it takes about AN HOUR to read a page.
It's about LOVELY SCOTLAND. From the end of the Roman Iron Age to the end of the eighth century and so far it's been mostly, "well we don't REALLY KNOW what was happening, here are some BEAUTIFULLY REASONED POSSIBILITIES," which I quite love. The earliest woman mentioned in Scottish history is the wife of a tribe leader (except I'm not supposed to say tribe for some reason, but civitas instead, I forget the distinction - it's nice learning things, but this book is so full of THINGS I'm forgetting as much as I remember, probs more) who socialised with Emperor Septimius Severus' wife, Julia Domna, and was very witty. It's probably made up, but never mind.
And then Severus died. But that was while he was back in more southern Roman Britain and nothing to do with Scotland.
The most important thing is that there were these dudes called the Maiatai, who I'd never heard of before, but they lived in Scotland and they sound like a cocktail. So I think there should be a cocktail named after them.
Also there is something of a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS going on. Not in Roman times, but now. Sadly, I really like constitutional crises but only when they are In The Past, not when they are Right Now and about stuff I give a fuck about. I kept trying to write a post but mostly it went "fucking Tories, fucking, fuck-witted Tories." (Remember, these are the people who want to cut benefits to disabled children and cancer sufferers whilst letting Vodaphone off £8 billion in tax.) Here is what I managed with the least swears possible:
So the SNP want to have a referendum on Scottish independence. Since they won the last election you'd think they have a mandate to do that, but no! Westminister says that they may not have the legal authority to run a referendum, since that is not a devolved power. So the fucking Tories are saying "well, we could temporarily devolve the power" but we want control of when the referendum is, and to make it sooner rather than later, because if the SNP don't have any time to campaign, it's much more likely people will support the status quo.
Naturally, since the SNP won the fucking election, they feel that they can and should get to set the time of their referendum and the Tories should fuck off out of Scottish matters, since we vote for fuck-all Tories. Tories who, at the time of that election, failed to say anything like "oh, btw, nationalists, the foundation upon which your party is formed cannot be realised even if you win an absolute majority in a Parliment whose voting system is designed to prevent That Sort Of Thing, unless our Westminister colleages get to decide How Things Are Done." Cause if they'd said anything like that, perhaps they'd have got no MSPs at all instead of the 15 they have now. And only two of them got in via FTTP, that voting system the fucking Tories love so much.
In conclusion, I feel the Tories should fuck-off and let the Scottish Parliament get on with it. They're probably not going to win it anyway (hence murmurs of a second question of 'devolution max', or devolving further powers to Holyrood), and if the Tories think their interference is doing anything but reinforcing the general Scottish attitude towards their fucked-up party, they're wrong.
And, yeah, I support independence. I still voted SNP under Labour, but I was ambivalent about independence, but seeing just how fucked-up the Tories are in government has changed my mind to outright support. The only reason Scotland's education and NHS aren't as fucked-up as England's are devolution in general and the SNP in particular, and while it's possible we'd be a poorer nation on our own, I believe we'd be a fairer one.
One nice thing: in all the reporting of what's going on, it's rather heartening to see so many women at the top of Scottish politics: the Tories are led by Ruth Davidson (succeeding Annabel Goldie), Labour's new Scottish leader is Johann Lamont (previously deputy leader) and the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon is our Deputy First Minister.
One sort of hilarious thing: so the history of Scotland goes a bit like this: "fuck-up, fuck-up, fuck-up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." It is epic. This is why we still sing about Bannockburn 700 years later - that was an Proper Win, and those don't happen very often. Anyway, the reason that Scotland isn't independent, as I understand it and roughly speaking, is because at the beginning of the 18th century all our nobles had an AWESOME PLAN: they wanted Scotland to become a great trading nation like England and France and Spain and the Netherlands. So they invested ALL THEIR MONEY into a FOOLPROOF scheme to start a colony in Panama and nothing could possiby go wrong.
All the things went wrong: the leaders were rubbish, no-one wanted to trade anything and there were various epidemics, and practically all of Scotland's nobles went bankrupt. Then the Scottish and English governments got chatting about unification again, and England went and put a load of troops on the southern border to hint that maybe they would like this attempt to unify the two countries to work really well (it'd been tried unsuccessfully several times already in the 17th century) and the nobles and landowners were, like, fine then, cause, heh, they'd already lost all they're money, it wasn't like things could get any worse. For them, obviously. And England had lovely money. Or, as Robert Burns put it, ""We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation." It was not the most popular move ever amongst the general population."
This looks like quite a long post. I must've been feeling v ranty. Less so now though. Hurrah! Out of my system! And if I want it back, I can always go watch Question Time.
It's about LOVELY SCOTLAND. From the end of the Roman Iron Age to the end of the eighth century and so far it's been mostly, "well we don't REALLY KNOW what was happening, here are some BEAUTIFULLY REASONED POSSIBILITIES," which I quite love. The earliest woman mentioned in Scottish history is the wife of a tribe leader (except I'm not supposed to say tribe for some reason, but civitas instead, I forget the distinction - it's nice learning things, but this book is so full of THINGS I'm forgetting as much as I remember, probs more) who socialised with Emperor Septimius Severus' wife, Julia Domna, and was very witty. It's probably made up, but never mind.
And then Severus died. But that was while he was back in more southern Roman Britain and nothing to do with Scotland.
The most important thing is that there were these dudes called the Maiatai, who I'd never heard of before, but they lived in Scotland and they sound like a cocktail. So I think there should be a cocktail named after them.
Also there is something of a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS going on. Not in Roman times, but now. Sadly, I really like constitutional crises but only when they are In The Past, not when they are Right Now and about stuff I give a fuck about. I kept trying to write a post but mostly it went "fucking Tories, fucking, fuck-witted Tories." (Remember, these are the people who want to cut benefits to disabled children and cancer sufferers whilst letting Vodaphone off £8 billion in tax.) Here is what I managed with the least swears possible:
So the SNP want to have a referendum on Scottish independence. Since they won the last election you'd think they have a mandate to do that, but no! Westminister says that they may not have the legal authority to run a referendum, since that is not a devolved power. So the fucking Tories are saying "well, we could temporarily devolve the power" but we want control of when the referendum is, and to make it sooner rather than later, because if the SNP don't have any time to campaign, it's much more likely people will support the status quo.
Naturally, since the SNP won the fucking election, they feel that they can and should get to set the time of their referendum and the Tories should fuck off out of Scottish matters, since we vote for fuck-all Tories. Tories who, at the time of that election, failed to say anything like "oh, btw, nationalists, the foundation upon which your party is formed cannot be realised even if you win an absolute majority in a Parliment whose voting system is designed to prevent That Sort Of Thing, unless our Westminister colleages get to decide How Things Are Done." Cause if they'd said anything like that, perhaps they'd have got no MSPs at all instead of the 15 they have now. And only two of them got in via FTTP, that voting system the fucking Tories love so much.
In conclusion, I feel the Tories should fuck-off and let the Scottish Parliament get on with it. They're probably not going to win it anyway (hence murmurs of a second question of 'devolution max', or devolving further powers to Holyrood), and if the Tories think their interference is doing anything but reinforcing the general Scottish attitude towards their fucked-up party, they're wrong.
And, yeah, I support independence. I still voted SNP under Labour, but I was ambivalent about independence, but seeing just how fucked-up the Tories are in government has changed my mind to outright support. The only reason Scotland's education and NHS aren't as fucked-up as England's are devolution in general and the SNP in particular, and while it's possible we'd be a poorer nation on our own, I believe we'd be a fairer one.
One nice thing: in all the reporting of what's going on, it's rather heartening to see so many women at the top of Scottish politics: the Tories are led by Ruth Davidson (succeeding Annabel Goldie), Labour's new Scottish leader is Johann Lamont (previously deputy leader) and the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon is our Deputy First Minister.
One sort of hilarious thing: so the history of Scotland goes a bit like this: "fuck-up, fuck-up, fuck-up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." It is epic. This is why we still sing about Bannockburn 700 years later - that was an Proper Win, and those don't happen very often. Anyway, the reason that Scotland isn't independent, as I understand it and roughly speaking, is because at the beginning of the 18th century all our nobles had an AWESOME PLAN: they wanted Scotland to become a great trading nation like England and France and Spain and the Netherlands. So they invested ALL THEIR MONEY into a FOOLPROOF scheme to start a colony in Panama and nothing could possiby go wrong.
All the things went wrong: the leaders were rubbish, no-one wanted to trade anything and there were various epidemics, and practically all of Scotland's nobles went bankrupt. Then the Scottish and English governments got chatting about unification again, and England went and put a load of troops on the southern border to hint that maybe they would like this attempt to unify the two countries to work really well (it'd been tried unsuccessfully several times already in the 17th century) and the nobles and landowners were, like, fine then, cause, heh, they'd already lost all they're money, it wasn't like things could get any worse. For them, obviously. And England had lovely money. Or, as Robert Burns put it, ""We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation." It was not the most popular move ever amongst the general population."
This looks like quite a long post. I must've been feeling v ranty. Less so now though. Hurrah! Out of my system! And if I want it back, I can always go watch Question Time.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 12:42 pm (UTC)I don't remember India, Canada or South Africa etc getting a vote on it either, Westminster just said goodbye to them when it was ready.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 12:58 pm (UTC)