Category: Holidays

St. Andrew’s Day – 2017

st andrew'sThursday, November 30th is the feast day of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland.  It’s a day when Scotsmen (and women) all over the world … do nothing by way of celebration!  Of course, in Scotland, it’s a Bank Holiday, except the Scots, being a pragmatic people, don’t necessarily close all the banks or give people a day off.  (“Ya’ll no waste an honest da’s work fer the likes a tha’ muck!”)  St. Andrew is also the patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia, Prussia, the Ukraine and parts of Italy and Malta.  Busy boy, our Andrew!  He is also the brother of St. Peter, the keeper of the Gates of Heaven.  My great uncles used to say that just as St. Peter greets the dead at the Pearly Gates, his brother is right there beside him, collecting the pennies.  (“Ya’ll no be needin’ tha’ where yar goin,’ laddie!”) And if you don’t get that joke, you’re not a true Scotsman (or woman.)

We Scots have always been proud of our heritage, and unlike the Irish with their overblown St. Paddy’s Day (more booze and less brag, say I) keep a low profile.  It took an American Swede, Arthur L. Herman, to tell everybody that the Scots actually invented the modern world – which we did.  In that same vein, here are a list of prominent Scots and their contribution to civilization.

John Dunlop – who invented the rubber tire, although for years he spelled it with a y, as in “tyre.”  The Scottish grasp of the English language has always been a bit suspect.

Sir Walter Scott – who invented chivalry with his novel Ivanhoe.  Before that, knights were just smelly old men with swords — who dressed up in tin cans.

James Dewar (not Jimmy Dewar, the bass player) – who invented the thermos.  At one time, people used a thermos over and over again to keep hot coffee hot.  Then Starbucks came along, and now we just throw the containers in the streets.

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell – who invented the Stockholm Syndrome when he kidnapped Mary Queen of Scots (see below)  She eventually got to like the idea and married him.

Alexander Graham Bell – who invented the telephone, although wouldn’t you know it, every time a Scotsman gets something,  there’s an Englishman hiding in the bushes, waiting to take it away from him.  (I’m looking at you, Elisha Gray.)

Robert Louis Stevenson – who invented adventure stories which were great for kids until the Baby Boomers came along with their “politically correct” crap and spoiled everybody’s fun.

James Watt – who invented “spin doctors” when he didn’t actually invent the steam engine but made it look like he did.

John Knox – who didn’t invent religious intolerance but certainly practiced it with a vengeance.

Adam Smith – who invented “Every man for himself” economics.

Sean Connery – who invented the derogatory cinematic comparison.  After he played James Bond, no other actor has ever been able to measure up.

John Baird – who invented television and is currently burning in Hell.

Arthur Conan Doyle – who invented the smug, know-it-all detective — Sherlock Holmes — and became very famous.  This pissed off his brother-in-law, E.W. Hornung, and he invented the smug, know-it-all thief — Raffles.

Mary, Queen of Scots – who invented the stupid political leader by continually getting out-manoeuvred by Elizabeth I.

Bonnie Prince Charlie – who continued the incompetent tradition of his great-great-great grandmother (Mary, Queen of Scots) by sending his Highland followers charging into Lord Cumberland’s cannons with nothing to protect them but their tartans.

Rob Roy MacGregor – who invented the heroic outlaw and did it way better than that flighty Englishman, Robin Hood.  Here’s proof.  Kevin Costner, who portrayed Robin Hood in the movies, was also a baseball player, a corn farmer, a postal worker and a fish: Liam Neeson, who played Rob Roy, was Zeus, Aslan and Michael Collins, all gods in their respective kingdoms.  He also trained Batman, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader.  Plus, he single-handedly wiped out an international gang of kidnappers (3 times) and kicked the crap out of a pack of wolves. (You do the math.)

Joseph Lister – who didn’t invent Listerine but was such a psychotic- clean-freak that the guy who did named it after him.

David Livingstone – who invented converting the heathen — whether they liked it or not — but is much more famous for getting lost.

Alan Pinkerton – who invented the private detective which accounts for over half of America’s cultural legacy.

Robbie Burns – who wrote the quintessential New Year ’s Eve song, but unfortunately none of his other works has ever been translated into any recognizable language.

James Barrie – who invented Peter Pan, “the boy who never grew up.”  Unfortunately, Peter, Wendy, Hook and the whole gang are currently under siege from the same people who killed Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure stories.  Don’t let the bastards grind you down, Peter!

William McGonagall – who invented bad poetry and is still considered the worst poet ever to touch pen to paper.  Don’t believe me?  Read “The Tay Bridge Disaster.”

And finally

Billy Connolly – who invent Scottish humour and cashed in, big time, on the Scots’ inherent ability to laugh at themselves.

Happy St Andrew’s Day!

(Originally from 2012– with a few minor changes.)

Black Friday And The Rocket Man

rocket-1027577_1920Unless you live in a cave on the northern slopes of the Himalayas, you know that yesterday was American Thanksgiving and today is Black Friday.  Black Friday (for all you cave dwellers) is a strange American retail phenomenon that’s slowly circling the globe.  A number of different countries — including mine — are starting to cash in on Black Friday’s consumer spending frenzy.  Personally, I don’t see the attraction, but I don’t have a philosophical problem with people beating each other over the head once a year to save 50 bucks. (I kinda figure it’s like The Purge with credit cards.)  My point is nobody but Americans could a) think up something as silly as Black Friday and b) make it work.  Let me demonstrate.

There’s a guy in California who’s going to launch himself into the air on a homemade rocket to prove that — wait for it — the Earth is flat.  Wow!  Think of the irony!  And this isn’t some Star Wars wannabe, blogging from his parents’ basement.  Oddly enough, Mike Hughes, a 61-year-old limousine driver, has already “slipped the surly bonds of earth.”  Back in 2014, he managed to build a rocket, get it airborne (with him in it) and soared for a kilometre or so through the skies of Arizona.  Unfortunately, what goes up must come down, and when Hughes’ DIY project did, he ended up in the hospital.

Aside from the fact that this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of (and I’ve heard a lot of stupid stuff in my time) I do believe this is a quintessentially American story.  The thing is, Mr. Hughes, dumb as he might be, actually did built a rocket and actually did fire himself into the sky.  Now, question Mikey’s tenuous grasp on reality all you want, but any way you slice it, that’s a hell of an accomplishment.  And this simple tale of one idiot in California is a deep look into the American character.  They are a dynamic people.  They don’t really care what their government, science, mathematics, the natural laws of the universe and sometimes even common sense tell them, ordinary Americans truly believe that — if they work at it — they can do anything.  And then, incredibly, they frequently do.

So, while people all over the world are chasing the American Dream of a 50-inch-Big-Screen-TV, I’ll just say this: “Good luck, Mike Hughes — and Godspeed!”

Remembrance Day 2017

remembrance

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day.  It’s impossible to imagine 50 thousand dead bodies; thank God, our minds don’t work that way.  We have words for it, though — carnage, slaughter, butchery.  We try to understand.  We look at photographs of mud and blood and hollow haunted eyes and wonder, not so much how, as why.  Why the hell would anyone let this happen?  And then there’s that strange, weary sadness the spreads through us like a stain.

War is a million statistics, collected and bound in regret.  We’re lucky that the numbers are too big to comprehend.  But here’s the truth of it.

There’s a gravestone in France.  It’s polished white and tidy.  It sits in a field of thousands just like it — in the rain, the wind and the sunshine — and nobody knows it’s there.  But once there was a woman, young enough to dance and flirt and sing in the garden.  She knew where it was.  She could find it in her sleep — and often did.  And every year, while the politicians wore poppies and laid wreaths and swore by all their holy books they’d never do it again, she took the early train.  She walked the gravel path.  And she sat on the cold November grass and ate lunch with her tall, handsome husband.  Once, in the rain, she swore and cried and cursed his selfish adventures.  And, once, there were children, schoolgirls who pointed and whispered, and she wanted to warn them — but their teacher herded them away.  And once she got a letter on fine white paper that asked if she would come and lay a wreath on behalf of “all the Widows and Orphans,” but she wrote back politely that, with regret, she was busy that day.  And every year, year after year, the train ride got a little longer, the gravel path got a little steeper and the cold November grass got a little colder.  And every year, year after year, she remembered what nobody else did — that once there was a girl who was young and in love, and once there was a boy who loved her, and together they liked to dance and flirt and sing in the garden.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day, as we honour our veterans and rededicate ourselves to forever end the carnage, the slaughter and the butchery — please remember — that there’s a gravestone in France.