Having a bit of a McLaugh

Scotland does like to have tartan with everything. I listen to the radio in the night a lot because I don’t sleep well and normally I switch between Radio 5 and the World Service but in Scotland it seems to be all Scottish programmes – Fred McCauley who is a great comic but seemed to be on all night when I listened. The next night there was what seemed like hours of an interview with two students about their poetry website. Switching from Newsnight with global news to the Scottish version is like leaving a rave for an evening of whist.

Still, I was pleased to see that local Edinburgh lad Chris Hoy had done so well in the Olympics along with three other gold medalists and I congratulate them all. It did seem though that nothing can be simply celebrated and enjoyed without some glum nationalist coming out to say that it isn’t good enough because Scotland doesn’t want to have anything to do with the UK. The Scots sport minister wants his own Scottish team with their own flag. Bit sad for their athletes – Chris Hoy seemed to have enjoyed being a part of the larger team. A Scots piece in the Times bewailed the overwhelming bagpipe and tartan angle applied to culture in Scotland with the danger of a nationalist annexation of matters cultural (and I suppose sporting too)

That Edinburgh is a UNESCO World Heritage site doesn’t surprise me at all. It is a truly wonderful city and I’m always happy to be back there. I am, however, a bit surprised that it has status as the first UNESCO city of literature. According to the official Scotland web site “few people realise that, outside of London, Edinburgh has more literary associations than any other part of Britain. Almost every well-known literary figure has visited and three of Britain’s most successful writers, J.K. Rowling, Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin, presently live within a mile of each other.”

I don’t want to kick up a fuss but Oxford has, I gather, more published authors per square mile than anywhere in the UK. When I lived in Blackheath the local bookshop would put “local author” on any book produced in the vicinity in the hopes of encouraging us to buy it. If they tried it in Oxford, there’d be no place for the books. Edinburgh has three successful writers living there apparently. Gosh, terrific but hardly, dare I say it, so special as to warrant the city of literature label. I see Colin Dexter around all the time and sometimes have to jump out of the way of Richard Dawkins on his bike and that’s before I’ve had much of a think about other successful authors who live here. And before I’ve looked at dead authors. Or the academic authors.

Still, must admire the chutzpah of the Scots. They got their lovely city literary status which our lovely city didn’t. And it is an wonderful city – even if they do go on about their three authors!