Tartan telly: J’Accuse
TV production empire Endemol are looking to recruit a Scottish representative. I know this because I know someone who seems to think he’s perfect for the job and is bounding headlong into an interview. I am not going to go on record as to what I think of his chances, but as much as I love the guy, I fear for our reputation as a nation if he gets the job. An Englishman who has migrated and embraced the hunting, shooting, fishing life of a Scottish laird, I will weep if he is thought eminently suitable.
It seems to me that the very fact that TV companies have Scottish representatives who are charged with making programmes about Scotland for Scotland really is the problem with Scottish TV. As far as perpetuating the Scottish stereotype, we are our own worst enemies.
It all started with Scottish reputation Enemy Number 1: Harry Lauder. This boil on the bum of entertainment was a music hall turn in the 1920s and 30s who realised that taking the piss out of his own country would get him cheap but plentiful laughs, as he was devoid of talent and could think of nothing else to get the punters rolling in the aisles. Unfortunately for us, Lauder seemed to be quite successful and many of his onstage character’s traits like meanness and tweeness are now the world’s perceived image of my countrymen. Effectively Lauder’s legacy has poisoned our culture in a very far reaching way. It really is very wearing to have people shout “There’s a Moose Loose Aboot this Hoose” at you when on holiday.
Lauder was like Borat except not funny and unlike Sacha Baron Cohen, he actually took the piss out of his own country so can’t be accused of racism. Does it count if you are racist about your own country? Well it should. Anyway, I don’t know where the talentless bugger is buried but I’m guessing it is in Scotland. I’m all for exhuming him and chucking his corpse over Hadrian’s Wall to break the curse. It could be messy, and get us some grave-robbing charges but who’s with me?
These days Scottish television seems to think that programmes about the countryside and outdoor pursuits seem to be wholly representative of our culture. How very dull. If there’s one thing people who like telly don’t do it’s go outside much and canoe anywhere. Why, we’re too busy watching telly.
Still it could be worse. The Rab C Nesbitt Show could still be on. For those of you who don’t know anything about it, the 1980s/90s show’s hero (see top photo) was a dipsomaniac loser wearing a string vest and a stained bandage round his head, stottering about the streets of Glasgow making unemployed mischief. And the man who played him was a Scot. Worst of all Scottish people LOVED this show. The shame of it!
Having dabbled in TV production in my country I found it hard to get a foothold in homegrown broadcast production. When asked for ideas, I never had a Scottish angle. I wanted to make telly that happened to be in Scotland; not Scottish telly. When applying for jobs at BBC Scotland when I graduated in 1991, I would not make the shortlist as I couldn’t speak Gaelic. A BBC Charter enforced a strict and demographically disproportionate quota of Gaelic programmes at the time. I soon found my way down a different career path, but I am still very critical of the way Scottish TV is produced.
So as Big Brother producer Endemol look to produce programmes with a Scottish angle, expect some kilted bare-breasted, kilted, haggis hurling and stag fighting on the shores of Loch Ness with a Proclaimers soundtrack and a sponsorship deal with Glenfiddich.
Meanwhile the rest of us will go on leading our non-twee, non-tartan, non-water-rafting lives, watching something better on the other side.
(PS: Anyone else having trouble with Blogger’s formatting? it’s driving me insane!)
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Small Town Girl
Kevin Bacon:
His Ma works at the new Asda…probably
It never ceases to amaze me that for the biggest city in the top half of Scotland, how little my hometown is.
No matter where you go, what you do…you will meet someone from your past, or someone who knows who you are, or at least knows someone you do.
It’s like that Six Degrees of Separation game played out in actual real life and not involving Kevin Bacon at any point. Unless Bacon went to Northfield Academy in Aberdeen (pre-Footloose, of course…he got the idea for that dance routine in the derelict factory in that film from the time him and his mates used to break into the Lawson’s sausage factory in nearby Dyce). *
This means a number of things for the Aberdeen dweller that seriously hampers their existence. (Though, I’m sure we are not alone in this phenomenon.)
Temper tantrums and hissy fits
You cannot fall out with anyone. You just can’t. One minute you tell your boss to “Go fuck himself” and run your keys along his month old Cherokee paintwork as you waltz out triumphantly out the premises for good….only to find that two years later he’s the bloke in the Pringle golf jumper your new fiancee introduces you to at Christmas with excited squeals of “you’ll really get on with Dad…you’re just so similar!”
Friends Reunited
Think you’ve left all those brats you went to school with behind? Well you haven’t.
There’s little point in joining any of these networking websites to find out if Joanne Nichols whose boyfriend you inadvertently stole and who subsequently took your head off the handrail of the school bus, has turned into a hacket-faced lonely old cow, with no friends and three children from four different fathers (it’s a guess for the last kid).
No, you won’t need to lurk on Facebook because the bitch will be standing between you and a mortgage at the Royal Bank of Scotland tomorrow morning’s appointment. You’ll be able to see her in all her bloated glory face to spiteful face.
Chastity
No-one but no-one would be advised to cheat on their partner in this town. Not unless they want their partner to find out about it in a nano-second.
All it would take would be stolen dinner out in a quiet restaurant, to find out your wife’s workmate’s daughter had taken on a part-time wine waiter’s job to keep the wolf from the door. Of course, you won’t know she’s your wife’s workmate’s daughter, but she’ll know you somehow….and she’ll be on that mobile phone text function before you can say, “Discretion is my middle name”.
Illegal activity
Any policeman who stops you from or catches you doing anything will have a connection to your Dad.
Baggage
Anyone you go out with, will have been out with one of your friends at one point. It’s almost unhygienic. You will need to move to another town to find an unsullied mate.
Nowhere to hide
Anyone you meet anywhere in the world from Aberdeen will know me, my husband or will know at least someone who knows us or has some connection to us. That same thing will go for anyone else who lives in this town. It’s just the way it is. We meet someone Meeester knows in just about every single country we’ve ever been to. And he’s not even from Aberdeen, really.
You can take the girl out of the North East…
Annie Lennox is from Ellon, near Aberdeen where I went to school. I have lost count of how many folk I’ve heard say, “Aye, I kent her faither…..” or, “I played in the school orchestra with her.”
Aberdonians probably shout stuff at her at stadium concerts.
“H’min Annie! It’s me, Morag…my Da kent your Da! “
“Hey Annie, it’s me, Sandy! My Auntie, the dinnerlady gied you intae trouble when you were running in the school corridors. Remember me?”
And you know, she will, too.
Because up here,
or
(for my international readers)
“Everyone knows everybody”
*Ok, let’s face it Bacon will have a connection to Aberdeen in some way…everybody does. What’s yours? Bet I can link your connection to me in some way
