Friday, October 26, 2007

Why do we Hate?

I am off to London this weekend, just for a week of gigs down south. I am looking forward to it, I do love London.
There is a distinct anti- English feeling sometimes in Scotland; people can very rude about southern cousins. Some people say to me “That’s a shame you have to go to England to work, poor you, they are bastards” and I reply “You are a racist fucked up nutter now leave me alone!”

It can work both ways, especially with the likes of Kelvin MacKenzie the ex-editor on The Sun newspaper.

He relishes in his anti –Scottish speeches which he does in the press and TV.

Mr MacKenzie said on BBC show Question Time: "Scotland believes not in entrepreneurialism like in London and the South East, the reality is that the Scots enjoy spending it, they do not enjoy creating it, which is the opposite of down in the South."

It seems people in London shout out in the street to him “Go Kelvin, keep telling those Scots to fuck off”.

If people shouted out “Go on tell those Pakistani’s to Fuck off Kelvin” he would be charged for citing racial hatred, and quite rightly so! But it seems ok to hate the Scots; but not all English people treat us this way.

As I say it can work both ways and there is deep undercurrent of anti-Englishness even in comedy clubs in Scotland. I hate it when Scottish MC’s feel the need to tell an audience that the next act up is ‘English’…some people boo and that’s awful. There is no point to explaining their nationality in some disparaging way and offenders of this hate crime need to pulled off stage by the promoter, as far as I am concerned.

I have never had anti- Scottish feelings when I am performing in England, sometimes there are a few boo’s when there happens to be a significant football match concerning Scotland that day…football often brings hatred into a situation. There has never been anything really obnoxious hurled at me about my nationality.

Hating a country because they are not your country or because they are a country beside your country…its just mental especially as we are supposed to be British!

It’s the same with cities, Glaswegians are supposed to hate people from Edinburgh, and vice versa…I don’t really understand it, then it comes down to streets, people from one street being territorial about some other street next to it…what the fuck is that about?

Gangs all stabbing each other because their post code is slightly different, meanwhile the houses they live in are rented and at any minute they could get evicted and move to another street…then start all over again…wondering what to do with the tattoo that says ‘Smith Street Gang Rules’ on their arms!

I don’t have a conclusion to all of this as I am now slightly bewildered and am off to tattoo ‘I love Scotland and other countries, even ones in Communist run countries’ on my leg. That should take up some time.

1 comment:

Dogwithnobrain said...

Janey - my husband is English, and my Son adopted Englishness as his right... he wants to play football internationally for England!

We live in Scotland and as you can imagine this has caused him some amount of bullying while he was younger (is now 6'4" 16year old and more than capable of defending his beliefs).

He was invited to meet Alan Shearer on his tenth birthday to thank him for his support of the England Team - thru constant abuse..... Andy Gray was with Mr Shearer when they met.... Mr Gray's Reaction. Got my son in a headlock and called him a turncoat!!! Duh! Joking Aside...bit mental eh?