This blog is closed.

I'm closing this blog. Again, it's become an infrequently updated, unpopular thing so I'm starting fresh. New details available soon.

Scottish Independence - the Canadian argument

Yes, I'm still an Englishman and yes, I still support Scottish independence. Why, because although no process of creating a new country is smooth and free from complication, I get the feeling that things will be OK in the end. And England will be just fine too. Not perfect, but we never were anyway.

Just look at those who have gone before you, and take a look at how well they've fared, particularly those Western countries that were formerly part of the British Empire.

When America fought for independence, it was not without a struggle, lives were lost but ended up being the number one economy in the world and an economic, political and cultural zeitgeist. Same goes for the Republic of Ireland, which hasn't done bad for itself.

On the other side of the world, we have Australia and New Zealand, who still have the Queen as their Head of State, but rule their own affairs and have strong economies, and are such an attractive place to be, that many, many Brits are moving there every year.

I went to an emigration event last year. My wife is desperate to leave the UK and I wanted to find out more information for myself. I'm curious but not so eager to leave. It was last October at the WorkingIn event in Manchester. There were advisors from Australia and New Zealand there, as well as advisors from one other place. They talked about things to bear in mind about emigrating, the hard truth as it were, as well as some facts about their countries. All of them got out of recession quicker than the UK, and are just getting on with being better while we as a country struggle to turn a profit.

Anyway, the other country, as above, was Canada and I'll focus on this one a little bit. Canada severed its last ties with Westminster a little over 30 years ago in 1982, having gained independence bit by bit for decades. It still has the Queen as it's Head of State, but is a country in it's own right. Economically, Canada is doing quite well, seeing as it is currently a member of the G8, and is popular for emigration from both the UK and the USA.

So, what does this mean for Scotland? Well, I'll look at the similarities you guys share.

1) Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia was one of the first places discovered in Canada, receiving it's name in 1621, and you can easily see it translates from Latin to "New Scotland" (as opposed to the New England bits further south in the USA). Quite a bit of an endorsement for a new country. And the flag of Nova Scotia is a reverse Saltire (white background, blue cross) with the Scottish Rampant Lion in the middle. Kind of like a tribute, really, to the real deal.

Beautiful.

2) A fondness for Plaid

It says it all really, though Canadian Plaid typically (as worn by the typical lumberjack) is more red, I'm guessing to stand out amongst all the trees. Also, as worn by loads of people everywhere in some shape or form...

Oh fuck yes.

3) An understated contribution to media

There's a lot of output from BBC Scotland and other Scottish-based media companies, and yes it does include things like Balamory and Me Too (I have a daughter of 4 so cBeebies does go on from time to time) as well as a lot of serious drama and stuff. And quite a lot of actors, scriptwriters and authors hail from up north as well. I watch Doctor Who so I know how much this is true.

For Canadian actors, many people assume they're American until they find out they aren't. And if you look up Vancouver, it has a nickname of "Hollywood North" due to it's impressive media output, that you may have never known about until I told you just now. Along the same lines, Scotland could still hold it's own in the world of media.

And lest ye not forget that in the world of Sci Fi, there was a quite prominent Scottish character, who was called Mr Scott, or Scotty, i.e.

Played by James Doohan, who is also best known as being completely and utterly Canadian.

4) You'd be the UK's Canada, and we'd be your USA

If you go independent, you'll be a country north of us, which is slightly colder and politically more to the left. Us lucky people would be a little more exposed to the fucking lunacy of UKIP, which I noted at times were in favour of destroying the NHS, reducing taxes on the rich and deregulation of ownership of guns. Yes, guns. So basically, we're in danger of looking a lot more like 'Murica, should enough thick people decide they want to use their power to vote next year. It's the only thing making me wishing to have a Tory majority government instead (though that in itself is not my ideal situation). You don't want Trident, but I get the feeling that England does more. And we'll be keen to keep up our "special relationship" and sell shitloads of weaponry to everyone.

We may as well not worry any more about what our flag would look like with Scotland gone.

(yes, that's 51 stars, yes I'm trying to be too clever.)

5) You both pronounce "about" as "aboot"

I thought I'd put this one a bit further down the list.

"I wish I never deep fried that Kraft Dinner, Philip. There's something bubbling in my ass!"

I of course learned how to speak Scottish from a Maynard's Wine Gums advert.

6) A fuckload of islands

I found out today that Scotland has 790 islands. This is Canada.

Nobody has counted all of Canada's islands, but estimates are in hundreds of thousands.

Summary

So basically, you're a bit like Canada. The weather is a bit nippy, there are some really remote places of your country to go to and get lost in, and you're a proudly multicultural society that has a strong sense of national identity. And why should economical worries be a problem? Canada has very strong trading links with the US, just as much as Scotland will do with the rest of the UK.

There are some differences, as two countries are never the same (seeing that Canada is much bigger, and has an independence issue of its own with Québec), but that isn't really a flaw in the argument. I'm just demonstrating that as a similar country, you can go it alone and you can make it a success and you don't need to look back.

Just don't create any of your own Justin McBiebers. Thank you for your consideration.

Scottish Independence

There is going to be a referendum on Scottish Independence in September, where the Scottish get the opportunity to vote on whether they want to remain in the Union with wee sassenachs like myself, or get to make it their own way.

There's been debate on both sides as to whether it would be better for Scotland to stay or go, and if Scotland did go, what that would mean for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Personally I think the wrong questions are being asked on both sides. Scotland could re-draw the borders and detach itself from the top of England, but what's the issue with separating? Is it just that Scotland wants to be wholly independent from Westminster, but doesn't have a grudge with the rest of the UK, or is it a more a historical matter and a case of national pride?

In my mind, and what my argument entails, is that a lot of resources, material and financial are directed towards London from the rest of the UK, constantly feeding it, making it a bloated and disproportionate city compared to the rest of the country. There is even a brain drain towards London, more and more of the good jobs are based there, and house prices are still soaring compared to the UK. It seems as if everything is being built there and projects to improve infrastructure in the rest of the country (namely HS2) are still linked to the nation's capital. The only thing London is giving back to the rest of the country are its poor and destitute.

You look at other countries and they aren't primarily known for one city, usually (there are exceptions, I admit). Spain has Madrid, but also has Barcelona. Russia has Moscow, but also has St. Petersburg. Holland has Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Germany has Berlin but also has Munich and Frankfurt. Also China with Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. With Britain it is London and occasionally Edinburgh.

And the US has New York, but also has Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston,etc etc before you even get to Washington DC. The main point is that you can be a great and powerful country, people can come to visit you from everywhere AND you don't have to devote your resources to one city alone. Even with other countries that only have one major city (and that city being the capital) tend not to put the greatest things of their country there.

Don't get me wrong, I like visiting London. You can get anything there and do anything, eat anything, drink anything etc (as long as you have the money) but I wouldn't live there. Living spaces (as opposed to things like apartments and houses elsewhere) are small and expensive, and are only small and expensive due to demand. Cuz of everything going there.

Anyway, I wondered whether the best thing for the biggest part of England, Wales, Scotland and not forgetting Northern Ireland is to redraw the borders a little differently.

Here we go:

Greater Scotland, with its capital in Edinburgh, would be a new country where no individual city has an unbalanced level of power towards any other. Power could be devolved to different districts, creating a more federal type of country, more like the US. Wealth would be more evenly distributed and the people who are annoyed at Westminster ruling over them would rule no more. And Greater Scotland could also be a republic. Independence from Westminster without much of an effect on the economy either.

Londonia would be a city state, bloated and corpulent, a bit like a grimy version of Monaco. It would have to be more dependent on the rest of the British Isles for support (especially as the only escape route is down the Thames) but it would isolate all the Russian oligarchs from everyone else (then when the weather is nice, they'll go sun themselves in Monaco). It would still be a place of wealth, but it would have to fund its own development. As Londonia would lean towards becoming more of a tax haven for the rich, though, it would all have to be privately funded. A capitalist's dream, then.

So it's win/win basically. Greater Scotland citizens would no longer need to sing that terrible dirge "God Save The Queen", and the Greater Scotland football team would actually be more of a terrifying presence. And Londonia, nothing much will change, really.

And that Alexander Salmond seems such a nice guy. Sorry - President Salmond.

I could have been an Elliott Rodger

Well, firstly, apologies for the delay in posting something meaningful on my blog. It's been a while and I know I do publish some good stuff on here (both serious and not), it should be more often. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

There's been another shooting in America and while, yes, there are shootings going on all the time, the motive for this one was very grim indeed. It has sparked debate, oh has it sparked debate, there are many views and stories abound on Twitter right now, as well as insults and other childish stuff.

Anyway the last time I wrote about shootings was here. This was off the back off that tragic shooting in Connecticut where many children died.

This morning, I watched Elliott Rodger's supposedly final video and thought about it, to make some final analysis before I wrote this. I read a little into his profile, he was 22, a virgin and had not even been kissed, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and wanted to have a relationship with a woman but did not understand why there weren't women who wanted to have a relationship with him. So much so, that he decided to wage a private little war against womankind for ignoring him in favour of other men, the so-called Creatine pumped, muscular types.

I thought back to when I was 22. I'd recently left University, was looking for work and was finding it hard to adjust to post-study life. I had few friends at that time and spent a fair bit of time on the Internet trying to socialise with others. I wasn't very good as socialising and even though I had never been diagnosed with it (getting such a label is harder in the UK than it is in the US) I would say that I have Asperger's-like traits. I also had a lot of dark thoughts at the time (sometimes suicidal), and like Elliott Rodger, I still hadn't had sex. I was pretty much an angry, young man. I wanted to experience what sex was like, and my only experience of it was what I saw, in other words, pornography (which as many of us know is a completely fantastical view of sex) where, unless you go for niche types, usually involves the male in a dominant position, often forciful. It turns my stomach.

Also like Elliott, I was bullied at High School and was affected by it. School can be a frightening microcosm for someone who doesn't fit in, especially when hormones are introduced into the mix. Over and over, I would hear stories about other boys' sexual conquests (and the girls' ones too) and likewise I would be taunted for not having any myself. They even constantly asked whether I masturbated or not (I didn't - cue many sticky sheets in the morning (I actually couldn't at the time anyway but that's another story)). That and for other things they picked on, I was quite a withdrawn character at school, though I constantly had hope that there was someone at break times I could hang out with (there was one other guy who got bulled a lot but I didn't hang around with him - he was the token straight guy who everyone thought was gay - but in my naive young years which I regret, I was homophobic).

When I was 16, which coincidentally, was a similar time to the shootings at Columbine (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) and Dunblane, I spent many a time trying to hatch out a plan in my mind how to shoot up my school. Being in the UK, though, access to guns is much more prohibited than in the US, but I had an understanding then that you could get guns on the black market, and all I would need to do was to save up enough money, be connected to the right people, and do the deed. But seeing as shooters usually end up dead themselves, and shooting doesn't actually do any good to anyone or would have proved me right (and the fact that getting firearms is nigh on impossible), I had the intelligence to realise how really, really, really, really, really, really stupid that plan was. So instead I tried to focus on what I could do to socialise better, e.g. getting to know subjects that other boys were interested in (i.e. football, football, bit of music, girls and football). For a short while, I even became a football fan (West Bromwich Albion). They still didn't like me but I had more in common and ended up socialising a bit better.

Soon, High School came to an end and I went to University. To save on dough, I commuted from home every day, but this didn't evade the fact that I was amongst new people who were difficult to socialise with, even though I tried hard. I hung around with a group for a while (I've lost contact with most of them though). Desperate for social contact, I spent a lot of time on chatrooms and forums, just to talk to people. It was frustrating, though, as any form of social contact I made (internet or real life) was superficial. I'd see them but I'd never be part of a circle of friends. Again, my young, stupid self wanted to exact revenge on Society and I was glad I didn't. For a short while, I found an avenue for my anger against Society and hung around a bunch of hard-left fanatics (who were glad to take anyone on), and invited me to meals out and to quite a few demonstrations and events which I went to. I didn't share their politics per se, but did share some common ground, like trying to save the NHS etc. It was also a time I started learning about mental illnesses and whether any applied to me (I was convinced at one stage that the dark thoughts in me were a form of Schizophrenia). I did realise that I felt depressed a lot and suicidal, but was afraid to seek help in case I was sectioned or forced to do something which would mean I couldn't complete my degree. For a while, I self medicated myself with St. John's Wort which did help (I had to stop because it made my chest hurt for some reason).

I didn't do very well at University and knew that I was hovering between a 2:2 and a Third (I felt it hard to keep up the impetus to do harder, and my written essays were short of understandable at that point), and if I got a Third I would kill myself by leaping out of one of the campus windows. I got a Third in the end but I didn't go through with trying to end my own life. At graduation itself, you can see the anger in my face amongst my fellow students in the class photo - I managed to get a photo of me with my middle finger to the camera.

So after that, as above was more misery, but that wasn't the end of the story. Because rather than going through with a plan, divorcing myself from humanity and declaring war on it, I persevered. I found work here and there, and shortly before I was 23, I met someone and totally lost my virginity. I came in a matter of seconds as I didn't know what it felt like. We met from time to time (for sex - those times I lasted longer too) and were also good friends for a while, even after I dumped her. We're no longer in contact with each other now and officially none of this paragraph ever happened (I'll never name names either).

After this I was in my current relationship, and we stuck together, got married and now have a daughter together. Things are better, much better than those dark times.

So, I've walked the same path as many others who have decided to take it out on others, to kill and maim because things didn't go the way they wanted, and didn't succumb to that temptation. Now, it isn't just the fact that gun control is still too lax in America and the blame doesn't lay solely with Elliott Rodger, though a lot of the responsibility lies squarely with him for the despicable acts he did.

Some of it is to do with the company we keep. If our peers have similarly poor views on women (Elliott visited a forum with other men who weren't getting laid either which has now been shut down) then this can have an effect on impressionable young ones.

Further afield, culture appears to be to blame as well. Elliott hits out at the Creatine'd up men who seem to attract women like iron to a magnet, and at the women who ignore his supposedly gentlemanly like charms. He was also from an affluent background, with parents with successful jobs in the movie business, which you may expect some women to like. Why I mention culture is because culture paints two specific mindsets for men and women, and expects them to conform to this:

The men are told that they come first, that they are the best, everything and everyone else is inferior. They have to be at the top of their game, competitive, strong and confident to the point of being cocky. They are dominant and see the world to be something to be bended to their will. Men who aren't are to be destroyed, for they are not the warriors we seek. Men should also remove anything in their way if that is their will, for we do not bargain or negotiate, we shoot first and ask questions later. We want everything and we want it now.

The women are judged by how useful they are to men. If they do not keep themselves pretty, if they do not do what they are told, if they do not make themselves available, then they are to be hated. There is still an intense, global commodification of women, and this control is meted out through advertisements, magazines and the like, and even in the Western world, where women can speak more freely, this control makes this freedom more like an illusion. Women are still an asset or a liability, sold between father and husband.

Women are also "sluts", "whores", "bitches" and "pussy", whereas men are men, only sometimes suffering an insult which is usually unisex like "arsehole/asshole".

It is toxic, and basically means that as a civilisation, while we feel we have made giant leaps, we have only made small steps, and not always in the right direction. If people like Elliott Rodger feel they are entitled to women whenever they want, and entitled to kill people if they can't get what they want, something is desperately wrong. Do pour scorn on Elliott for his poor decision making but do think about whether this will happen again. Elliott, with his grandiose statements, attempting to make himself greater than all men, is not alone here. And it is usually men who kill. But as soon as they do, they stop being a victim and become part of the problem.

Culture is a big thing to tackle, it is so big that it eats people up and spits them out. But you don't fight it by killing, you do it by remaining unique and supporting others who are the same, you disobey your label and understand yourself better, and learn how to feel comfortable in your own skin rather than trying to adhere to someone else's standards. If you're a nerdy kid, be a nerdy kid. If you want to date a nerdy kid, then give it a go. If you don't like working out, then don't do it, and certainly if you don't want to get breast implants to make yourself into a form for the purpose of pleasing men, then refuse to go under the knife. Accept yourself and be open to other people who want to do the same. If they don't like you, that's their choice and their problem but it never means that everyone will ignore you. It's a big world and you have to be patient to meet the right people, not everyone does that straight away.

Conclusion: Live life, don't be a dick to others.

What if Earth was Elder Scrolls?

I just did this as a bit of fun (no offence intended) - Clicky for larger

A song about the 'flu

(To the tune of Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good)

Woke up this morning, feeling shit,
Got something special from some clit,
I feel sick, have the chills, and can't eat my grub,
Atchoo,
Something tells me I've got the fucking 'flu.