our friends across the pond

Fri, Sep 5, 2008

I was trawling through my blog reader and stopped by PTC* World’s to be reminded of possibly the greatest comedians who ever lived. It’s a funny thing comedy, ho ho!, no really. I can sit through an American “comedy” show, stony faced and wondering why the audience is standing on the seats, whooping like banshees, punching the air and screaming with laughter. Is there something off camera I can’t see, like a fight or something? It only takes the appearance of a star on the show to set them off. Even during Billy Connolly’s heyday, himself walking on stage wouldn’t have got me thinking “there’s Billy, man, I can’t contain myself, I’m going to stand on the seat and scream like an idiot!”.

Then there’s the interesting predisposition to waving the flag and chanting patriot slogans. At the McCain gathering the audience were all chanting “USA USA USA” and waving the national flag. They have a dept. of Homeland Security and a Patriot Act. It’s all very, I don’t know, soviet-like. I wonder if the irony of the Patriot Act sharing its name with a missle hasn’t gone unnoticed. It’s all a bit worrying, what with Russia rattling its sabres and another war-monger trying to get into the Whitehouse. Our two nations across the pond share the same language but the cultures are just, so different.

I can’t imagine standing in the public gallery of the Scottish Parliament and chanting “Scotland Scotland Scotland” and waving the flag. They’d think you were a pissed football fan who’d mistaken Holyrood for Hampden and put you up in the cells for the night. Although we don’t read too much into flag waving here, it depends on what flag is being waved. If it’s an English flag, rather than be ignored, the waver is likely to get chased down the street by a mob of “patriots” who have no intention of voting SNP for Independance. Work that one out. “We’re going to attack the English at every chance but we don’t, err, really want our own country”.

So what would happen if Scotland became independant, as could very well happen in the next few years? Would we see a resurgence of American style patriotism? Flag waving and chanting? I doubt it. If there was a Scottish History channel on the telly, it would basically consist of two episodes. Epsiode One would be internal conflict and strife, every man for himself and to the dogs with the rest. Episode Two would be “Oh no, here come the English. Let’s band together against this common enemy. We’ll fight our bravest battles and our culture will grow and flourish under southern domination”. Epsode Three would be a repeat of Episode One and so on, ad infinitum. A sinusoidal cultural roller-coaster with the wagon reaching its peak at Bannockburn then hurtling downhill at 1000mph with its Noble occupants screaming like banshees into the trough of clan warfare.

So our two cultures, although linked via language and emigration have diverged on so many fronts. It seems the last fork in the branch from which our respective nations divided is the best international comedic collaboration ever devised. Laurel and Hardy. Let’s hope we’re all still on the same branch.