Posts Tagged ‘Scotland’

Articles

Scottish Independence

In Life on September 11, 2014 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

Hope.

It’s what separates us from everything else. We have hope. We look to a better future and a better life. It’s what’s makes us human. Without hope we are lost yet with hope we can accomplish anything.

The lack of hope would have Scotland chained to a government that has no interest in appeasing a small selection of its people. However a country filled with hope can see a brighter future and endless possibilities. The Scots are a feisty race.

Throughout history there are countless tales of Scots standing their ground and fighting for what’s right. We care deeply about one another and about our heritage, We speak out for those who need help and our warrior spirit is known throughout the globe.

We may be a small country but we have a fire inside that cannot be culled, it cannot be put out and it cannot be stopped. And that fire is the hope for a new Scotland. A Scotland where we control our own destiny.

The Better Together campaign is failing because it does not understand the fire within the Scots and the hope that fuels that fire. The campaign to keep Scotland part of the United Kingdom is steeped in fear of the unknown and fear of failure.

Scotland, Caledonia, Alba or whatever you want to call it has fought against empires and continues to stand. It’s people do not fear. They fight. And as we head towards the polls it makes me swell with pride to see my people fight back as the auld enemy tries it’s hardest to engulf us.

It’s embarrassing to see Westminster and it’s politicians continue to offer Scotland more and more for it to stay in the union.

Let’s call it what it is shall we: Bribery.

Westminster fears what the loss of Scotland will mean to them and what the loss of the oil deposits will mean to the coffers of the British establishment.

The Scottish don’t take bribes, they fear nothing and they have hope so bring on the Referendum and let Scotland decide it’s own future!

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Articles

Selling out your national team

In Lessons,Life,Marketing,Media,Social Media on October 9, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , ,

I am full of rage right now. Pure unadulterated rage.

I was watching the Australia v South Africa rugby match in this year’s Rugby World Cup. I glanced at Twitter and saw a few people in my stream tweeting to the @qantaswallabies account.

This rage has been building up inside me for all my time living in Australia but I feel that I should put down in words what I’ve been thinking.

HOW DARE YOU SELL OUT YOUR OWN COUNTRIES NATIONAL TEAM BY FLOGGING IT WITH A BRAND!!?!?!

If the Scottish Football Association even attempted to brand the Scottish football team and tie it in with say the Royal Bank of Scotland or British Airways or anything … even Irn Bru there would be a war in the country with people storming the HQ of both the SFA and whichever company decided to try and take over the team.

A national football team is just that. It’s a team associated with the country. It has nothing to do with a brand.

Yes brands can sponsor. Yes they can even have their names on the tops but they should never have the right to re-brand the name of the country from Australia to the Qantas Wallabies. The Twitter account, the Facebook account etc should all be named after the country and code or the Association – it should NEVER be linked intrinsically with a brand.

Forgive my writing today. I’m just so angry that people in Australia seem to take this for granted. It’s wrong. It’s really fucking wrong. The people who came up with the idea should be flogged in the main streets.

They have taken the identity of their country and sold it.

Imagine that.

Imagine selling your country…to a brand.

Total and utter disgrace.

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Articles

Uncle Kenny

In Friends,Lessons,Life on July 24, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Life just took hold of me and thanks to work and moving apartments and a whole bunch of other stuff I have been sadly missing from this blog.

Today though I felt like I really need to put some words down on screen.

I want to talk about my Uncle Kenny McLachlan. Along with my parents he is the person who has inspired me the most to be who I am.

He died a number of years ago not long after his wife. He died of a broken heart. Every time I saw him look at my Auntie Isabel it was as if he was seeing her for the first time. The pair of them were amazing and I know how much it hurt him when she got Alzheimer’s – seeing the brightest spark dull is something no one should ever see.

Add on top of that the death of his son, my cousin, Kenny from cancer, and you have a lot of heartache. He treated me like a second son always telling me stories, making me laugh and being simply awesome.

He helped instill a lot of values inside me. He taught me to be good to others and to always do the right thing. He taught me to stand up and fight for what you believe and to ‘never let them get you’.

He told me a million and one wonderful stories from his time in World War 2 as a paratrooper to his battle with the Unions against the tyranny of Margaret Thatcher in 80s Britain.

He beat cancer when his wife was still alive but when she passed away he had no one left to fight for and died. There were over 500 people at his funeral. Family, friends, comrades.

I read a poem at his funeral about how we never lose people as long as we remember them.

He went one better and wrote a book before his death. I have it and I want to share it with you so over the next few weeks I’m going to post the whole thing.

Oh and one last thing. He was a communist. Not an Animal Farm style communist but a real one. He believe that everyone was equal and that people should be good to each other, look out for one another and all work towards the common goal of a better planet.

It’s called One Great Vision: Memoirs of a Glasgow Worker

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Articles

A good friend is hard to find

In Friends,Lessons,Life on May 16, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , , ,

When I left Scotland I left behind a whole bunch of amazing people. I left behind a group of guys who I would gladly give my life so any one of them could live. The last time I was in Scotland (about three years ago) I dropped in on my mate Stew and although we hadn’t seen each other in three years we had a beer, sat on the sofa and spoke and laughed and ripped the piss out of each other as if we had only been hanging about the day before.

Frienship is a very rare gift. They are the people who are there for you when you are down and who make you smile and laugh. They give you advice. They help you through your life and without them your life is not near as full as it should be.

There are times in life when I have pissed off or upset my friends. There are times when I have probably driven them to tearing their hair out. And there are times when I have been on the verge of losing friends.

I feel like right now that is happening.

There is one friend out there who I hold in an incredibly high-regard.

He is incredibly intelligent and great fun to talk to but on the flip side he a worrier and sometimes far too deadly serious for his own good. He is a lovely person and has helped me through a lot while living in Australia and I like to think that if we had met in another country we would still be friends.

I have, I’m afraid to say, been sadly missing as a friend lately and I’m gonna change that. I’ve already emailed him to say that I’ve been a crap friend lately and that I intend to change that.

Hopefully he understands and accepts the olive branch/white flag/big bit of haggis I’m putting out there.

The richest person in the world is the person who is surrounded by good friends…

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Articles

Scotland

In Friends,Life on May 6, 2011 by kiltforhire Tagged: , , ,

I can’t have a blog called Kilt For Hire and not mention Scotland.

Although I now live in Australia I will always call Scotland my home. It is my country of birth and where I lived till I was 29.

But it is much more than just a country. It is much more than just a small piece of land filled with heather and hills and grumpy people sick of the rain.

It is a part of who I am. It defines my spirit, my passion and my fire.

It blessed me with an accent (which I don’t think I have) and one that people (for some bizarre reason) enjoy listening to. I’m one of the rare Scots I know who are quite open with their feelings – past generations of Scots would simply grunt or nod rather than say ‘I love you’ but since my uncle was murdered in Scotland and I was in Australia I vowed to always tell my parents, my sisters and my friends that I love them and how much they mean to me.

I am also blessed with a history as rich and as deep as Loch Ness (yes I do believe in Nessie and Haggis are real) and much of that history has bled into who we are as a nation.

Scotland is a wet country. It rains all the bloody time. It’s also a hard culture. You don’t grow up in a wet and miserable land being constantly attacked without ending up with a chip on your shoulder. So the Scots have grown into an angry race they will defend its own but to combat the anger they also developed what I can only describe the best sense of humour in the world.

We spend a lot of time in pubs drinking hard and when you drink through the dark winter months with others you learn to have a fast wit. You learn to riposte barbs and insults with speed and learn to make people joke and smile. Some are better than others and if you’ve read my blog post about my dad you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I’m currently reading/listening to the audiobook of Craig Ferguson’s story called “American On Purpose”. It’s remarkable story about his life and rise to fame as a chat show host in the US. My book would be called “Australian By Accident” if I ever get round to writing it! I never realised it before but he and I have a few things in common including being born in Stobhill Hospital where both my mum and gran were nurses.

Every few days I speak to my mum and dad and listening to @craigyferg (yes he is on Twitter) lately has made me miss the old country a lot. I miss it’s rolling hills, I miss the cold mornings, the dark winters where the sun sets at what seems like 2pm and the light summers where at 11pm it’s still so bright. I miss the heather and the brachen. I miss the smell. The taste of real water out of the tap.

I miss my friends.

I miss my family.

I miss home and one day I’ll return … maybe for good.

If you haven’t heard of or listened to Craig Ferguson before I suggest you do – here’s a very unusual piece of television from him, especially as it was on US TV.

At the end he says: “”The relationship I have with my father is not unlike the relationship I have with the old country, you know with Scotland, I grumble about it, I complain about it, I can even be mean about it, but I love it beyond reason it’s where I’m from, it’s what I am.” Never a truer thing has been said.

Which makes me think about one last thing that we Scots are and that’s honest and straight to the point.

Awrabest!

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