MANY of you are busy people – not you, madam; sherry at this time of morning? – and so you may have missed the memo in your in-tray reminding you that today is, technically, Tartan Day.
I say “technically” because the fun largely takes place tomorrow, and it’s mostly over the pond in yonder Americashire, though it’s fair to there are also events in Canada (where I believe it all started, in Nova Scotia), Galicia and, er, Argentina (it says here). New Zealand and Australia run separate events in July.
In short, this is really an event for the Scots diaspora. Six million people in the US claim Scottish descent but, unlike in Scotland, they haven’t let it hold them back.
In an attempt to ruin the event, Scotland is sending three MSPs, including the presiding orifice Ken Macintosh (Lab), whose startling resemblance to the late Mr Spock out of Star Trek is bound to turn a few heads. He’ll be joined by “proud but” Scotswoman Johann Lamont (Lab) and Clare Haughey of the SNP, which is so politically careful nowadays she’ll probably have been briefed not to mention the word “Scotland” in case it upsets anyone back home.
Though, in my experience, Tartan Day in the US features seriously good traditional musicianship and some intelligent debate, there is undoubtedly a kailyard element to it, making the event an easy target for sophisticates.
Since I’m right unsophisticated – ken? – I’ll leave most of the scorn to others. At the same time, I can’t help being fascinated when you Earthlings behave oddly, and I content myself with merely noting such instances in my reports back home.
I’m at the age where I’m repeating stories anyway, so I won’t tell you again about the knobbly-kneed Americans kilties hacking at each other with plastic Claymores in the shadow of the White House; the Scots media faces burnt red by April sunshine reflecting off the white stone of the Capitol (where Sean Connery was receiving a medal); or the lovely, authentic American folk acts downstaged in Alexandria, Virginia, by the one and only band from central Scotland that staggered on stage in cheap blue uniforms and trotted out some accordion-heavy hellishness in between smoking tabs and flashing their “1690” tattoos.
That’s all in the past, though I’m still receiving counselling, or “in therapy” as our Americans cousins say. Thus the odd feelings provoked by Tartan Day synchronise with the famously splintered Scottish psyche: half pride, half shame.
We should ditch the lion and unicorn on our coat of arms, and replace them with symbols for such feelings (say Braveheart and the 2014 referendum result), proudly and shamefully standing above the motto: “What are you looking at?”
Luckily, the Americans are better than us at doing pride. They don’t really do embarrassment. They are enthusiasts and, despite all the evidence, see us as a brave and solid people.
Indeed, their Tartan Day is held on the same date in 1320 as the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath. To wit: “As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule, unless it be by a legally binding referendum. For it is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for a devolved parliament with limited powers.”
The centrepiece of Tartan Day is the big parade in New York, though there are events in many other parts of the country. Indeed, one South Carolina community already held its four-day celebration “honoring Celtic heritage” last month, starting off at the British Bulldog Pub and featuring a traditional Quidditch tournament.
I present these facts without comment or judgment. Just some tittering. I can, however, enthuse that leading the New York parade this year is the estimable singer-musician KT Tunstall, born in Edinburgh and now living in LA (not Lower Aberfeldy, madam, Los Angeles; put that sherry away).
I am thinking, too, that the most moving part of proceedings will be the Sgoil Lionacleit Pipe Band from the Western Isles playing Fair Maid of Barra in memory of 14-year-old Eilidh MacLeod, one of 22 people killed in the Islamist terror attack on Manchester Arena last year.
That performance itself will make Tartan Day worthwhile. Indeed, it’s all worthwhile. Tartan has become a derogatory adjective – the lexicological equivalent of a See-you-Jimmy hat – just as anything rubbish is now prefixed with “Mc” (after McDonald’s).
But Tartan Day, for all its occasional lapses into stereotypes and faux pas, actually goes some way towards redeeming the situation. Upwards of 30,000 will watch the parade in New York, and this McCommentator is happy to doff his See-you-Jimmy millinery and to salute our American cousins for their enthusiasm and pride.
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