Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Beyond the Cringe.
Episode one, hosted by Jim Monahan, produced by you call that radio.
Mixed and mastered by Mako.
Recorded in front of a live studio audience at the deep end. Thanks to Glad Radio.
Enjoy the show.
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Welcome to beyond the Cringe, my new podcast, which is going to be covering all aspects of Scottish culture. The good, the bad, the shite, etc. And we're going to be talking about the whole notion of a national culture and a Scottish culture. Is there a Scottish culture? If there is, what is it and what does it look like in the 21st century?
Or is it much the same as anywhere else? Cultures international. Now, I've got a great panel to kick us off on our first episode. We have filmmaker and author and Music Historian Grant McPhee.
Author and journalist. Journalist. You still see a journalist. It's on your thing.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: I need to update that. I gave up my pressing journal column a year ago, so I have not done any journalism.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Castellanis. Poet, playwright and singer. Or the Glasgow Cross. Kevin Pee Go Day. So we're going to talk today about just a wider Scottish culture as an idea, as a notion. And in future episodes, we're going to be looking at it subject by subject. All the good subjects, Scottish television, Johnny Beatty, Scottish football and even religion. We'll even get stuck in allergen at some point. But today we're talking about Scottish culture and I wish that with Grant McPhee, you're. I said you're a fucking historian of some of the Scottish. The great moments, Scottish music. You've currently got a book out about Postcard records. You made films about films that are teenage superstars, etc. Do you think these things are when they happen and they're great when they happen.
Is there something Scottish about them or would they happen in anywhere else? Would they happen in Sunderland or Krakow?
[00:02:54] Speaker C: No, I think in terms of. You mentioned Postcard Records and I think they epitomize for me Scottishness and music, because Scotland's had a really interest in history with music in that before the Base City Rollers, there really wasn't a music industry in Scotland, you know, like a lot of places in the uk. And it wasn't until punk music came along in the rest of the greater part of Britain where independent labels sprung up. But Glasgow particularly was really unique in that punk was obviously, like, banned. In December 1976, Sex Pistols were banned from appearing at the Apollo. And throughout the rest of the UK at this time, you had your bands also at the Clash, Sex Pistols and you're saying to like major labels while in Scotland, all these young kids who are, like, as inspired as the youngsters, like from that punk moment where not. They didn't have any venues to place. You didn't have an infrastructure like London had with pub rock. And so you had, like, no venues. There was like, absolutely no infrastructure. There was no recording studios beyond very sort of simple folk recording studios. Because, folks, I was like, quite big. And for about 18 months, like, Scotland was incredibly reactive to this in that he had these just pure kids who just wanting to make this music. There's no venues to play, nowhere to record. London had zero interest in what was happening north of the border until Fast Product came out in Edinburgh. That was like a label who, interestingly didn't put out Scottish records. They put out records from the north of England. Like Gang of Four. Yeah, Mekongs and Gang of Four. And what I find interesting to me is that because people in Scotland were aware of this happening, it was incredibly inspiring that a local record label was releasing records by, like, really cool bands that were getting fantastic reviews. And, yeah, I'm a generation and a half younger than that. And when I first got into music, it was like Joy Division, which I got into first. I was, like, amazed at this, like, record label from Edinburgh was pitching that out. And in the space of, like, 18 months, you know, Fast Product put out a Scottish record by the Scars. And from Scotland not having any industry at all to being on the front of the NME with Life Fast Product is like, hugely inspiring for all of these kids. And I think when Postcard came onto that, you know, they took that and there was such a huge focus on Scotland, like, from that. And like, from that moment, I think uniquely in, like, UK culture, it was like these people in our bedrooms that built up, like, record industry. Bruce Finlay with Simple Mind is like, hugely important because unlike what the Beatles did a couple of decades earlier, the UK press and the uk, you know, someone say uk, I mean, London, everything was like, based in London. The publishers, record labels, everything. You had to go down to London.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: To do that the first time. I mean, just got you banked in management in Scotland. Yeah, their bank account in Scotland, their accountant in Scotland, et cetera.
[00:06:39] Speaker C: Absolutely. And that's like a hugely important step in Scottish music. And your postcard, you absolutely sort of like, epitomized that. That for the youth, seeing their friends, like, on the front of, like, the NME is just, like, hugely inspiring. And from that, you know, you now have, like, Sava Studios, you have, like, so much like infrastructure in Scotland. And it's all because of record labels like postcards. And you know, it's almost like a cliche now with Nirvana like covering like three songs by the Vaselines. But you know, this music did reach.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: There is a picture that Douglas Stewart once shared on social media and he's 15 and I think they're going in. How many friends are going into Glasgow? I think busking or something. And then four kids in the picture, 15 year olds. And it's Douglas from the BMX Bandits, Sean Dixon from the Soup Dragons, Norman Blake for Teenage Fan club and Francis McKee for the vast Loons. And that's. They're all hanging about the other 15. And that just happened in one wee Lanarkshire town, Bell's Hill. Was that happening elsewhere in Scotland? And also was it just much the same as what was happening in say Hull or Leeds or St Helens or anything else?
[00:08:01] Speaker C: You know, the way these things is almost something like magical that happens is all these circumstances that come together at once. A lot of people, you know, of claims like in Liverpool it's like punk and post punk scene. It was like the Clash playing on their way right turn on the 5th of May 1977. And a lot of people from Scotland would say that they first got introduced to punk music on 7 May 1977. That's like two days later. But the Clash played in Aberdeen the day before and it played in Hull. I think it was on the day after. And like nothing came from that scene. So it was like, you know, you have to have a set of circumstances. And I think one of the big things is quite often some elderly. So you know, when I say elderly in that time you're somebody's 24, 25, like three years older that will like listen to these people in Scotland they never had. There's like no central like hub like in Liverpool. There's like Eric's in Manchester.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: In Glasgow they didn't have that.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: No. Until I come, you know, certainly on Edinburgh it took a while for that. And it'd be interesting to cursing things later on, like with the arches, you know. Central hubs are so important, like youth culture and for people to listen to.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Why do you think there's nothing about. You said the sex persons were banned. Is there something about Scotland as to why we didn't have a hub? Was it just one area? Is it were kind of miserable old Calvinists. We will not have any of that.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: The easy answer is like to say that and it is part of it and it was like William Aitken, the Councillor at the time, he was banning them. And I think he's had a bit of a hard time because I think if you put everything in context when you look at the papers, I love spending time like in the library, just gone through all of these newspapers because you start to see how things tie in together socially. And also Glasgow had a huge problem with like violence outside of music. And, you know, there's no argument punk music did attract violence within the youth. And, you know, I can understand that they were probably politically aware that they couldn't be seen to promote anything that would like, cause or antagonize violence within the youth. And, you know. So, yeah, it's not really the same thing, but I think when you mentioned about like Douglas, you know, that's like an amazingly unique thing that's happened. But it could have happened in Glasgow in 1976. If you take, you listen to your youth, you know, it's like punk was like youth calling for something. The famous thing is on the Bill Grundy show, which wasn't shown in Scotland, but the aftermath was on the day after when Steve Jones said, you know, you wrote her, and people reacted to. That wasn't like the swearing, it was like some. A young person swearing but not caring on national tv. And I think that's when, I mean.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Punk was very much. I mean, that's my year, I'm 61. So it's like it was, it was. I was, I was those teenage kids and it was, it was all dead young. It was really, really young. I mean, I'm buying records. I've been obsessed with this. I'm 14, 15 and it was 14, 15 year old kids that's putting all these records into the charts and they were at the top of the charts and you're watching the Jam on Top of the pops and they're 18, they're kids as well.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: It's amazing. Very quickly from the post career, your postcard never actually themselves managed to get something into the charts, but from the Sex Pistol sign into a major and Clash sign into major, within a year and a half there was like an independent record distribution set up where you didn't have to sell record through shops and, you know, young kids, like literally in bedrooms could get things into the real charts from just swapping records and different shots. And it's an inspiring thing. And I think older people, the older generation are scared of the younger generation. And I think that's something in Scottish culture that, you know, has been proven that you have to listen to young because, you know, so it got better.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: I think that's a good. Bring in Kerstin, talking about the older generation and maybe the establishment being scared of the younger generation. We tragically saw the end of the Arches in a kind of moral panic, as if the things that they were blaming the Arches for didn't happen in other clubs or elsewhere. And the Arches was such a unique cultural venture. And GAT mentioned Hubs. The fact that it's promoted all areas of the arts and just. That makes sense, was using youth culture, club culture, to subsidize other things going on as well. And you were there at the Arches during the crucial time. Famously wrote a book with David Brachby about it.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: I did, yeah. Yeah, I was. I worked at the arches from late 2004 to 2007, but then I ran events there afterwards, so. And then, yeah, essentially we. I sort of missed the great flowering of it in the 90s, as it were. I came in when it was quite an established business, but what was really pretty special about the Arches was it was.
It was always a place that working class kids felt that they could access.
So on my first day, my job was press and publicity manager. I was 24 years old. I was ludicrously under qualified for this position. But they were doing a trial thing where they didn't put dates of birth on the. On the application forms at the point. And I was really good at bluffing. And Andy Arnold, who set up the Arches, sat me down on my first day and he said, the point of this place is that we champion the right to fail. This is a space where artists can come in and try something out and not get it right, because that's very, very important to the development of artists. And it was done. A lot of things were done on a shoestring. It was a very unpretentious place for all that. There was, you know, an awful lot of experimental live art happening there that could be incredibly pretentious. But, yeah, it was. It was a place where working class kids felt that they could access culture. They felt they could come in. I'm not saying that we would put on, you know, a production of crap glass tape in the basement and expect a load of, you know, 17 year olds to just walk in off the streets. But we did take, you know, we would place kind of performers and live artists in the clubs and the club spaces. We would blur those boundary lines and just kind of expand that conversation a wee bit. So, yeah, the Arches was a. Was an enormously important about it.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: When you and David wrote the book.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Were you looking at it for the outside, looking back on it, was it, was it then or did you realize at the time that just how important this is in Scotland and what a kind of major part of our culture it was?
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, I think I realized it when I was, you know, when the closure.
We were approached to write the book, or I was approached to write the book after the publisher read a blog I think I'd written about the closure, which was. I'm not gonna make any formal statements, but was, you know, there are a lot of thoughts that was potentially done on spurious grounds and certainly there are a lot of new developments in that area that wouldn't have been able to go ahead with a major nightclub there now.
So I'll say. But yes, we, when we went through it, David and I wrote it during lockdown. So David Brad piece was my co writer and he is one of the. He's the second longest standing Arches member of staff ever.
You know, he'd been there through very much, a lot of it. And he and I, we, we wrote to. We just got in touch. We wrote it during lockdown. We did the whole thing over zoom interviews.
And you know, we interviewed everybody from people who'd worked in the bar, people who actors had been there at the beginning to. We got Carl Cox at one point. He did kind of dinghy me on two zooms and then I got him on a third one finally. But we tried to get a sort of full perspective. We wanted to tell the story of the building and we did it as an oral history, so we let people's voices come through.
The only bit of writing proper that we did was the introduction, which was to try and set the scene of this idea of Glasgow as a post industrial space with these massive empty areas that were gradually being filled up by artists and people who could use those spaces for cheap could squat in them if need be. And the creative potential that can come from those spaces kind of spilling up into this making of the arches, I suppose, yeah.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Was that a surprise to you? Was it just triggered by the fact that it closed? Was that all happened quite quickly?
[00:17:35] Speaker B: No, I mean something you planned? No, not at all. It closed.
Bradshaw, David had been planning to write a book and so during lockdown we all got together and had a little. All the people who'd worked at a club called Death Disco, we had a little lockdown rave on our sofas, as she did during lockdown. And I sort of sent A message out into the group chat saying, I've just been approached to write a book. And I saw his face in the corner just go, oh, no. Oh, no. That was my thing, that was my chance.
And so, you know, it just. It made absolute sense to bring him on board as a sort of longest term living memory of it.
But, yeah, it kind of came about from just kind of feeling that we needed to do something in a way, and just passing those stories on to.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: It came just shortly after Scabby Queen, is that right? Just after it.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Scabby Queen.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Scabby Queen, I mean, albeit fictional, covers 40 years of Scottish political and pop culture. Yes, right through him. It's quite incredible. But if anyone's more ready, you should definitely read it.
It's an absolute great snapshot, some of which you'd have been too young to be there for, taking you through for poll tax campaigns and right through the Scottish referendum and the covers of a wide aspect of Scottish culture. And I think the last time I interviewed, you told me you were writing a play about a Scottish country. Deareness class.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: I am, swear I was.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Scotland, your thing. So the arches, the whole political culture, the poll tax.
Is Scotland, your big inspiration?
[00:19:24] Speaker B: I'm like a stick of rock with a saltire right down the middle, basically.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Really just the biscuit I've got here.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Just like your saltire biscuit.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: I have a Saltire Empire biscuit here.
Magic.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, so for me, when I've been kind of asked this question or something like this question before, and I always kind of. I kind of put it up to a wee accident of luck of the point at when. When I was born. So I was 13 when trainspotting came out, and I think you could say you were 13. You were born there, you know, when I was born. Yes, I've always. I've always been an old soul.
I was 13 when trainspotting came out. And so I was a wee bit too young to read that. But just as I was wanting to read something more than the Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley High or Point Horror that teenagers read, there was this massive flowering in Scottish literature caused by the market forces of Trainspotting in London suddenly going, oh, hello, this might be a popular.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: We all need a Scottish book.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: But at the same time. So that opened up this world to me.
The books that I was reading as a young adult were the likes of Al Kennedy, Ali Smith, Jackie Kay, James Kelman, Duncan Maclean, Irvin Welsh, obviously. Obviously I was the generation who Irvin Welsh was banned for your rpr. And also my mum was. She was big into Scottish theatre. That was her big thing. She was a full on Wild card, wildcart, wildcat and 784 supporter. So the first proper adult theatre show I remember being taken to was Border Warfare which was in the tramway before it was the tramway and it was like a four hour using the entire space of the tramway to retell the entire relationship between Scotland and England from, you know, Pictish time to Margaret Thatcher. And all of these things made an impression on me and how I thought about the world. And so for me it just kind of. It seems to be where I'm coming from. So yeah, my first novel wasn't. My first novel could potentially be many places, but Scabby Queen Moore is very, very Scottish of its way. It just seems to kind of come through me like that. I can come back to the Scottish country dancing a wee bit later.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: That's a really good part. It's a Scottish history book. Even though it's fictional and the characters are fictional, but it's. You're reading through it is all so familiar, you know, all of it, you know, the characters in it. It's like people that I've been lived my life with during those same 40 years in those same sort of places. And it's a fantastic book for that reason, I think. And it is very, very Scottish without it being. I mean there's no Empire biscuits and square sausage, but it's. But it is of modern Scottish cultures. A great snapshot, I think. Kevin, I'm going to ask you about one of your shows. Kevin does these great one man shows you, if you ever get a chance to see them. And one of them was a sort of seminar based thing that he did at the fringe called. And elsewhere called Suffering from Scottishness. Is that.
Do you think Scottishness is something that defines you, defines your work a bit or at least influences it? Or do you think if you were in, if you were across the water, you'd be suffering for Irishness?
[00:22:59] Speaker D: I think that like national, national identity is an inspiration for you wherever you're from, I think.
But I do think there is unique kind of attributes to, to Scottishness that maybe are quite ripe for translating artistically, you know, history, culture, the political paradox of Scottishness and Britishness and how those things sit beside each other. The gap between how we see ourselves and how other people see us. I think all that's like, yeah, other countries might have their version of it, but I think the, the Scottish Version is very kind of prime and it's like up front for us.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: So in the show, were you.
Was it sort of self. Self deprecating? Was it that sort of thing or was it. Was it a kind of a funny look at Scottish culture or were you sort of celebrating it as well?
[00:24:00] Speaker D: I mean, if you've seen any of my shows, you know, they kind of start with it being funny and nice until I can get you kind of relaxed and then I can hit you with the hard stuff and make you feel quite upset about yourself.
So there was a bit of that. I mean, the idea was that I was a representative of a government kind of agency and we were going to create a Scottish citizenship test and I was there to kind of workshop it and work out what questions might end up in a citizenship test.
So it was, it was funny because it was that interactive element of it as well, because the audience got to vote I. Or no. As to what questions went. What questions went in and what ones.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: What was the worst one that went in?
[00:24:51] Speaker D: I think that people were obsessed with the idea of bravery, which I followed something that isn't even Scottish. I mean, but is obviously just like.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Kind of is that bravery or would, I mean, feel free to join in or chip in. Is that bravery or is it just like mental, as we would call it in that?
[00:25:12] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: I don't like the disablers, but in a Glasgow version of mental, somebody once said to me that everybody in Glasgow knows somebody that died immediately following the words, here, watch this.
And so I don't know if that's bravery or no.
[00:25:29] Speaker D: Well, that's it. As a bravery to wear shorts during winter, do you.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: I mean.
[00:25:33] Speaker D: Or is it just a bad idea?
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Any questions? You. You would, you would add to the Scottish citizens testing of Grant, would you?
[00:25:41] Speaker B: I was, I was thinking about the word gallus there instead of bravery for a sec. That.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's probably better, right? Yeah, the bravery you just associate with, you know, like some really stupid story of some military guy that led his troops to death.
[00:25:55] Speaker D: Well, that, that element of the. The show came with me kind of singing a. A song about the guy who, who kicked the terrorist in the balls when he was on fire.
Which, you know, that guy kind of became an icon of like Scottish bravery. But actually that was a really stupid thing to do, objectively.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: That whole thing was stupid though, because the terror. This guy with just some, some petrol and a motor or some half. A bomb that he's half made in his garage driving into some concrete bollards. So he can't really get into the airport in the first place. And he thought it through.
[00:26:33] Speaker D: Wasn't it great? He was a doctor as well, you think?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: He was just. I didn't even think that guy was a security guy, was he?
[00:26:39] Speaker D: No, I think he was a driver.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Was it a baggage handler?
[00:26:42] Speaker D: Baggage handler, that's right.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: What was the baggage handler doing out the frontier?
[00:26:46] Speaker D: Definitely smoking.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: John Smeaton.
[00:26:50] Speaker D: SME. That's the guy.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: He was outside having a fag. And you saw this.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: I mean, I suppose you could say that all bravery's got to have a aspect of stupidity behind it.
[00:27:01] Speaker D: Yeah, perhaps.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: So I think we're getting to. I think we get to the point where defining summon here is that the Scottish version of bravery is just fucking draftness.
[00:27:12] Speaker D: But there's that. There's that idea of like, you know, one of the things in the show is the idea of Caledonian anti syzygy, which is a kind of concept that was invented to talk about Scottish literature. And I think it came about because of like, kind of Jekyll and Hyde. The idea that the Scottish identity is always caught between two binary points and even like, you know, kind of Catholic, Protestant, Scottish and British, you know, Celtic and Rangers, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It's like this always kind of two opposing points and we're kind of existing in between them. And I think that's really quite interesting. When I come to define Scottish culture and Scottish identity, I always go, oh, it's never one thing. It's a tension between two things. That's where it sits. And that's maybe why we always feel a wee bit uncomfortable with ourselves.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Because James Macmillan once did a speech at Edinburgh Festival which was dead controversial because I think it was every certain tepridity saying that Scotland was institutionally anti Catholic or something. But what he was really saying was that we have this thing in Scotland where as a sort of Presbyterian Calvinist country, we're a wee bit suspicious of flamboyance and color and Catholicism's a wee bit flamboyant in colours and all. I kind of forethought it.
That sort of Calvinist attitude had sort of repress the arts in Scotland, but it was also hand in hand and part of an anti Catholic kind of thing, because it's like that's what Catholics do, do that kind of thing. So it was always like, just don't, don't, don't show off. Don't anything that affected the arts badly. And I think it be because it's Scotland. There was no Nobody read it with any new words, what you try to see. I think it ended up with one of them. He got a lot of criticism, which I thought was unjust. There's plenty of reasons to criticize James O'Mellon if you want. I've got a few anyway, anyway. And it's a few streets away from me in Cumnock, actually. Working class boyfriend, a councilhouse in Cumnock, and look at him now. Anyway, let any nation hang, right? We've got our culture, right? We have, we have. There is a Scottish culture. We've got traditions, we've got customs, we've got our own religion, the Church of Scotland. We've got our own languages, Gaelic Scots, cultural icons like Billy Conley, Sean Connery, Rabbi Burns. But what about Scottish culture? Is there a specific thing that you would do, you could see would describe us? When I worked in London, somebody asked me, what about Scotland stuff at the year? And I said, you can buy fags at the ice cream van, which they thought was mental. They thought, really? You can buy Henning ice cream van. You buy tomato sauce if you want, or in. And then teabags.
They thought I was mental. But buying flags at an ice cream van. Although there's been worse things sold at ice cream vans.
[00:30:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: So you're. You're at an international writers conference and I'm going to say Morocco. Don't know why, but it's in Morocco. Just to make it as far. I think as far away for Scottish. Nobody in Morocco's ever seen Johnny Beatty. Right. And so you're in Morocco and somebody says to you, tell me about Scotland. Tell me something that sums up Scotland. Right, so not, obviously not the fags or the heroin at the ice cream van. What would you say, Kirsten, if you were asked that at this conference?
[00:30:48] Speaker B: I was thinking, I think we're quite. We're still quite connected to a folk tradition, I think. I mean, what you were talking. You were mentioning the thing that fascinates me about Scottish country dancing that I need to write something with at some point, I want to do something with it at some point, is that every child who went to school in Scotland has a physical memory of these dances. If I said to you to just now get up and give me a Gay Gardens around that table, you could do it. It would take you a couple things, but you go, 1, 2, 3, turn back, 2, 3. It's this sort of inbuilt physical memory of these dances. And then there's also, I mean, Burns Day, Burns Night, just. And I've got two Primary school age children and they've been memorizing these poems, you know. And we had a wee party with some pals and all the kids stood up and did their poems that they've all learned in their classes. That's quite in touch with ourselves. I mean, I think it's possibly because we're a wee bit obsessed with ourselves, but, you know, there's still something there. That's what I would come to in terms of an exceptionalist idea.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: We still do have these traditions.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: The Halloween's always one that gets me because every starts do a trick or treat thing. And I thought we've been doing that for. We've been doing that in Scotland.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: For centuries as guys and rather than. And I'm not that bothered about, you know, whether they change the word and all. But I just thought like there's people sort of. There's people here who. Their kids have been getting a new history of that. As if this is something that's came for America in the last 20 years rather than something we've always done.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: I think we did actually import it to America.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Hogmanay as well. People talk about New Year, but it's Hogmanay is the important thing. New Year's the hangover, isn't it?
I've also. That's why Steak pie.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Steak pie.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: That's why state pie and New Year's Day. Because you've got hangover. You can actually. You've just bought it already made at the butcher's. You just put it in the oven and lie back down on the couch. Then 20 minutes later you just got a giant spoon and eat your steak piece. That's what I do.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: Carbs and salt. It's good for soaking up the.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Kevin. That you're at the Moroccan International Writers Festival. You're thinking, why have they asked me to Morocco? No, you're thinking you've been told to say thank you.
Tell us about Scotland, Kevin. What's the unique thing about Scotland?
[00:33:10] Speaker D: It's a nostalgic culture, I think. I think we do look back a lot and I think there is a hell of a lot of self mythologizing as well. And kind of.
I think Glasgow specifically is really bad for nearly as bad as Ayrshaw, which is the. The idea of kind of making that myth of yourself and kind of building stories around it and then retailing that story enough times that it becomes a kind of fact.
So I think that nostalgia and that looking back is a big part of the identity.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Why do we look back? Do we think it was better before or something, or.
[00:33:49] Speaker D: I don't know. I think there is an assumption it was better before, but actually all anybody does is moan about what it was like before as well. So it was terrible before. And now basically yesterday when it was.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Raining, it was terrible. Now that it's sunny, it's terrible.
[00:34:05] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker D: Yeah, that kind of sums it up, I suppose.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: You look back to know yourself, don't you, though? Knowing yourself is rooted and that's nostalgia that's got.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: I think that's part of it. Maybe we don't know ourselves and we're always looking back because now I don't want to get too. Well, I do want to get too political here. Is it because we are not like an independent nation? Are we always thinking, who the hell are we? Who we are in question?
[00:34:28] Speaker C: The interesting thing with that, I was going to say. Ms.
First, I was going to say, like, Scott's like a dysfunctional family going into what you said before. And I think it's true. But myths are so important for any culture. And when Ireland became independent. So de Valera recreated this myth of Ireland as, you know, from being like this powerhouse of industry to recreating it as some sort of rural land of fairies. And the writers were with that. But I think there is something deeply within this interface, like you're saying there is a sort of archetype of your land. And I think because, like, Scotland, Ireland, like, are so similar socially and, you know, like geographically. I think we do have that, that bit. And it's like Walter Scott, like, you know, Parr recreated that sort of myth for us in 19th century. And I think, you know, anything, I think is like, I always talk about music earlier on and bands that people are really into. There's like a mess about it. There's like something beyond just this of practicality, of making music. And I think there's just something that people have this needs for mythologizing something and buy. But to buy into something, you need to create a myth and it can be quite dangerous.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Creating a myth is probably just part of creating a story, creating your identity that we don't.
Maybe, maybe we're confused a wee bit as a nation as to who we are and what we are.
[00:36:02] Speaker D: I think so.
[00:36:02] Speaker C: And I think here with, you know, Ireland, they had like this cut off and they just like changed their history and people bought into, you know, when you think of Ireland now, it is, you know, dancing in like Riverdance and stuff like that. Yeah, that stuff that's just like made up, but it can be dangerous. Like, you know the, on like Facebook there's all those like accounts about, you know, how great it was like in the 70s, remember when we woke up and we had no heating and you know, stuff like that, how great it was. It is mad stuff and you know, there's like serious, you know, as, you know, the people.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: Remember polio.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: That's right. Parents threw you at the house, went away to work and you just wandered the streets all day, you know. That was great.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: But it's, it's only, it's like a, you know, you know they used to call nostalgia like a pro, a mental illness. You know, that was something that, you know, people would be, get sent to like bed to get over their like nostalgia. But I, I, I, I kind of, you know, it concerns me that there is this sort of like sp off like thinking, you know like 30, 40 years ago was like a great time because I think the people that are promoting that have like ulterior intention.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Every photograph from the 80s, from any sort of working class community anywhere in Britain, but definitely Scotland, definitely Glasgow. Any picture for the 80s, it looks like a war zone. Yeah, it looks absolutely terrible. The buildings are in terrible condition, falling apart. The playgrounds are just, just a bit of land mass, just a bit of land where there used to be a block of flats that fell down and that's where the kids are playing.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: And all this Belgian photograph.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Yeah, not just them but whose name I can never remember. Depadon.
[00:37:53] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: But something like that made great pictures. But just in general, if you see pictures with Sunderland of Edinburgh or even any of the new towns like Irvin and all that kind of stuff at the time, just people walking around concrete jungles and. But great art came out at that time. But you mentioned earlier about the, you know, Walter Scott and all that. I am.
There was a. I used to run a wee festival called the Green Shutters Festival of working class writing and it was based on. The House of the Green Shutters was fantastic by George Douglas Brown and that was a sort of the kind of attack it that was it. Killyard, they would call that kind of stuff. Kill your and it's a working class novel set in a working class town where the trains are coming and it's going to change all the industry and all that. Everybody's gossiping about everybody and all the weep hubs. It set down my way of sitting there, a fictional village which is supposedly near come that kind of thing. It's actually a relative Charles Douglas Brown tell you that in our time though, Hannah Macbeth and True Story. But I.
There was a sort of fight back to that. The way that punk rock was a sort of fight back to stadium rock and all that kind of stuff. And it created the landscape where you would then in the 20th century, the writers became more working class themes, working class writers to the time that Kirsten was talking about when we had a boom and people like Kelman and Irvin Welsh and Janice Galloway and all that. All right, Alan Warner, all writing about the same time and changes the story again. If you're writing a story now in the 21st century, which story does it tell? Is that a story of hard men and dark bleak landscapes? Is that a story of the country in the natural heritage? Is that story of like a heroine? What's the story of? Or as it has been before? Is it. What's the story of Scotland now? For if a group of. And it's a difficult question, but if a group of new novelists appeared with a wave like we had then or we had back then, what would they be? What would they be mythologizing about? What would this.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: I think it's important to acknowledge that there is a shift away from a single monolithic idea of national identity because that can become too. I mean, I always remember this Janice Galloway quote from when Irvin Welsh and Alan Warner and Duncan Maclean were on this tour of America and it was like the shocking Scots, you know, and she said, yay. They, they. I think I. I've quoted this a couple of times. I'm going to try and remember it. Word perfect. The chaps and their priorities were Scotland as far as the New Yorker was concerned. I wanted to write and say, oh, hiya, there's women over here too. We're taking prescription drugs, if any.
But then there's. And Ali Smith as well. She said that Scotland got where we defined ourselves for so long as not English, as separate to English, that we kind of forget that there's other kinds of separateness, other kinds of otherness within our own national identity as well.
I'm interested in a kind of just that sort of hope bringing out, plurality of voice. And as somebody who doesn't live in either Glasgow or Edinburgh as well and kind of non central belt stories coming out or not non stories from those two big cities. So let's hear from. I think. I think we've spoken a lot about Glasgow today, but you know, we're not really. And Kevin, you said, oh, there's this Glasgow versus Edinburgh as the Caledonian aunties, Iggy. But I was thinking about the whole massive north of it there that you know as well.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: I mean, I'm from. I'm from Ayrshire. Where I was brought up was heavy industry in the middle of the countryside. That's what coal mines were, steels, all that. All those things were just basically that wherever you lived, in the east of your shire, anyway, you lived there because a village existed because of a coal mine. And everybody has kind of shared interest in that one way or another.
But you lived in the country, you didn't live. It was an industrial town. But you're literally seconds away. You just go around the corner and there's a farm.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: So it's a kind of difference. And growing up, you grew up outside, basically, in Glasgow. When you say you grew up outside, you grew up that's standing at a corner or whatever that you know you're really outside. And as you always felt. I know loads of people say this about Ayrshire, that the sky is almost like part of you. You know, it's. It's like you. You don't have to look up to see the sky like you do if you live in Glasgow. You just.
It's there, it's virtually all around you kind of thing. And so there is a. And I think there's great stories to be told about the landscape idea, which I believe is your next book. Is it? I didn't see any plugs, but tell us a wee bit about it, you know, about the land thing, you know.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah. My Danube is narrated by the Renfrewshire countryside, essentially. Dealing. And it does not like humans. And it's dealing with thousands of years of human ownership.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: So humans like bed bugs or something.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: We better.
[00:43:13] Speaker A: So I was going to. Moving on some questions for these again, back to some questions I was going to ask in terms of Scottish culture and now, or in the past or whatever. What Kevin will ask you first, what we good at? What is it we're best at?
[00:43:36] Speaker D: I think we are exceptionally well attuned at taking the piss and ourselves and everything else. And I mean that. I don't mean that as any kind of like put down or insult. I mean that that is a skill that we have and we're very, very good at it. And.
And we're well trained in it. I mean, that that's from birth, that you learn those skills and sharpen them.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: You got to get in there before somebody else.
[00:44:03] Speaker D: Of course, it's part of the fun of it. And armor. Yeah. And I think that when it's in good jest. I think that we are very, very good at that and the translation of that into our art. You know, you talked about Billy Connelly earlier and stuff and. But even, you know, modern kind of stand up in Scotland, I think is pretty exceptional.
And some of our TV shows, though, you know, the quality's maybe declined in recent years. But I think when I think of Scottish tv, I think of Scottish comedy and I think that in terms of our culture, I think that that's something that defines us and actually is a very positive thing, is our ability to look at ourselves and poke fun and have a laugh.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Are we as good, as good at letting other people poke fun as us?
[00:44:54] Speaker D: Oh, no, we're far too sensitive for that.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: I mean, that's. Every time I see somebody English talking about deep fried Mars bars, I'm like, what are you talking about?
[00:45:03] Speaker D: I know that it's the worst chat, though, and it. Yeah, no, I think I agree with that. I don't. I. I think that it's like, you know, you have to be part of the club to be able to tell the joke, and if you're not part.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Of the joke's directly into you, it's even better. I think that's.
I went to see Christopher MacArthur Boyd once and I had Bad Seattle at the time, so I was really, really struggling with my walking. And then part of the show he said that Scottish men of a certain age have the posture of a prawn cracker. And I thought, that is exactly me walking up here. That was me just aimed right at me.
What are we good at, Gant?
[00:45:47] Speaker C: I think Scotland's historically been great at producing, like, mavericks, like individuals, you know, especially in sort of like managerial roles, you know, whether good or bad, you know, like in football. And it's remarkable, you know, you're talking about, you know, Bell's helm, but, you know, you have like the three football managers from Liverpool, Manchester United and let's, you know, all creating, you know, like, great tunes. You know, I should never be talking about. I know nothing about football. So it's, like, bad.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: And I know what you mean.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: Yeah, from like, Lancashire and, you know, in terms of, like, people have been involved in, you know, the army of like, you know, people like David Sterling, some crazy guy who invented sas. And, you know, there's like, something within Scotland where they're like, very good at infiltrating and, like, bossing people around, whether it's against.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: Influencing the culture.
[00:46:47] Speaker C: Influencing the culture.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:48] Speaker C: I think. I think Scotland, like a Lot of, you know, it's almost like a. A big, like, seaport, you know, in places like, you know, Liverpool and you're like New York, where people can be very sort of like, transient, like people can like, sort of like flow through. And I think Scotland has been like, great at having these mavericks go out into the world, you know, in terms of like, you know, not necessarily doing things in Scotland, but people from Scotland. And you're part of that Scottish culture, going to other places and, you know, creating something, you know, amazing years, like the great, like, invention, like stuff like TV and the telephone and all the medical invention. They weren't invented in Scotland, but it was like Scots.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: Did we even invent them, though, actually, that. That's the thing about culture. They used to be a tea toe. My granny had that the tea to listed all the things that Scottish people invented. And I always thought to myself, so we probably didn't. We've probably invented the idea that we invented everything. Yeah. And I know. I know that everybody else claim it. There's loads of different nationalities. They claim to telephone and the television and all that kind of stuff. But do we invent stories about ourselves that make us superior? We are kind of. Do we have to see ourselves as kind of almost like better than. Better than others? We're better at inventing things. We're better at fighting. We're better at fabbing. All right.
[00:48:15] Speaker D: We try to make ourselves feel better.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: Is that because. Is that because we live next door to somebody who's probably. It's like better than things.
[00:48:24] Speaker D: Yeah. I think it's honestly as simple as that. I think it's like being. You're like constantly compared.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Yeah. To somebody else or forgotten about and trying to.
[00:48:34] Speaker D: Exactly. Trying to go unlock something.
[00:48:37] Speaker C: You know, there's an underdog sort of like spirit and think that's like a really positive thing in.
[00:48:43] Speaker A: You think that's in Scotland rather than Scottish people. That's in Scotland. Because I'm thinking we do have like insanely arts. You mentioned Ella, Randy, Arnold. There's people come along who instigate things. And I think David Gregg, Alison, when he had their revolutionized Scottish theater.
David's not Scottish, is he? Is he? I can't remember.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: I think he is.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: Is he?
[00:49:06] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Did he come. You're from England, from a theater in England or something?
[00:49:09] Speaker B: Potentially. But I mean, I think. I think he's. I think he's always been asked that.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Because it's his idea to call this podcast beyond the Cringe as well. Thank you, David. But I'm sorry, I can't even read your accent. So he's like, right now.
So people come here from elsewhere.
Scotland has that culture for them as well. It's not a thing.
[00:49:29] Speaker C: It's reserving Scottish people because that transient thing is like. So in the person who, you know, started the Traverse Theater in, like, Edinburgh.
[00:49:39] Speaker D: Jim.
[00:49:39] Speaker C: Can't remember his surname, Jim.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: He used to do these amazing parties in Paris.
[00:49:45] Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: I went to one of them once. Mustache just died. Sorry. This is incredible.
[00:49:52] Speaker C: Involved in, like, international times, all these amazing counterculture things and. But, you know, them just sort of like going through Scotland for a brief period of time, it just like, influences people and, you know, that's as important to me. Yeah, I don't think matters where somebody's born. It's like, you know, as part of your culture. It's just like people coming through this, like, transient nature of, like, being a port, I think, is. Yeah, something that's fascinating.
[00:50:16] Speaker D: I think a lot of people, especially, like, in the last 10 or so years, have been really attracted to that mythology of Scotland and moved here because of that. And I remember going to see Josie Long, like, ages ago, and she'd done a whole bit about how she was like, oh, I'm obsessed with Scotland, I'm going to move there one day. And everybody was laughing. And then. I think she lives here now.
[00:50:40] Speaker A: She made a film, I think, called Letters. Josie will be a guest in the earlier show that lives quite nearly, actually. She was in. She made a film. I can't remember what it was called. It was a short film and the character was her and she'd moved to Glasgow because it was going to change her life and I think it was indie Disneyland. She goes on going to Glasgow and I'm just going to go and hang around with Bell and Sebastian and all that stuff. It's going to be great because that's what Glasgow is. And of course, it's mainly her sitting in a cafe on her own, lonely and all that kind of stuff. But she did move to Scotland and not only that, her kids were born in Scotland and they're ginger.
So there must be something not just in the culture, something.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: The water. Now we're putting it in the water.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Something in the water as well.
[00:51:22] Speaker C: And they've, like created their whole mythology themselves. They're record sleeves. And that is something. When I was in New York, that's what people talk about. Bell and Sebastian, you know, it's like this tiny independent from Glasgow are huge and just like creating this glamorous I'm.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: Not claiming them fierce, but Stuart fear. So Stuart motherfears. But yeah, absolutely.
[00:51:45] Speaker C: They've created. So, you know, it's like. It's not real. You know, Glasgow's not like this.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: Hanging around in sort of like midnight cafes and stuff. But people do come to like Scotland because of that and I think that's fascinating.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: I think I was in. I think it was a Lane Najiro baby show. Mark isn't over here in the West End. Says the guy Faberland. Sebastian's his best friend.
Yeah.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: But I think there's that size of us, though, isn't. I mean, the fact is that we're a tiny, tiny, tiny place. Everybody knows somebody.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:14] Speaker B: And it makes it much easier to have that kind of. You know, I was a massive Bell and Sebastian fan when I was a teenager and now my son, my eldest son's godmother, she's also the godmother to Stuart Murdoch's. And, you know, this sort of like, it's the smallness of it makes it very easy for people to connect and know each other as opposed to a place like London, which is just this sort of, you know, people traditionally, maybe Scots, used to move to London if they wanted to work in the creative industries. But I don't. I mean, apart from maybe actors, I don't think that's as essential a thing to do anymore.
And it makes us a bit more humble. You don't get that sort of, I am the great artist so much. Maybe, you know, I am, you know, working self deprecate. It keeps you humble. It's a small, small pond. I don't know, maybe those. Those kind of things work for something. Whether you were born here or not.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: What. What would be good at? What are we best at?
[00:53:12] Speaker B: What are we best at?
[00:53:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Self mythologizing.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: What are we shite at?
[00:53:23] Speaker B: We are shite at acknowledging wider forms of difference. And I also think we're pretty shite at taking accountability for negative aspects of Scottish influence throughout the globe.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: For the empire.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: The empire, yeah. The empire's a pretty easy one to handle.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Tobacco and sugar trades.
[00:53:42] Speaker B: And they made us do that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, look at the whole of the merchant city in Glasgow. What that was built on the back of, you know, whose backs that was.
[00:53:52] Speaker C: Built on sugar plantations.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: I think even the fact. The fact that it's called a merchant site, I think is quite horrible because we know what kind of merchants they were, we know what their merchandise was. We know that the boats going that way or maybe bringing Sugar. But the boats, when they went that way, brought slaves. We see merchant cities, if that makes it a kind of smart sounding place.
[00:54:13] Speaker D: I think people were really shielded from that for years. So I think honestly, they've done that.
[00:54:20] Speaker A: Was it always called merchants called the.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Merchant City for a long time?
[00:54:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: It's got all their big houses.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: I mean, I don't know if I've called the Merchant City when I was a kid or young. When I was younger.
[00:54:32] Speaker D: No, I think when they'd done it up, they were like, oh, we need our name for this. And obviously like Stockwell street was like that and stuff.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: But it was. I, I. My first job when I left the List magazine was social media person for the Merchant City.
Lasted two months. It was not for me.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: But yeah, the bastard city or something like the bastard city would be. I'd go there.
[00:54:58] Speaker D: I definitely go for a painting. Bastard city.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: Merchant City was meant to be that. So this is where all the, you know, the people are in. The new industries are going to be hanging around, having lunch at Pret and all that stuff. It's actually just full of mad Fenian pubs. That's basically it now.
[00:55:14] Speaker C: It's just every.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: Just pub after pub after pub. One guy in a guitar singing an IRA song. Hunter's a drunk guy staggering about the flare nuts. That's basically the merchant set.
[00:55:23] Speaker B: Great. Like marble columns and statues of all of these slave traders.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: We do have them, don't we? Do we do have statues of these guys? I don't. Does anybody know what the statues are talking about? An iconic Glasgow in an iconic Scottish setting. George Square. Does anyone know what any of these statues are? People in them?
[00:55:42] Speaker D: One of them is a guy who invented the modern police force.
[00:55:46] Speaker A: All right.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:47] Speaker D: Was his name Peel? Which is what? Which is where they. I think they originally, you know, in old films they'd call the police.
[00:55:55] Speaker A: Pillars in Ireland and Liverpool came from.
[00:55:59] Speaker D: Him and he said. Yeah. So one of his statues is there, which is the one that all the fascists were very interested in protecting last time.
[00:56:06] Speaker A: She's Scottish. Is there any connections they invent police as well. We invented the Bullis, man. Absolutely brilliant.
[00:56:15] Speaker D: Yeah. There's. Rabbi Buns is up there somewhere in George Square, isn't he? He's kicking a bit in George Square.
[00:56:20] Speaker B: He's gonna hazard a guess that none of them are women.
[00:56:22] Speaker D: Absolutely not.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: No women in statues. Is there any women in statues anywhere in Scotland other than La Passionara? Who's Louisville Scottish?
[00:56:31] Speaker D: The Mary Barber.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: There's Mary Barber.
[00:56:34] Speaker A: History I find quite disturbing. Though, because it's a very small Mary Barber where a whole lot of people who are increasingly smaller.
[00:56:43] Speaker D: So she's gaborrows kind of falling off.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: I don't know if you walked past. If you came out of government bus station and walked past that statue and somebody said, have you seen the. Start your Mary? And you go all in eyes Mary Poppins. That's what I thought when I saw it.
Does they say to me, this is a powerful woman who not only took on local government and national government and beat them, became the first female provost of Glasgow. It just looks like. Does there be women with wains fall on her? And I was a bit disappointed with that one, to be honest.
[00:57:15] Speaker B: There's a lot of naked women on statues up and down Paisley High Paisley around the cathedral. Yeah, a lot of naked women in Paisley. And all of them are like. I'm not entirely sure. And they're all like kind of. They've got like the names of the big mill owners and things on them, but it's not, you know, they were not naked women. They were, you know, they were men. They've got the men's names on them. This was dedicated to the memory the.
[00:57:41] Speaker A: Big mill owners was called Coach. You think given her one?
[00:57:44] Speaker B: I think he's got one. He's got one as well. He's also maybe got one. Yeah. Oh, well, I got a coat.
[00:57:49] Speaker A: It was a Coach.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Sorry. It was a Coach joke and I.
Do you want to do that again?
[00:57:54] Speaker A: The main thread, though, they didn't actually make coats, but, you know, it was a. There's a lovely big church which is called Coats, the Coats something church. It's beautiful. Just off the city center. I don't know streets in Paisley and on it, coats that are Baptist Church, Memorial Church.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Is that the one with the angel?
[00:58:11] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. It sits back just from the main. Is it causes Age street if you turn just off it. So it's wonderful. And it's funded by them, for them, I think maybe even in their own church, the Coates Baptist Church. Why not have your own church if you own everything else? If you own the mill land, houses and the shops. So, Gan, what are we shy at?
[00:58:37] Speaker C: I think Crew, of course, in the accountability. I think there are huge problems and I think really probably in the post independence debate, there's like a huge division which isn't really fully addressed and I think that's causing lots of problems for our culture going back to like the dysfunctional family. And what you were saying about your. There is something in between and I think until that address of it, I think Twitter has just been, you know, regards of that terrible for culture because everything is just put into, you know, almost like headlines. It's. And you have to be like, yes or no. There's like no gray, you know, heroically no in between sort of as, you know, we need. And I think we have like, you know, it's almost an irony with trying to find what is Scotch. And I see, you know, I've seen like some people like anything that's sort of like you're promoting Scotch culture. You know, people hate it because it's like, you know, too like Scottish. And I think until that's addressed, I think we're basically like terrible at fighting each other.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. When actually and I noticed that with languages a lot. Do you know, some they'll put Gaelic signage up somewhere and the people. There's people who. There's people who are against that. And I never know why because they never say why. They just call that, oh my God, I put Gaelic signs up. It's a waste of money. And you're thinking, why are I bothered?
[01:00:18] Speaker D: It's woke. Why don't you care?
[01:00:22] Speaker B: That's the same people who use that cry laughing emoji to react to.
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Why use that? Is that not cool?
[01:00:29] Speaker D: Oh, I said, well, you're one of the guys.
[01:00:35] Speaker C: I was getting worried for a second.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: No, just that that kind of sums everything up, that one. We picture to me that it's just a default response and it negates anything good or honest. We are not good at sitting with earnestness, which is coming from the self deprecation, but it's flipped round a wee bit. But, you know, sometimes you do need a wee bit of earnestness and you know, to just be able to dismiss everything as woke with a cry laugh emoji. I'm sure you use it in a very different way, Jim, than is fine.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, probably not. No.
Have I ever sent you one?
Don't misread it, please. I've got a final question.
All right, for time I think we've been here. What I don't want to do with this podcast is bore people and gone too long. Because, see, when I start talking about this thing, especially people like ourselves who are interesting people, this could be a seven hour podcast easily. But I'm going to ask a final question and it's a tough one. It's Scotland's independence, newly independent Scotland, and the first, first minister of the newly independent Scotland, well, he shall be called the first minister I said he, because it will be a he, won't it usually is she, whatever they're called, The Prime Minister of Scotland says, Kirsten Ennis. Hello, you're my new cultural Secretary. Give me a big idea. What's your big policy idea that's going to boost Scottish culture or help Scottish culture?
[01:02:08] Speaker B: This is not a tough question at all. I would say have a look at Ireland, right. Have a look at the absolute constellation of stars that, particularly Irish writing. Just because that's my wee area.
You know, you've got your, your Sally Rainey's, your Com Tobines. That is a country that punches massively above its weight. And what does it do? It has tax breaks for artists, Tax breaks for artists, tax breaks for artists. But I also, having said that, there's a wee bit of me that's like, oh, you think you're good, do you? As an artist, do you think you deserve not to pay tax?
[01:02:41] Speaker A: Can't you feel it?
[01:02:42] Speaker B: But I've get it and I've got this sort of internal that it is my moral responsibility to pay tax as well, to contribute. What Ireland has done. I was. I was asked to go over there.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: They do have a thing. It's not just tax free, so I think that's also a kind of benefit thing as well. Yeah. It's almost like tax credit and revert.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: Yes, tax credit as well.
[01:03:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: So if you, if, if you're. If you're earning well, you do get tax breaks, but in the times you're not earning because they're all. They're all freelance, so there's loads of times you're not earning, you will get some sort of allowance. I can't know what it's called, but.
[01:03:14] Speaker B: That'S what I'm thinking of more than tax breaks, which now I'm saying it sounds very glib and just let me not pay tax because I read books. No, it is that sort of helping writers who. Well, you know, artists who need the time, like Andy Arnold said, the right to fail, the time to build up your practice. You can't just spring fully. I used to say this, but then Douglas Stewart came away and did this. The other Douglas Stewart, not the BMX Bandits. My Douglas Stewart, you know, won the Booker Prize on his first novel. I used to say nobody from Scotland would ever do that. But, yeah, you need time to hone your craft and build it and make those mistakes. And it's about investing in your belief that is a good thing for your country to do, that your country needs that space to reflect upon itself.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: It benefits everyone.
[01:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I was invited over there and me and Eddie Reader and we were doing this sort of music in Scotland, music and writing. Scottish thing. At the Museum of Literature, they have a museum of Irish Literature.
You know, they've got statues of. I mean, I know we've got Rabbi Burns, but, you know, they are. They've got. For all the Rabbi Burns statues, they've got as many of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce and Yeats, and they've got a whole museum just of Irish literature talking about how it tells its story. And that sort of reverence for the importance of a country's ability to reflect upon itself. That said, cost a living crisis. Not totally sure that I feel, you know, sometimes I feel like we're not worth it for that.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: So, yeah, I think that was interesting you said that there. Because I think there is a lot of that. There's a lot of embarrassment and kind of almost shame comes with the idea of, sorry, I'm an artist. Sorry, I'm getting subsidized. Sorry, creative scum funded. I'm sorry. Like, as if we have to apologize for. And I don't know if that goes back to something we talked about earlier, about that sort of Calvinist attitude to flamboyance and showing off, that kind of I can't. Your fear thing, sit back down type of thing.
Grant, you're the new culture secretary. What's the big idea? The big policy idea?
[01:05:19] Speaker C: I think, you know, it's also obvious. It's just like, invest in your youth financially. It's like, you know, when the Olympics were, I think it was like the 2012 Olympics, was it, you know, like, Britain won, you know, so many medals, and that's because they invested. And you have nourished his youth, like, for that. It's like forever. Football in sort of why I keep on talking about football, because I know I talk about football, but, like, in Brazil, they invest in their football team. In, like, New Zealand, they invest in the rugby team.
And it shows, like, dividends, I think. Exactly as you're saying, like, bring back the job seekers. It's not Job seekers Alliance, but the income support for artists. In the history of, like, music, when that was, like, cut out in, like, 1999, I think was. Or like 2000, you know, it just evaporated the creativity because, like, young people and working class people can't afford to be artists. And, like, there's so much that it been created by. And you know what it reaps back here. I'd rarely sort of quote, anything that Liam or Noel Gallacher would say. But when they were on that scheme, they, you know what was paid out to them in our benefits, they paid more back in like tax than like probably every single person that paid for that.
[01:06:46] Speaker A: It was an enterprise alone, enterprise loan scheme. I think you got 40 pound a week and your rent if you had a flat. But it was, that was a time when 40 pound, it was probably worth double or more or less things. So if you're a young guy, you know, you can afford to at least try being artists if you're getting money. So understand the Galahas would have been that position. They'd have been a position where otherwise you would have went and get a job. You get a job, you get too tired, you end up it's just have a covers band and play the local pub and forget that idea about any songs.
[01:07:15] Speaker C: What they paid back and tax paid for pretty much every single person that was like on that. And it works. And also like, you know, we were talking about like myth building earlier on.
Take away that stigma, create like a myth that it's like good to be an artist. Because like no, I don't think people, they think it's like some kind of like wanky thing and like yeah, absolutely. Oh no, there's like, you know, cost of living crisis, you know, which there is. But they don't have to be separate things. You can be an artist, you know, that's probably the bad time to be an artist, to give people something to take them out of there.
[01:07:52] Speaker A: That always happens in terms of austerity and all that stuff. Artists are seen as an extra, like a, like a non essential and all that. But it's some of the people who are the loudest complainers about artists or artists being middle class and all that. I think sometimes you actually stop and think that. See that great song you just sung at the karaoke? An artist wrote that, you know what I mean? It's given you pleasure 500 miles away from where it was written 20 years later, you know what I mean? And it's cheered you up and it's gladdened your heart and it's made you feel great. And it's a piece of art, that's what it is.
[01:08:30] Speaker C: Anything to make somebody happy for three, five minutes is amazing.
[01:08:34] Speaker A: And so this would be personally, I mean I don't want to be too biased, but personally, in an independent Scotland, if I'm the President, this would be my Cultural Secretary, Kevin Peel day.
And so, so Culture Secretary, you can run with one Big idea that will fund it no matter what it is.
[01:08:53] Speaker D: I think I would introduce the get over Yourself bill which would be trying to instill confidence in the next generation to. To stop doing what we are talking about, of that embarrassment, to move beyond the cringe even. Exactly, exactly. Because yeah, I feel it all the time because it's like. Of course it feels embarrassing. It's like, oh, you know, your dad used to work in the shipyards and you're writing poems. It's like it's as I ready, as they would say and, and it's hard work, like mentally hard work to detach yourself from that and get over that and get to that place where you're comfortable and feel confident. And I don't think anybody teaches you that. I think that most people actually don't want you to succeed in doing that.
And it would be really great to institute something so that we could tell the younger generation to know, make the same mistakes basically and that this is as credible a job as any other job in the world and it's necessary and it's great and it contributes to society. So, yeah, get on board.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: Excellent. Excellent. So I'm calling that bill beyond the crunch. I'm calling it. I've.
I'm. I'm going to put a. Would you call that. Would you call that thing Copyright one already. Just, just in case, just in case we get independence and lightly and just in case you become the culture.
I'm grabbing it. That was so. I think we solved some of the problems we've got to some of the questions at least to move on me today. The next episodes will be interest as we're going to be covering it subject by subject. But we'll come back to this and I want all of you to be back on again at some time, you know, form a wee team of regular correspondents and all that stuff. So I've enjoyed it. Thanks very much for coming on. Thanks to Kevin P. Ho Day, Kirsten ennis and Grant McPhee.
[01:10:57] Speaker C: Thank you, Jim. Cheers. Carry on.
[01:11:01] Speaker A: This has been a you call that radio production powered by the patrons at patreon.com forward/you call that radio. Thanks to all the guests. Thanks to Jim, thanks to Glad Radio, the Deep End and Governell Baths for allowing us to use their studio. And join us next week for episode two of beyond the Cringe.
