scottishcelts

WOW - i'm surprised about that! We are all different, what makes us human yada yada yada!

As i said before it's all to do with heritage for me, and the kids being brought up here and forgetting all about Scotland and the line being dilluted etc. - am i making sense? Probably not.

fific

We left for the same reason as many others on here - better life, safer for kids, more egalitarian approach, adventure etc... Reality - as everyone has said same s**t different place - except - unless you are lucky enough to have close family and friends here - you have to handle day to day life on your own. Where we live is stunningly beautiful - but that doesnt help when your career has taken a landslide, you're up to your eyes in housework/domestic dramas ( just as you would have been in UK) and you're lonely for your "home". To top it off if you come with older kids - who love it here - then you feel trapped we cant disrupt thier education and it was our choice to come not theirs. Educationally we are also disappointed with the standards - although school life itself is better overall. So would we do it again - I dont think so - or if we did - we would come for an agreed two years with view to going back ( at least that way we wouldnt be stung with overseas uni fees).

sonlymewalter

So.....you expect to live in the rolling green hills when you return

This is more like it m8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FolrHmhwggo

paulry

Interesting. We have some good friends from Glasgow who after spending many years in the London area moved back there for much the same reason.

paulry

So the Scottish are a bit like salmon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon

moneypenny20

I'm confused by something Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I always get the impression on here that the Scots and Welsh and Irish seem to believe that they have a stranglehold on national/heritage pride. The post by Scottishcelt is just one of many 'It's a heritage thing - hard to explain if you r not a celt!' I'm immensely proud of my national heritage and I am very English. Why is there the assumption that the English are not as proud as the Celts? OK I understand that as a nation it's 'not done' to shout about it but on a personal level I would assume that most English folk are proud, but just don't have that need to shout it from the rooftops.

I don't care if other nations want to beat their breasts with pride, that's fab, but please don't assume that because the English don't, doesn't mean it's not going on inside.

I'm rambling, I'm sorry

And on the subject of stunning countryside, can I just say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what one person sees as dull and boring is just as valid as another thinking it's the greatest thing since someone looked at some funny grassy stuff and decided to make a staple food out of it.

Officer Dibble

English isnt ethnic enough, Im afraid.

sonlymewalter

It's funny but I think of myself as part of the UK and therefore don't distinguish between my Welsh, Irish & Scottish *cousins*. I love that we are all different and the fact we overlook those differences and have shared values so don't see those differences. Maybe I'm weird

Some people seem to really like the idea they are different and see their *own* as somehow superior because of those differences I'm not sure

We can have different dialects and ways of doing things depending if you are north, south, Scottish, Irish, English or Welsh but that doesn't mean we should isolate each other and think of ourselves as outside or inside the *clan*

Hutch

I think it's the revenge of empire. Alright - bit deep - but bear with me - there's a point in here somewhere. All three nations you mentioned were invaded, subjugated and otherwise ruled for great portions of their history by the English in a pretty shitty fashion for the most part (the Highland clearings, the potato famine etc). And while the empire's gone, the cultural wounds remain. The sense of grievance towards the English is handed down from generation to generation through family, school, work and more recently, media.

So, while your 21st century Scot has **** all in common with their kilt wearing, axe-wielding forebears, there's a definite sense of unfinished business, of a need to get even. This often manifests itself in the attitude of people like Scottishcelt and also in the 'anyone but England' attitude to sport as espoused most recently by Andy Murray.

Meanwhile your 21st century English man/woman wonders what they've done to deserve the bad attitude, when they had no part in the Highland clearings or the potato famine and have no sense of unfinished business in that regard. To the English it just looks like every ****er with a set of vocal chords has it in for them. All of which means that the sense of grievance, the attitude, the division carries on - down the centuries, with no end in sight. Is the attitude on the part of the 'celts' justified in this day and age? Ermmm no - probably not. Does that mean it'll stop any time soon? Ermmm no - probably not.

I think there's a genuine issue there and just as the celts should 'build a bridge and get over it' - so the English should learn to remove the rod from their collective cultural arses and take some pride in their country - as others - most notably the Australians - do.

I don't know - maybe it's because I'm some bastard Heinz 57 of a creation (being the first generation of my largely 'celtic' family to be born in England) - but it's a bit of a shoulder shrug for me.

Don't apologise - as you can see - I've outdone you.

Indeed.

Officer Dibble

Hooray!! Well done, Hutch!

Youre the first person that Ive ever known of that has put that into words so well.

scottishcelts

Moneypen, i was simply using my personal explanation as an example - me being Scottish, therefore a Celt!

scottishcelts

Suppose so

scottishcelts

Revenge of Empire - An empire built by the blood sweat and tears of all home nations upon the blood sweat and tears of countless innocents across the globe. An empire that brought slavery to the world. An empire that facilitated the creation of the states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and all of the problems associated with the ownership of Kashmir. An empire that spawned the strife in the Afghan nation, from which it has never recovered. An empire whose dying breath was used to create the State of Israel. An empire who abandoned Africa to the despots and dictators when it became too much hassle to manage, given that there were too few natural resources left to pillage. An empire that clings on to a piece of rock in the South Atlantic that cost the lives of many young men defending/upholding the remnants of an Empire long lamented in the streets of old blighty, yet forever reviled by most other nations on the planet.
The Celts do, for the most part, seek forgiveness from the world for the crimes we have perpetrated under the flag of the good old empire – I exclude the Irish from any blame in this. They had the good sense to reject the empire from the outset. We do not stand in ceremony, harking back to the days when Britishness was something to be feared. We seek reconciliation wherever possible. We do not sing Rule Brittannia as means of goading or neighbours, and other world citizens further afield. We mingle, we integrate, we learn and we inform. We have many friends throughout the world, and are numerous amongst them, partly because of the reasons you have given further in your 'rant'. It is not the Celts who refer to the English as 'Roast Beef', It is not the Celts who coined the phrase 'Perfidious Albion'. It is not the Celts who invented the term 'Little Englander', nor indeed, did we foster the Little Englander attitude which is perceived by the nations of Europe and further afield. We may seem to be Anti-English, but you forget that we Scots were not subjugated and broken. We joined in the UNION with the English in 1707, we voted unilaterally to preserve that UNION in 1978. The Welsh were subjugated. The Irish refused to buckle and were oppressed for the greater part of 800 years for their defiance. Revenge of empire? No, merely a drawing of the lines of distinction that not all of the home nations are the same. We do not cling to the idea of marauding down hillsides, swinging claymores at English invaders. But neither do we cling on to the memories of an Empire that raped the world and still espouse it as a great achievement. I would respond to some of the other misguided points you have raised, but, I am sure, in retrospect, you already know that you are right. You wonder why the English are perceived the way they are? Then take the time to read, dissect and comprehend your own post.

Wol

All I can say to Scottishcelts is that, during my travels, I have lost count of the number of ordinary (I emphasise "ordinary") folk in many old empire countries who say, unprompted, that their countries would be better off had the British continued to run them.

We live in different times to those of the empire, and in those days attitudes, cultures, classes were different. However, for all the faults and inequities the empire did on the whole leave solid infrastructures, administrative and governmental models and the beginnings of local middle classes. (Hence the couple of hours and dozens of bits of paper that it can take to enter any Indian airport <g>.)

Compare this legacy with those of some European ex-colonies and I don't think we have a great deal to be ashamed of, even if you think we are responsible for things that happened a century ago. In relatively modern times some colonial powers left their newly independent countries with wrecked infrastructures.

Hutch

Wow - what a crock. You appear to have a planet sized chip firmly attatched to your shoulder. You were brought up in an affluent western democracy, not a peat-covered cottage in the glens. This is 2009 - the Prime Minister of the 'United' Kingdom is Scottish for ****'s sake! And mate, if you don't cling to the idea of running down a hillside waving a claymore, then why the choice of avatar? Why the choice of name?

Anyway - to address your, ermm, points. You seem to be attributing to me, some fond liking for empire. Did you actually read my post before you decided I was some empire-lovin' celt-hater? And who the hell gave you the right to speak for all 'celts'? "We celts", "We the celts" - no mate - just you and a mammoth inferiority complex. I can trace my family tree back nearly 800 ****ing years in Scotland. You're probably half Polish.

Oh - and I realise you were probably foaming at the mouth when you wrote that misguided diatribe - but paragraphs always makes it a bit easier to comprehend what someone's written. Scottish or otherwise.