The Chancellor, who was born in 1953, said that he had been visiting the islands each July since he was a year old. His mother had grown up in Stornoway and her family were from Great Bernera, the island now connected to Lewis with a road bridge, where his cottage is. It was originally a thatched blackhouse built by his great-great-grandfather in 1851.

Speaking to the Stornoway Gazette, Mr Darling said: "I was fishing for cuddies. It was pretty dirty in those days and I was covered in oil and fish. I remember my friend just watching on and my auntie thought I was a goner. But I managed to get out."

Although he was formally educated in Kirkcaldy and at the private Loretto School in Musselburgh before attending the University of Aberdeen, the Chancellor also revealed that he had for a short period been a pupil at the Nicolson Institute, the secondary school in Stornoway.

Many in his family spoke Gaelic but Mr Darling admitted the language had beaten him.

"There was a time when I could understand some Gaelic but it is not something you can dip in and out of. My mother spoke Gaelic to my aunts and that's what she did when she did not want us to know what she was saying."

[gallery]

So the games of the XXIXth Olympiad have finished at last and we can now get back to concentrating on football......but it seems that over the next four years Olympic football will be very much in the news.

The reason is that the selection of London for the next games gives rise to the possibility of a Great Britain team playing in the football tournament. It won't be the first time that a team representing Great Britain participated at the Olympics of course - GB won the gold medal in 1908 & 1912 when represented by the English amateur team. They also won gold in 1900 when represented by Upton Park FC. (no NOT West Ham!!!) In fact Great Britain have been represented at the Olympic football tournament 8 times, the last time being in 1960. At the London games of 1948 they finished fourth - their goalkeeper a young Ronnie Simpson who went on to win the European Cup with Celtic nearly 20 years later.

But the British participation has become something of a controversial issue. Presently GB don't have the opportunity to qualify because UEFA uses the Under 21 European Championship for its qualifiers - a tournament that the home nations enter individually, and it is that individual nation status that is causing the problems. Scotland particularly have registered their opposition. They firmly believe that taking part in a united British team is the thin end of the wedge in losing their independent country status.

They have good reason to be worried. Sepp Blatter - yes him again (sigh...) - said in 2005 "We have confirmed in writing that they have to provide a Great Britain team for the 2012 Olympics, but the four British associations will not lose the rights and privileges acquired back in 1947."

Sounds good...but then in March this year the same Sepp Blatter suggested... "They should enter only a team composed of players from England, this will then not provoke a long and endless discussion of the four British associations." Once again the head of FIFA showing his incompetence and his indecision. Is it any wonder the Scots are worried? Why "England" after all? Why didn't he say Wales or Scotland? Mr Blatters perception is that "Britain" and "England" are the same thing. Perception though is not fact.

Theres no doubt that the individual status of each of the home countries is precarious. Then British Home Secretary Jack Straw has already put forward the idea that the home nations should play as one in all competitions. He's not the first and he won't be the last. Former sports minister Tony Banks said the same thing. Both of course are Englishmen. You don't seem to hear of many Welsh or Scots folk embracing the idea. That's because they still cling to their national identity.  One Scot who does like the idea is Walter Smith the Rangers manager. But then given that Rangers fans are known for waving the union flag and proudly singing British anthems such as God Save the Queen & Rule Britannia at matches, its hardly surprising that he is in favour - toe the party line and all that.

Mr Blatter would do well to remember that FIFA's own statutes acknowledge Britain as four separate countries. Not as one.

]]> http://abritdifferent.wordpress.com/?p=521 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 06:52:19 +0000 abritdifferent http://abritdifferent.wordpress.com/?p=521
Beauty is completely subjective, but if you allow yourself, you will find beauty in anything.

click to enlarge

The irony of the photo is it was taken in Gretna Green, the last town off the M74 bordering England. You couldn't get any less Highlands than that.

I was left with an impression that to argue that Great Britain is a nation – which is not, by the way, what I believe – meets with incomprehension in serious political debate. This is despite the fact that 'the country' and the state as a whole are almost always referred to in national political discourse as 'Britain'; and the New Labour government has expended vast amounts of time, effort and money trying to invent and inculcate concepts such as 'British values', 'Britishness' and, indeed, British national identity that are supposed to unite all the peoples of the kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

And this is also despite the fact that Team GB – the 'Great Britain' Olympic team – returned home earlier this week to the rapturous acclaim of what was referred to by the media as 'the nation', Union Flags draped all over them; to be followed in subsequent days by patriotic receptions of their athletes from the peoples of Scotland and Wales with not a Union Flag in sight but only Saltires and Red Dragons. No proposals yet for a victory parade for the triumphant English athletes, although we have been promised a parade in London in October for all of Team GB. Understandably, this absence of an English parade, along with the handing out of Union Jacks to people attending receptions of English athletes in their local areas, has been greeted with howls of 'foul play'.

But it's clear that the Great Britain celebrations are meant to do double duty as the English celebrations. There's something rather unrealistic about demanding or hoping that we might be allowed to fête our triumphant English athletes as English when they're supposed to be representing Great Britain. This would be an 'unnecessary' duplication – precisely because Great Britain is already the double of England; and because the patriotic pride we take in Team GB is the publicly acceptable expression of English pride in her athletes. Look at the kit those athletes are wearing: it's the England football kit – white tops with red trim; blue trousers. (Or is England's football kit really in the British colours? But don't get me on to the subject of the football team GB again!)

How can we unpack all of this? The UK (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is not a nation: to advocate this idea would meet with even more derision or incomprehension than to suggest that Great Britain as such is a nation. Depending on whether you regard Great Britain as a unitary nation, as a political union of two nations (England and Scotland), or indeed of three (England, Scotland and Wales), then the UK is a political union between – a state composed of – from one to three nations plus part of another (Ireland).

Hardly surprising, then, that 'the UK' is not used as the name for the Olympic team: it's not a nation and, therefore, cannot be a channel of national pride. 'Britain', on the other hand (as opposed to 'Great Britain'), is used informally as a synonym for the UK, while taking on the connotations of nationhood associated with 'Great Britain'. This is why it is also a synonym for what national politicians refer to as 'the country': a term which, in its very imprecision, also encompasses and binds together the concepts of the UK state and of nationhood but avoids officially using the term 'nation' for the UK. Similarly, 'Britain', informally, is described as 'the nation' even when it refers to the UK.

So why isn't 'Britain', rather than 'Great Britain', the name of the Olympic team, as this would at least imply the inclusion of athletes from Northern Ireland, as well as from other parts of the so-called 'British Isles' that are not formally part of the UK, such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man? Well, I suppose it's because – formally – 'Britain' is the name neither of a state nor of a nation; whereas Great Britain appears to be a bit of both: literally a bit of – part of – the official name of the UK state, and (to judge from its name at least) an integral nation; that is, one of the two nations that joined together to form the UK.

But Great Britain is also, as I said above, the double of England. It's the place within which the 'subjective' national identity of the English (how they see themselves and what they call themselves as a 'great' nation), the 'objective' identity of the state (a Union of two to four nations greater than England, but of which England is the greater part) and the physical territory of the 'country' (Britain) converge. But that place, increasingly, exists only in the subjectivity – in the minds – of the English (or at least some of them), not in objective reality.

Great Britain is the name that England gave to itself when it took over Scotland in the 1707 Union: it's the name of the 'dominion' of England (its territory and power) expanded to encompass the whole of Britain – 'Great' because it is 'Greater England'; a Union that consolidated the greatness of England as Britain. In the popular imagination of the English, from 1707 till recent times, Great Britain was a nation – was the nation – because it was synonymous with the nation of England; the Union being imagined as an incorporation of Scotland into the English state, which is what it effectively was if you consider only aspects such as parliament, the executive and sovereignty – although Scotland retained many other aspects of separate civic nationhood, such as its own legal and education systems, and established church.

So, for England, Great Britain became the (English) nation: an imaginative fusion – union – of the English national identity, the political state, and the territory of Britain. But the point is the English did invest their sense of national identity into Great Britain to the extent that 'England' and 'Great Britain' became indistinguishable and interchangeable. For the Scots, this meant that 'Great Britain' always really meant just England, and its domination and subordination of Scotland through the apparatus of the 'British' state. However, for the English, this genuinely implied a blending of national identities – a pouring and offering out of Englishness into and for Britain – creating something new: a British nation and nationhood within which the Scots and the Welsh were also taken up; but which, subjectively, was of necessity the extension of Englishness to 'Britain as a whole' (Great Britain), because that imagined common Britishness was imagined through the minds of the English – the controllers of the narrative of British identity.

Nothing essentially changed in this dynamic when Ireland was added to the Union in 1801. The name of the state may have changed but it remained 'Great Britain' in its core identity: the national identity of the English as subjectively extended and merged into 'Britain as a whole', making Ireland, too (and now Northern Ireland), 'really' part of Great Britain: British; British Ireland. 'Really' in the sense that, insofar as it lived as a nation at all, this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (this union of Ireland with Great Britain, which was an incorporation of Ireland into the Union that was Great Britain) fully had the character of nationhood only in the minds of the English, for whom Great Britain was the objective reflection – the image, the double – of their own nation and the greatness of England.

The British 'project' – the realisation of Britain as a 'great nation' through Great Britain, the Empire and now the attempt to encapsulate the philosophical and political 'greatness' that is Britishness – has, therefore, always been essentially an English project. Not only in the objective sense that the English 'as a nation' somehow owned, drove and dominated the British adventure; but because the very Britishness of that project was a projection of the English: a creation of something, in their eyes, greater than themselves but of themselves, which in turn conferred greatness (the greatness of Britain) upon them.

And so now, too, our Olympians have gone out to the world and returned home in greatness, battles won. 'Our' Olympians, I say? Those of England or those of Great Britain?

For now, they are those of England and those of Great Britain; and our celebrations must do double duty for our athletes' Englishness and Britishness – including the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish among them in whom, as Great Britons, we English also take national pride.

But the objective political reality which, for 300 years, has sustained the Great British dream is rapidly unravelling. As those displays of Scottish and Welsh patriotic pride revealed, it's increasingly only the English who see themselves as British and their country as Great Britain. And then again, fewer and fewer of them. When that objective political union that binds England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland fully dissolves, then maybe we can have our celebration of great English achievements. Or maybe, our celebrating English glories as English, not British, will be the thing that finally puts an end to the British project: the projection of our English ambitions and identity onto Great Britain.

It's the desire to be greater than ourselves that led to Great Britain. Maybe England's finest hour will be when we accept that true greatness is just to be ourselves. And to achieve all that we are capable of – for ourselves and our country – in a spirit of friendship to others and personal striving that has its meaning in itself.

Says all I ever could I think :)

Let me rewind: a week ago, signs went up around my residential college for a free dinner known as the Bannockburn. I thought nothing of it at the time because I knew I wasn't getting any awards, I didn't know anyone that was getting awards and I didn't need to sit through a *boring* long dinner. After talking to friends throughout the week it became apparent that heaps of people go to this dinner and I ought to attend, so I logged onto Emmnet and signed up for my free dinner.

Let the festivities begin: we arrived at 6:30pm. Cocktail dresses and suits were the fashion, though a few boys were sporting traditional kilts. Aussie boys in kilts do look quite dashing, I must admit. Dinner began with haggis, a sausage-like treat filled with brains, entrails and other various parts of meat that most people would never choose to eat. Apparently in Scotland of yore, the haggis was created to use up all of the lesser parts of a pig so none was wasted. Best of all, an entire chant, performed in old English speech, was performed to the crowd to "introduce" the haggis. Despite my queasiness, after all the hype, I did manage to try some. It tasted much like liver pate, and much like liver pate, I didn't really like it. One bite was enough for me, but I had to give it a go.

After the haggis, the food steadily improved. Roast beef and veggies were followed by a cake with bananas and cream. Awards were handed out to many of the college students (turns out I knew awards recipients after all!!) and we finished off the evening singing 3 Scottish songs, including Auld Lang Syne, which ended in everyone holding hands and swinging arms. Once we began singing and everyone readily joined in, singing as loud as possible, it was no wonder the dinner had included free wine. 

After that, in a slightly less Scottish fashion, the students, after the adults had left, sang a lovely song together while encircling the dining hall with our arms around one another's shoulders... I can't even pronounce the name, but us Americans were a little confused at first. It was like a mix of "Singing in the Rain" and a chant. Good times had by all.

I had no idea that in my trip down under, I'd also be getting a trip to the Scottish highlands. And for the record, my apologies for having not posted in over two weeks. I don't know if it's because I'm upside-down on the bottom of the planet, but somehow time goes by really quickly here. I just can't explain it. Cheers!

The research project is an independent evaluation of Deep-Sea Mine Tailings Placement (DSTP) in Papua New Guinea, funded by the European Union through its 8th Development Fund.

The research project is being conducted by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, one of the oldest oceanographic organisations in the world (founded in 1884 by Sir John Murray) and Scotland's premier marine science research organisation committed to increasing knowledge and stewardship of the marine environment through research, education, maintenance of research infrastructure, and knowledge transfer.

Its main objectives are to critically assess all existing information on past (Misima) and present (Lihir) mine operations using deep sea tailings placement (DSTP) in Papua New Guinea and provide guidelines for future DSTP marine environment monitoring in the context of international best practice.

Not only will PNG benefit immensely from the findings of this research project - but so too should the world.

The purpose of the project, which is also a Mining Sector Support Programme (MSSP - a EU initiative), is to evaluate existing deep-sea tailings placement practice in order to establish a consensual, clear, environmentally defensible, enforceable policy on the disposal of Deep Sea Tailings in PNG.

The objective of the MSSP is to sustain PNG’s economic performance through mineral production and exports, to increase employment opportunities, to alleviate poverty, and to mitigate environmental impacts through mining.

The study will involve a compilation of all existing information from a range of sources including: mining companies, the Department of Environment Conservation PNG, and Research Institutes, on the existing mining operations using DSTP in PNG (Lihir, Misima).

Information on similar projects around the world will also be used to support the evaluation.

The critical assessment will identify what further fieldwork is required. This will consist of a discrete programme of activities carried out over a relatively short period and will include physical oceanographic, sedimentological, geochemical, plankton/nekton and benthic biological investigations.

Let's just hope that the PNG Government will not only pay attention to the research project once the findings have been published - but will also act upon the recommendations.

NOTE: Research Project Information:

• Run-time: 15 - 02 - 2007 until 15 - 01 - 2009
• Contact: Dr Tracy Shimmield
• Project Coordination: Dr Tracy Shimmield
• Contractor(s): European Union 8th European Development Fund
• Researcher: Scottish Association for Marine Science

There was another cyclist staying at the hostel and he was getting the ferry as well.  He was a retired German gentleman - he was spending a number of weeks in Scotland traveling between hostels mainly by bus (you can put your bike on a bus apparently!) and then cycling around the local areas.

As the ferry was leaving, I saw the Sea Harris guys and their boat (Enchanted Isle) preparing another trip - they go to other islands as well (the Shiants in particular), so they might not have been going to St. Kilda.  Wherever they were heading, it was going to be wetter and choppier than yesterday's trip!

The ferry was somewhat slower than the Enchanted Isle.  It's only a short crossing (about an hour), so I settled down with a local paper and my book.  I was amused that one of my friend's bands was headlining a music festival in Stornoway in a week or so.  Wish I had been able to hook up - I sent Jon a text and he replied that another friend was also in the Outer Hebrides and was planning to go to the show.

We landed at Berneray - a small island now joined to North Uist via a huge causeway.  The hostel I was staying at was only about 2 or 3 miles away from the ferry terminal, and I had originally planned to drop my bags there and then do a loop of North Uist before coming back to the hostel to camp.  For whatever reason, I thought I would now prefer to keep my options open and headed over the causeway onto North Uist

The earlier rain was clearing - so I felt pretty optimistic for the day.  I hadn't eaten breakfast - so my plan was to circle the island clockwise, stopping at Lochmaddy for breakfast.

One of the first things of interest I saw was Dun An Stior - a broch in the middle of a loch.  This was a great defensive position obviously.  There would have been causeways linking the broch with the land etc.  This was the heart of a sizable community.

As I rode on, I noticed that my cycle computer wasn't indicating whether I was faster or slower than my current average speed.  Upon investigation, the average speed had stopped working!  It now just showed E - I had never ridden so far on one trip before, so I don't know if it is a problem with that.  It happened at about 313 miles and 27 odd hours of riding - the trip hour counter does only go up to 9 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds - but it seemed to be working fine up until then reporting an average of something around 11.3-5 mph.  Oh well - not a big drama - the mile counter still worked and that was of more interest to me.  I could always work out average speed at the end easily enough.

North Uist is definitely far more sparsely populated than Lewis and Harris (and they weren't exactly jam-packed!).  It feels very much more remote.  The roads were fantastic - like being in an American road movie with the road going in straight lines for miles and miles - you could see it stretching off into the distance.

I arrived into Lochmaddy pretty hungry indeed.  The town is not that pretty and is dominated by the ferry port over to Skye really.  However, there is a fantastic arts centre there with a great cafe - where I feasted on cheese and ham toasties and the wickedly sweet Malteser and white chocolate cake!  There were some interesting exhibits in there and whilst I am not one for heavy duty art, the video piece with the polar bear watching the sunset in Uist was amusing (it wasn't a real polar bear - it was someone in a polar bear costume.  I wouldn't be keen on cycling around the island if there were real polar bears roaming free).  They were advertising their forthcoming Andy Goldsworthy exhibition - and if you happen to be in North Uist between 6th September and 28th November, then I think it will be well worth seeing as his work is inspirational.

As I left the cafe, I saw the yellow VW camper family coming into the car park - gave them a wave.

On I went towards Clachan.  You pass the burial cairn at Langass along the way - and this really is a massive impressive structure.  It is a 5000 year old communal  burial chamber.  It is one of the oldest standing buildings in Europe.  Standing is a strong term - it's a bit of a jumble!  You can still clearly see the entrance and peer into it - the passageway looks good and safe and you could crawl in, but it is highly advised against in every guidebook I read.  I decided not to risk it - particularly on my own in the middle of nowhere!

I reached Clachan where there's a pretty good shop.  Picked up more food and drank a can of diet coke outside with another cyclist (there were two other cyclists on the other bench - so four cyclists in total - a record for this trip!).  John was from the Isle Of Man and doing the same trip as me, but south to north.  He, too, was planning to stay on Berneray tonight.  He set off and I finished my can of drink.  I caught up with him, and the other two cyclists and passed them all on a climb.

The scenery was magnificent, great beaches, lots of machair.  There are also some sections of forest - not seen many trees over the past week, so quite unusual!  The winds were getting pretty tough though.

I rode on for a while and then stopped for lunch at a lovely little beach in Hosta.  The council (I guess) had gone to the trouble of putting picnic tables near the beach - trouble is the sand had blown up and the seat of the bench was now at ground level - so not very comfy!

As I was getting ready to move on the two cyclists I had passed earlier pulled down the lane and onto this beach - they were planning to camp at Berneray hostel as well - though were now considering wild camping on one of the beaches.

Coming round the north of the island there were more great beaches and some beautiful blackhouses.  Finally I reached Solas where there is a surprisingly large Co-Operative.  I bought food and the paper before heading on and back to Berneray.

I caught up with John again and we rode together to the hostel.  Berneray is a beautiful island and worth the trip.  Apparently, our future king, Charles, loves it there and has come and lived in a croft house as a crofter with only the locals and Buckingham Palace being aware of it.  We reached the hostel and it really was in a great location.  The hostel itself was two thatched cottages and there was plenty of space to camp.  I elected to go higher up and next to the beach - hoping that the midges would be less vicious up there.

It was a pretty decent end to the day, so I sat and read the paper, drank tea and watched little birds (could be plovers, I am rubbish with identifying stuff though) running up and down the sea front in groups.  Sometimes they would run in a line following each other and sometimes they'd run in a line next to each other - they reminded me of the police when they are conducting a fingertip search!

The location really is fantastic and my midge gamble seemed to pay off - there were not many up where I was, but when I went down to the hostel to do my washing up they were swarming away outside the hostel door - you had to run through a thick black cloud of them to get in!

The german guy and John were both in there, so chatted for a while.  The lady who is the hostel warden came over, so paid the bill etc.  She was chatting with someone about the re-thatching of the hostel.  Currently, the roof had a load of batons on it, but no thatch.  Apparently, it was meant to have been done last year and had been prepared, but then the crop of the rush (I think) they use had not been good enough, so they were waiting to see if this year's crop was better.  It made me think about how connected to the land and nature you are here.  Typically, within reason, we now expect to be able to get what we want, when we want if we have money - but here was a lifestyle that relied on far simpler principles and I liked the idea.  Rather than getting worked up about it or getting the crop from somewhere further afield, they'd just wait another year (I suppose they can not wait indefinitely, but still).  I work with the insanely demanding super-rich for a living - I would love to see their reaction to the concept of a crop not being good enough.

I sprinted past the midges back to my tent and went to bed with a real soft spot for this little corner of the islands.