"it borders on offensive at times"

I accept that some Scots harbour a rather nasty deep-seated resentment of all Englishmen - and I'm against this. But there are historical reasons for the existence of this widespread resentment, and furthermore you only have to listen to the moronic prejudiced ramblings of gorillaman - who won't even acknowledge that Scotland is a seperate country with its own culture, traditions and languages - to realise that plenty of Englishmen still hold equally prejudiced and distasteful views about the Scots.

"one-issue, isolationist"

Firstly, the SNP are not a one issue party. While in the past some of them could have been accused of being one issue politicians, the party has grown into a fully fledged party with a comprehensive set of policies. Secondly, the SNP advocate independence, not isolationism - An independent Scotland would be a member of the EU and would work closely with Britain.

gwaan, admirable efforts there but something tells me gorillaman isn't one to change his opinion.

my girlfriend of 5yrs is scottish and whilst being english i spent most of my school life in wales.
within scotland there is an immense amount of national pride and while there's absolutely nothing
wrong with that it borders on offensive at times.

e.g. i've heard countless scots berate the english for the events you've been discussing, to the point
where i've felt uncomfortable. it's in the past. i'm not condoning anything but no-one's gonna get
anywhere if we keep harping on about things that happened when we weren't even born (that goes for any
situation, not just this one).
also, most scots will also support pretty much anything if it goes against something the english believe
in or support. anywhere else and that kind of group behaviour would be frowned upon. when she was about
to leave school for uni my now girlfriend and all her schoolmates made a pact to never have a relationship
with an english person because we're 'scum' (what can i say, i tamed the beast). what have our generation
done to deserve that kind of pre-concieved judgement?

having said all that, i do love the scots. it's just one thing that rubs me the wrong way.

and i do think they should have their independence if that's their wish, hopefully it would go some
way to slowly eradicating most of the resentment that clearly still exists. also, they already have
their own legal system and parliament so i don't really see the point of them being in limbo with regards to
full independence. with regards to language, if you want to speak it, speak it. i think every child
should have at least the option to speak/learn their country's language from the moment they start
school.

You keep missing the point:

The Acts of Union did not create one super country called Britain. Scotland never lost its status as a seperate country and its people never lost their identity. Article 1(2) of the UN Charter set out the important aim: "To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples." Similarly Article 1 in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognise the rights of all peoples to self-determination - including the Scots! The Scottish people have a right to choose independence and self-rule, either in this election or a future referendum. You would like to dismiss the SNP as a minority party - but they could soon hold a majority in Scotland - which is not your country!

"And everything you said about language is absurd. "

Right back at you!!!!

"I'm simply concerned that my country's influence and prosperity will be damaged"

I'm sure the Scots would appreciate your sentiment - that without the Scots Britain will crumble and decline!!!

"Everyone in Britain already speaks one language, English"

No they don't!!! 600,000 plus people in Wales speak Welsh as a first language and almost 60,000 people speak Scots Gaelic as a first language. There are also close to two million Irish Gaelic speakers in greater Ireland. And Scots is widely used throughout Scotland in addition to English. (Add to this an increasing immigrant population who speak little/no English and you get a more accurate linguistic map.)

You're probably one of those people who goes abroad and gets pissed off when people don't speak English!

Tha mi a' sgaoil am leathar a'faighean ràinig thu a bhàrr!!!

Shut up gorillaman you sasenach imperialist English morris dancing bowler hat wearing bufty bas!

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.
Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.

The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, AS LONG AS BUT A HUNDRED OF US REMAIN ALIVE, NEVER WILL WE ON ANY CONDITIONS BE BROUGHT UNDER ENGLISH RULE. IT IS IN TRUTH NOT FOR GLORY, NOR RICHES, NOR HONOURS THAT WE ARE FIGHTING, BUT FOR FREEDOM -- FOR THAT ALONE, WHICH NO HONEST MAN GIVES UP BUT WITH LIFE ITSELF.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves.

This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom.

But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, csating our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought.

May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

The Scottish need a good hard re-conquering, it wasn't done properly the first time round and that's why this nonsense idea of independence still holds sway. Abolish devolution, execute troublemakers, burn down their farcical parliament, incorporate all Scottish institutions with their English and Welsh counterparts, call the whole place Britain and in 100 years everyone's better off and there's no hard feelings. That's how it works; that's how Britain's constituent countries were formed, and everybody but certain whiney, mindless Scots is happy with the result. Where's the East Anglian Liberation Front? The Mercian Independence Movement? They don't exist, because we all realise that would be FUCKING STUPID.

Upon further reflection, Pitt's character would've gotten off scot-free. ("The suspect lunged at me...") Still a tragedy though.

Incredible acting.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Kilted-Scotsman
http://www.videosift.com/video/Underworld-Born-Slippy-from-Trainspotting-soundtrack
http://www.videosift.com/video/Edinburgh-A-Wonderfully-Made-Timelapse

for your scots wha hae list. NB you can change your settings (on each individual playlist) so members can suggest posts on your playlist.

fake-poke: twas a recycled joke, from a fan of no-sports, cept for the making sport of sports....this recalls Philosopher's soccer with Python, and is classic as it comes...excellent post!

....never seen a pro football match m'self, looking forward to it...

did start Buford's "Among the Thugs", on a busride on the Al-can hwy(a Scot, had finnished it, and donated).....that lasted 1.2 hours(ride)...read the rest, in a tent, by torchlight..... Fan-fuckin' Tastic!

..got it geared up for the rest o' th' trip, (900 mi) hitchhikin' to Anchorage

Aren't all kittens cute, Geez Louise! The scots got drunk and had fun lettin' different breeds copulate!
Proof that alcoholism played a part in fetish!
Standard poodles humiliated for a parade, Now That's Cute!!

farhad: I agree that Scandanavian countries are much cleaner than the rest of the west (the only vague examples I could struggle to think of earlier). However, the recent Pirate Bay scandal in Sweden should proove two points: they aren't scot-free in these countries; and the US (and its industries) throws its weight around like a champion sumo wrestler.

For those that don't know: the US & its MPAA forced the Swedish government (via threats of sanctions) to close down the worlds largest BitTorrent site. In Sweden, the government is entirely seperate to the police; they have no right to get the police to investigate anyone (never mind illegally shutting them down with no charge/reason). I state this, as it's in fact NOT illegal to have a website hosting torrents according to their own laws; plus the police witholding its servers, which other (also legal) companies use - is blatantly wrong.

Wumpus: presidents calling each other names isn't entirely what the issue is here (besides, Bush never speaks about foreign policy without Evil being in the speech somewhere: EG Axis of Evil, anyone?) The US president backing yet another illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government in South America IS. This is a persistent theme in US foreign politics over the past four plus decades - plus the rest of the world too (smells of religous-based rascism to me).

Also, as ren said: the UN is a neutral international site - even though it's in New York (not America's house - that's in Washington). And again, as ren said: the US has by far more violations of international (and its own) laws than Hugo Chavez could ever get away with. Think before you type please Wumpus (or even better: read some of Chomskys' books) I found that earlier comment insulting - and I'm a bland caucasian Brit...

This guy is obviously not a scot. Any real scot wouldn't use the word butt, but would rather use arse.

So these guys are actually famous? I saw them in concert, but only by accident. I went to see The Shins who opened for these Scots. I've never even heard of them. Who knew.