scotland

News of the death of James V on 14 December gave even further cause for rejoicing, because his heir was a week-old girl, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland would be subject to yet another weakening regency__t had endured six during the past 150 years__nd should give no further trouble.

I suppose there are some advantages to this place,' he admitted. 'I bet it's fucking raining in Stirling.

We Slovenians are even better misers than you Scottish. You know how Scotland began? One of us Slovenians was spending too much money, so we put him on a boat and he landed in Scotland.

Freedom is an idea that no tyrant will ever crush.

If the surprise outcome of the recent UK referendum - on whether to leave or remain in the European Union - teaches us anything, it is that supposedly worthy displays of democracy in action can actually do more harm than good. Witness a nation now more divided; an intergenerational schism in the making; both a governing and opposition party torn to shreds from the inside; infinitely more complex issues raised than satisfactory solutions provided. It begs the question 'Was it really all worth it' ?

People didn't really like McDonald's, same as her mum didn't really like Catholicism, but when you were new in town, at least it was a known quantity. So that'll be a Quarter-Pounder and a Communion Wafer meal-deal to go.

But I do like Scotland. I like the miserable weather. I like the miserable people, the fatalism, the negativity, the violence that's always just below the surface. And I like the way you deal with religion. One century you're up to your lugs in it, the next you're trading the whole apparatus in for Sunday superstores. Praise the Lord and thrash the bairns. Ask and ye shall have the door shut in your face. Blessed are they that shop on the Sabbath, for they shall get the best bargains. Oh yes, this is a very fine country.

In prehistoric times, early man was bowled over by natural events: rain, thunder, lightning, the violent shaking and moving of the ground, mountains spewing deathly hot lava, the glow of the moon, the burning heat of the sun, the twinkling of the stars. Our human brain searched for an answer, and the conclusion was that it all must be caused by something greater than ourselves - this, of course, sprouted the earliest seeds of religion. This theory is certainly reflected in faery lore. In the beautiful sloping hills of Connemara in Ireland, for example, faeries were believed to have been just as beautiful, peaceful, and pleasant as the world around them. But in the Scottish Highlands, with their dark, brooding mountains and eerie highland lakes, villagers warned of deadly water-kelpies and spirit characters that packed a bit more punch.

A peaceful refuge in which to rediscover each other, we thought,, not realizing that, while golf and fishing are Scotland's most popular outdoor sports, gossip is the most popular indoor sport.

Give me but one hour of Scotland Let me see it ere I die.

O Caledonia! stern and wild Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood Land of the mountain and the flood Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

Don't marry for money, you can borrow it cheaper.

Logan lowers his head close to mine. 'Just know this, Ivy Calhhoun,' he begins. 'If I werena a ghost I would open all door for you, properly.

You're crazy,' I say.'Aye,' Logan says. 'Crazy about you.

More bloodshed followed, as brother fought brother and religion battled religion in the age-old nonsense of settling whose method of worship was the holiest to our Creator, who, for all our murderous efforts, most likely despises the lot of us.

She was convinced the country was about to succumb to revolutionary socialism. Her own circumstances encouraged this belief: just on the edge of the really rich country set, she shared their views and opinions but lacked the financial and architechtural insulation from real or imagined political troubles. She found crushed larger cans and cigarette packets in her front garden and interpreted these as menacing signals from the Perthshire proletariat. Every flicker and dim of electric light was a portent of class war.

Son, it__ easy tae be guid oan a fu_ belly. It__ when a man__ goat two bites an_ wan o_ them he__l share, ye ken whit he__ made o_. Listen. In ony country in the world, who are the only folk that ken whit it__ like tae leeve in that country? The folk at the boattom. The rest can a_ kid themselves oan. They can afford to hiv fancy ideas. We canny, son. We loass the wan idea o_ who we are, we__e deid. We__e wan anither. Tae survive, we__l respect wan anither. When the time comes, we__l a_ move forward thegither, or nut at all.

However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that we think of as the ultimate, inner being__hat was ineradicable Scottish. That part spoke with a Scottish voice; that part looked out through Scottish eyes; and it was that part that now welled within her as she gazed out through the window of the descending plane and saw below her the rolling Borders hills_