Shifting Cultural Boundaries – John Cleese gate

Shifting Cultural boundaries – John CleeseGate

It has been a very hard week.  I have finally finished this piece:

I think the Misery Mandala went rather well.  It is not cheap, but nothing worthwhile is.  I refuse to undercharge as I would rather wait than work for no money.  Besides which, I have to look on any work that sells as working capital.

I am working on three design concept strands at the moment, so I should bring out a catalogue of sorts towards the spring of next year.  It is a lot of work, but I think it is a worthwhile idea to bring out an interior design concept to distribute to people who may be confused by my lack of compromise in terms of interior fashions.  I cannot stand lightbulbs in fishbowls, for example, so I am unlikely to be the next Kelly Hoppen.

I was attacked by two Scottish Nationalists last week for my comments on the quick way of building our economy to withstand the demands of remaining in Europe.  As someone who has a keen interest in Cultural Economics, I think grumpy old men should stop looking at their wrinkles and assuming that they know better, because a steady ‘diet’ of BBC and mutual backstabbing is unlikely to broaden their minds.  Talking of which, I would like to advise that you be very gentle with John Cleese, who rather stuck his foot in it with his complaints about Scottish journalists this week.

John Cleese has lived through a period where the British Empire died, where Scottish people were considered cannon fodder, and then whingers who were to be starved of income for political purposes, and he has benefitted enormously from Britain just the way it was.  He cannot be expected to evolve, because he is in the downward spiral phase of his life.

Yet that empire phase was considered charming by many Scots as well as English.  Only a week or two ago my mother suddenly chastised me for my lack of conservatism, since she was brought up in a militarist, monarchist, conservative family who struggled to feed themselves and the poor down the hall for decades via extremely hard work. Her father died very young thanks to damage sustained in WW1.  Her brother did very well during WW2 and like many of their generation, they remember the war as being a paradoxically happy period in British life, when everyone worked together.

What we are seeing at the moment, is a massive cultural shift, not to the left or to the right, but to a consideration of what is best for the future.  Cleese would like to see a return to the past, like many Englishmen and Brexit voters.  This is unlikely, but a stronger sense of English nationalism is not something that as Scottish people, we should misunderstand and call racism.  They want to have some national pride.  So would we.

It is a nonsense to suggest that nobody should express feelings of nationalism when we as Scottish nationalists are doing that when we express our wish for independence.  As I was saying this morning, to suggest that curtailing free movement in Europe limits graduates is also a nonsense when Scottish graduates have to move to England to get work experience, frequently stay and run newspapers, (and indeed the whole UK in the case of Scottish politicians) and only after acquiring experience in English supported businesses come back to work at home.  English rule made sure that was the case by the simple method of destroying our industrial economy.

The whole point of independence is that we can change that, create a real economy based on the principle that Scottish, not English, culture is superior when in Scotland.

We need to regain our sense  of Scottish pride and encourage greatness at home.  Taking the piss out of each other, expressing whining outrage at the rantings of a grumpy old man like Cleese, or rising to the bait when media figures choose to be offensive is not helpful.

I was extremely irritated by the two nats that had a go at me for making some very pertinent points last week and I actually considered leaving the SNP as being a tiresome, parochial and small minded party, until I considered that both of the men trying to discourage me were from the old school, tartan trouser and folk music generation that we as a country need to grow out of, in stature and mentality.

So, I implore you, think bigger and educate the boors, rather than simply labelling them and moving on.  If you find yourself getting annoyed, take a step back and look at the situation again. You are right, and they are wrong.  Be patient. be broad minded and stay sharp.  It is going to be a hard two years.