Archive for January, 2010
Scotland as a Magical, Foreign Land:
Jonathan Meades Off-Kilter Guide to Scotland
Gerry Hassan
January 28th 2010
I have just watched the first part of Jonathan Meades three part series on Scotland on BBC Two, late Wednesday night, 11.20-12.20 available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ml5wx/Jonathan_Meades_Off_Kilter_Episode_1/, and was astounded by the sheer brilliance and aplomb of it on every level.
Here was an hour-long programme about Aberdeen and its architecture. An hour-long programme about Aberdeen which was compelling, challenging, deeply serious and yet with a rich undertow of humour. An hour about Aberdeen with no Aberdonians, no talking heads, no stupid vox pops in Union Street, no stupid local celebs with their inanities, and not one compromise in the direction of the cultural destruction of much of our TV programming in the last decade (step forward Simon Cowell, Peter Bazelgette and Mark Thompson to name but three).
This is a four part series about Scotland and it exposes the sheer vacuousness, limpness, laziness and lack of any effort or imagination in most of what passes for our TV programming in Scotland. Most of what comes on our screens about Scotland seems to be part of some sophisticated, deeply thought out plan to encourage in the Scots psyche a belief that they don’t amount to very much and could not possible change things or govern themselves: a mix of cultural cringe and inferiority complex. Read the rest of this entry »
The Nation of Imagination: The Slow Birth of Creative Scotland
Gerry Hassan
The Scotsman, January 28th 2010
Tomorrow a long run Scottish soap opera reaches a new stage. I am not talking about BBC’s ‘River City’, but the appointment of the chief executive of Creative Scotland, the new quango bringing together the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen.
It has been a long and painful birth. Creative Scotland was like many things not originally an SNP idea, instead stemming from Scottish Labour with its genesis a concept coming from UK New Labour thinking. Many pinpoint long gone Culture Minister Mike Watson as first coming up with the idea, although Frank McAveety and Patricia Ferguson in a procession of Culture Ministers need to take their share of the responsibility.
There is some similarity between Creative Scotland and ‘Year of Homecoming’, another Labour wheeze which the SNP were left to implement, claim as their own, pick up the mounting bill, and take the resulting flak for. Read the rest of this entry »
The Strange Case of the Missing Scottish Independence Bill
Gerry Hassan
The Guardian Comment, January 26th 2010
The SNP are driven by one over-riding factor, the restoration of Scottish statehood and independence. More than left versus right, this is what matters in the party. It is woven into its DNA, and provides the soul of the nationalist movement.
The SNP government has undertaken a ‘national conversation’ and published a White Paper on independence, ‘Your Scotland, Your Choice’. All of this was meant to lead to the publication of the referendum bill yesterday – on Burn’s Night – and then if parliamentary votes allowed it to a public vote.
Something strange has happened to this smooth process. The bill was not published on Monday, and has now become subject to indefinite delay.
The SNP wanted a public vote on November 30th – St Andrew’s Day – to be specified in the bill. Then Alex Salmond said he was ‘not absolutely fixed’ on that date. The thinking here was that being unspecific about the date, would make the bill more about the principle of a vote. And so the logic goes this would make it more difficult (or costly) for Labour and Lib Dems to vote the bill down. Both parties are not against the principle of a referendum, just against one now. Read the rest of this entry »
Scotland in Cyberspace: New Media, Blogs and Public Conversation
Gerry Hassan
Open Democracy, January 26th 2010
The role of the internet and emergence of the blogosphere is much commented upon in the political and media world. Do people such as Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale have a new found political influence? Will a whole host of Labour bloggers emerge out of the ashes of the party’s election defeat?
In Scotland, there is the influence of the ‘cybernat’ community who have a huge influence. Its black and white zealotry was recently profiled by the Universality of Cheese run by Mark MacLachlan, while he was constituency office manager for Mike Russell, SNP MSP and minister, and his abusive attacks on political opponents.
There is a crisis of traditional media from falling newspaper sales to the lack of sure-footedness at the BBC, which reflects a public culture shaped by a decline in respect for traditional institutions and authority. This week saw the launch of a new Scottish newspaper, Caledonian Mercury or Cal Merc as it is known on twitter, by Stewart Kirkpatrick who used to run the Scotsman’s web pages, which aims to be a new online Scottish newspaper, filling the gap from the declining Scots print media (1). Read the rest of this entry »
A Letter to The Spectator on Charles Moore, Jonathan Ross and Rod Liddle
Gerry Hassan
January 25th 2010
To the Editor,
Am I missing something in my understanding of Spectator coverage?
For month after month Charles Moore (Spectator, passim) rightly berated the BBC for employing Jonathan Ross for however million and stated that he would withhold one of his TV licences as a result of the Ross-Brand scandal, inviting readers to do the same.
Jonathan Ross then leaves the BBC and not a squeak from Mr. Moore. Has he started paying his TV licence again? And why the strange silence for several weeks?
Also given The Spectator’s interest in championing decency and standards, as well as opposing anti-semitism I look forward to a future Rod Liddle free Spectator after his latest outburst. Championing his right to smoke at Auschwitz (along with numerous racist remarks) and his touching defence in The Guardian with the profuse word of the ‘c’ word, should be enough to banish Mr. Liddle from these pages. Read the rest of this entry »
