Lost Horizons

We went for a walk this past weekend around Reelig Glen, a wonderful gem of a walk just a short drive from Inverness.

I’d been there before, but on this occasion the time of day allowed for great winter afternoon sunlight penetrating the deep, thick forests.  The trees in Reelig Glen are tall – one tree was, when measured some years ago, declared the tallest in Britain – and so what light does reach ground level gives the place an eerie, magical feel.  It’s only a short loop, but feels like another world when you enter.

I’d love to go back some time closer to sunrise or sunset to get some even better photos.

Apart from Nigerian scammers, the Daily Mail website and a dreadful, never-ending avalanche of kitten photos, the internet is a pretty remarkable thing.  It’s been a huge tool in my learning of Esperanto which, five months since I started, is probably beyond the “beginner” phase and into “intermediate” territory.  It’s fair to say that Esperanto went out of fashion for much of the twentieth century, though I sense from discussing the matter with folk that the internet is allowing for something of a modest renaissance for the language.

Thanks to the web, I’ve been able to study the language, exchange emails with other Esperantists, read articles and stories online, and find many speakers to interact with on Google+.  Yes, that much-maligned social networking service from Google may not be the success they hoped it would be, nor the “Facebook-killer” some hoped, but I have to say I enjoy it.  It’s clean, crisp, advert-free (for now) and easier to manage what you do than on Facebook.

One very handy feature of Google+, which makes it ideal for learning a language, are the “hangouts”.  These allow you to have a video chat with a large number of people together.  An Argentinian Esperantist in the USA has started holding a weekly hangout (or “kunvidejo”, literally “place to see together”), and I joined one the other day and found the relaxed chat with him, a Brazilian and a German to be good fun and a useful experience.  Reading and writing a new language is all very well, but nothing beats using it in real conversation to improve your competence and confidence.

He made a video of us all talking, as an advert and encouragement to other speakers (whatever their ability) to join in the weekly chats.  You can see me, and the others, speaking Esperanto so you can get a feel for what it sounds like and even surprise yourself with how much you might find familiar in this satisfyingly simple language.  I look like I’m reading a script in my part, though my hesitancy is purely down to a lack of conversational practice.  That will come in time, I’m sure.

I’ve been zipping about a fair amount this past week.  I’ve been ambling around in Inverness…

…and exploring Glasgow at night.

The Glasgow visit was for an Explosions in the Sky gig on Monday night. It was my third time of seeing them and they were excellent. Beautiful, uplifting, energetic and powerful. The Texan post-rock outfit remain my favourite band right now. It was a great set, though to my mild surprise they didn’t play much of their most recent album, but with such a strong catalogue that was no loss.

The support was in the form of Lanterns on the Lake, a Sigur Ros-like outfit from Newcastle. I’d not heard of them but they were very good, and I’ll definitely be checking them out further.

Then on Wednesday night I was in Edinburgh overnight for work, and took the opportunity of a quiet evening to take some night shots from the top of Calton Hill. Being at a major spot overlooking the capital felt somehow apt on the day that the referendum consultation was launched.

It’s interesting times in Scotland these days.

See the whole upload of this week’s shots here on Flickr.

One of the most frequent observations made about Scottish independence is the claim that it would be the end of British identity.

I’ve had more than a few discussions with people from across Britain who say they feel British and therefore oppose independence for Scotland because it would end Britain and end Britishness, forcing people to choose between the nations it comprises.

My response to this is always the same – the name of the country on your passport is nothing to do with your nationality.  If you feel a certain nationality, no political decision can ever change that.

Having reflected on the matter a bit more in recent weeks as the long road to the referendum is now opened up, not only do I remain convinced that independence will not harm British identity, but I also believe that it could potentially strengthen it greatly.

Britishness – not just unharmed…

Firstly, let’s look at that difference between legal citizenship and nationality in a bit more depth.  I find it absurd that people wouldn’t be able to feel British if Scotland became independent.  Britishness is a multi-national identity, reaching across Scotland, England and Wales and is more of a regional identity akin to being Scandinavian, Baltic or Iberian.

Since the  collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a persistent minority of inhabitants of some of its successor states have continued to describe themselves in censuses as “Yugoslav” rather than as, say, Serbian.  There’s all sorts of arguments to be had about the political, ethnic and historic reasons as to why that might be, but the point is as long as there remain people who identify with that old country and want to call themselves “Yugoslav” then the concept as an identity will always exist.  The word means, after all, “southern Slav”, and southern Slavs didn’t just disappear when Yugoslavia ceased to be a country.

Similarly, Britishness will continue as long as there is someone out there who calls themselves “British”.  Even if Scotland, England and Wales were not just wrought from each other constitutionally but literally removed from the face of the earth, a visit to Northern Ireland, Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands would assure you that the idea of being British lives strongly on.

And it’s not just Britishness that will live on, but Britain itself.  People talk melodramatically about the independence movement wanting to “break up Britain”.  But Britain is a geographical and cultural concept that has already transcended borders.  As a collection of islands – including one large one – off the coast of mainland Europe, Britain has existed for millennia before the Unions of the Crowns and Parliaments, so if either of those unions are dissolved it will continue to exist as a group of islands that contain Scotland, England and Wales.

On the point of Britishness, take another illustration, Scotland.  Most people here call themselves Scottish – often in addition to other nationalities, such as British, but most are Scottish all the same.  If Scottishness can exist (and very healthily and vibrantly, too) without a corresponding Scottish state, why on earth can’t Britishness survive without a British state?

And if I was to quibble, I’d say there isn’t a British state anyway.  We live in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a union composed therefore of British people on the one hand and Northern Irish people (it was the Irish as a whole prior to the republic’s independence) on the other.  The whole is not in itself British, but a combination of British and Northern Irish.  Sure, most Northern Irish people would claim a British identity on all sorts of strong cultural and historical foundations, but as a matter of geographical fact they are not British.  The fact, therefore, that we are able to muddle the UK and call the whole thing “British” demonstrates the strength of British identity in the absence of a strictly corresponding state.

Looking further afield, there are plenty other stateless nations for whose people the identity remains strong.  Just look at the Kurds, Afrikaaners, Uighurs or Chechens – nations of people who exist, and have existed for centuries, as a people without a state.  Their lack of state does nothing to stop their identity existing, and the oppression those nations have arguably been subjected to over the centuries has done nothing to remove that identity from the people.

The same is the case with Scotland, and the same has been and will be the case with Britain and Britishness.  If anyone fears for their Britishness with an independent Scotland, it suggests that their Britishness is not a very strong one, rooted only in the constitutional status quo rather than something more heartfelt and meaningful.

…but enhanced?

That’s not to say that issues of identity have no place in the pros or cons of Scottish independence, or that there will be no impact on identity if Scotland does become independent.  Indeed, as I said above, I think it’s perfectly possible that independence could enhance Britishness.  Here’s my thinking.

Britishness has – rightly or wrongly – been tied up with various connotations, such as colonialism and imperialism, a mistrust of foreigners, and violence such as that of the far right or loyalist terrorists in Ireland.  Of course, there are many more good facets to Britishness than the bad, and I’m not one of those Scottish nationalists who regards Britishness as a myth.

There is much that makes us British beyond the existence of the United Kingdom: there’s our shared love of curry, beer, football and talking about the weather; our stoic and dry sense of humour; our healthy cynicism towards attempts at authority; and of course our shared languages.  Using these and other positives, it’s time to shed the negative aspects of the image and redefine Britishness as something more about a broad basis of cooperation between good neighbours, rather than something imposed upon grumpy, claustrophic housemates.

Britishness could be defined in a post-independence world as a basis for cooperation between two sovereign countries (or three, if England and Wales ever part company), with scope for joint work on culture, environment or any number of other shared concerns.  A model of this lies in the British-Irish Council, an institution borne of the peace settlement in Northern Ireland but an idea that had for years been SNP policy for a post-independence Britain.

The Nordic Council (see the photo on the left) is another example.  Through it, Nordic nations cooperate on matters of mutual concern but without attempting to rule each other.

Britishness could be something we share and shape equally, respectfully and voluntarily.  It could be a Britishness that we could soon come to be very proud of.  A Britishness very different to today’s.

It’s a sad symptom of our age that we are cynical about our politicians.  Regardless of the fact that there are genuinely “good eggs” across most parties, such rarities are ignored amongst the wave of hostility we have towards our political class.  They are all, we think, self-serving liars, detached from the needs of ordinary people.

It’s surprising, then, that some of the post popular political fiction involves characters who are notable for their excellence.  Perhaps, though, it’s to be expected – why shouldn’t we use fiction to dream of what could be?  A prime example would be Jed Bartlett, the President of the USA in the fictional series The West Wing.  To be honest, I never got into that show.  For some reason, despite having been incredibly politically aware and interested in the past, I was never really grabbed by political fiction.  I’m not sure why – perhaps because reality was often stranger.

Anyway, maybe the epitome of the chasm between political reality and political fiction was the reported signs saying something like “Bartlett is my President” held by the crowds as George W Bush was sworn in as an all too real president.  At least I think I recall that correctly, though I can’t find any reference to it online.

Anyone swept along by one of the quiet successes of television in this country would recognise a couple of other fictional examples of model politicians: Troels Hartmann and Thomas Buch.  I am of course talking about the Danish murder mystery series The Killing (Forbrydelsen, in Danish).

The Killing I and II were both excellent, gripping, edge of the seat dramas featuring the very driven and focussed detective Sarah Lund. In each, her steely resolution, lack of warmth towards colleagues and of course her Faroese jumpers have made her and The Killing as a whole quite a star.  Though in both series, the murders’ consequences reached into the political spheres, with parallel plots featuring a politician who found himself wrapped up in the gruesome proceedings.

In the first, Troels Hartmann was a young, dynamic and likeable local politician desperately trying to brush off what turn out to be unfounded connections with the murder of a young girl while at the same time fighting a mayoral election camaign.  In the second series, we meet Thomas Buch, a young and inexperienced MP who is appointed justice minister and uncovers potential cover-ups of murders that his superiors are desperate to sweep under the carpet.  The political dimensions to the storylines are so central that they are not so much sub-plots to the murder investigations as co-plots.

In both cases, the politicians were portrayed as truth-driven, determined and honest, a thoroughly refreshing antedote to the cynicism we have about politicians here.  Admittedly in the second series the consequence of Buch’s terrier-like pursuit of the truth is that his talent is recognised and he is finally tempted into the very inner circle he’s been trying to implicate.  But it’s a significantly more positive portrayal of a politician than you get in most British dramas.  It’s hard to imagine a British political thriller with such likeable central characters being as popular as The Killing has been.

And, thankfully, there is more of this to come. The makers of The Killing have now come up with an entirely political drama, which like The Killing has also been snapped up by BBC4. Called Borgen, it contains all of the moody drama – and some of the actors – of The Killing, but minus the body count. A deep, unpredictable and gripping drama, Borgen is basically The Killing, without… er, the killing.

We’re two episodes in now, and I’m really enjoying it.  The central character is a leader of a relatively minor Danish political party who fights her way to becoming the country’s first female Prime Minister.  A number of storylines seem to be emerging, including the lies, secrets and plotting in the world of both media and government, but the new female PM is presented as a humane, fresh and personable character, again something it’s hard to see most British political dramas doing.

There’s been some backstabbing, a death, and quite a bit of wheeling and dealing, plus some gorgeous shots of Copenhagen which seems to have more than a little Edinburgh about it in its historic and political areas.  But the main message is that – so far, at least – it’s possible to be both a good person and a successful politician.

That’s something worth noting in this cynical age.

So, Salmond’s “brung it on“, to coin a phrase: the independence referendum for Scotland will take place in “autumn 2014″.  Whether or not PM David Cameron’s interference has played a role in chivvying the First Minister along, it’s good that we now know when it will take place.

Debate will now ensue about the perceived benefits or otherwise for Scotland.  I daresay I will say more than a little on the topic in this blog in the two and a half years between now and autumn 2014.  And what a long referendum campaign it’s going to be!

However, less focus will be put on the implications beyond Scotland of it becoming indepdendent.  Of course, it’s nobody else’s decision to take but Scotland (that’s self-determination for you), but apropos of nothing, I was thinking the other day about this dimension.

For starters, and bear in mind I am no more than an amateur commentator, I can think of five things that will happen outside Scotland if it’s a “yes” vote in 2014.

1. Constitutional reform in the remnant United Kingdom

If Scotland becomes independent, there will need to be some changes in the United Kingdom.  At the very least, it would call for a tidying up exercise, because the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will, now minus part of Great Britain, need to think about changing its name.  How should that name reflect the country, and what will be the relationship between England, Wales and Northern Ireland?  The changes may or may not be radical, but even if there is little substantial change, there will have to be some tinkering around the edges to ensure that the name, governance and legal foundation of the UK reflects its new purpose.

2. Worldwide debate about reforming the United Nations Security Council

One major outcome of World War 2 was that the United Nations was founded according to the views of the five major victors, the USA, UK, France, Soviet Union and China.  One feature was that those five have permanent, veto-wielding seats on the Security Council, with the rest of the world left to pin their hopes on one day taking the other rotating, temporary places.  Just as Russia inherited the Soviet Union’s permanent seat and veto, so it is likely that the remnant United Kingdom will keep its place.

But even without Scottish independence, there have long been grumbles from new political and economic giants who are excluded unfairly – they include Brazil, Japan, Germany, India, and suggested reforms to the Security Council usually name these countries as possible additions to the permanent membership.  More radical ideas – which of course will be vetoed by the self-interested five – suggest major overhaul.  With the UK reducing in size and population, questions will be asked even more vigorously as to how an already anachronistic privilege can be maintained.

3. Debate within the remnant United Kingdom about nuclear weapons

To an extent, the nuclear debate might intensify as an adjunct to the UN Security Council issue: both nuclear weapons and the permanent seat at the UN are self-appointed prizes for the 1945 victors.  Some might argue that if one status symbol is lost then doubt is cast over the other.  There’s a more practical issue, though: the submarine-based nuclear deterrent is based in Scottish waters, and an independent Scottish government is almost certainly going to ask for its removal.  The remnant UK will then need to make provisions for it to be hosted somewhere on its reduced coastline.

But where?  It’s a brave local MP or council leader who’d gladly step forward in the bidding process, because any likely destination will be the centre of intense discontent and protest.  It’s hard to imagine public petitions being formed by enthusiastic populations keen to win for their port town the prize of being first in line for annihilation at the hands of the enemy if nuclear war ever broke out.  Whether you like nuclear weapons or not, it’s hard to disagree that the debate over where they move to will be a big one.

4. The retreat then resurgence of the English radical tradition

One often-made observation about Scottish independence is that it would give the Conservatives in the remnant UK a stronger hand.  Minus its thirty or so Scottish MPs, including some of its leading lights, Labour will be instantly weakened in parliament. This is an argument against independence that you often hear from England.  And yes, there will be dispair in the English left about an in-built, perhaps long-term majority for the centre-right.  But realising that it has to stand on its own two feet, rather than relying on the Scottish Labour contingent, could be a great liberation for the English left.  It will come back stronger, for sure.

And if you think about it, there is a great English radical tradition, possibly one of the deepest, longest and most effective in the world: from the Suffragettes and Chartists to the Manchester Patriotic Union and Greenham Common women, via the Cromwellians, the early trade unionists and the liberals and later Labour politicians who created the welfare state.  England’s left will certainly take a hit in the early years of the newly-reformed United Kingdom, but a period of reflection about its beliefs, purpose and methods will see it become more confident, self-reliant and focussed on English priorities.  Whether as part of a more left-leaning Labour Party or a new wave of activism, England’s left will become all the more noticeable in future.

5. Increased UK influence in the European Union

Yes, you read that right.  The image of a dynamic, cooperative and engaging Scotland as a member of the EU alongside a curmudgeonly, insular and reactionary remnant UK is only half-right.  Sure, Scotland will be welcomed as a constructive EU member in its own right, but the UK too will have to reassess its engagement in the light of this popular new kid on the block.  Showing how a small British nation can be a positive team player in the EU will show its southern neighbour how it can be done.  And on the doubtless regular occasions where Scotland and the UK agree on issues, their combined weight will pack a bigger punch than the UK as it currently stands.  By working together where their interests overlap, Scotland and the UK both stand to gain much.

Those are my five suggestions of what might happen in the rest of the world once Scotland becomes independent.  Do you have any other ideas – either positive or negative implications – to add?  I am sure I could think of more, but five is a good round number for starters.

And as I said at the beginning of the post, it’s the implications for Scotland that will be the big determinant on how we vote in 2014.

I spend a lot of time on trains.  Too much, at times.  I’m at the stage where I recognise train conductors, can recite stations along routes my most regular routes, and have often found myself at the whim of the vagaries and foibles of ScotRail.  Mostly, to be fair, ScotRail does a good job, though its staff do let it (and passengers) down terribly at times, for instance by not having a clue how to get places or not checking whether passengers have all fully boarded.

One regular consequence of being on trains is the delays.  Sometimes the weather, technical problems, staffing shortages or whatever else mean that trains can’t run, and I’ve had more than my fair share of replacement buses, freezing cold station platforms, late night replacement taxis and soul-sapping experiences at the life-void that is Perth railway station, which incidentally is home to The Worst Cafe In The World.

I’ve come to be philosophical about delays.  There’s nothing you can do about them, except sit back, try enjoy your journey, and politely complain in writing later.  And if you’re delayed by a certain length of time – as I all too often am – you can get part or all of your ticket reimbursed.  I’ve obviously been unlucky in the past few months because I’ve found myself amassing about a hundred pounds of compensatory rail vouchers.

Much as compensation in the form of rail vouchers is like giving the victim of a botched tooth extraction the chance to have the rest of their healthy teeth extracted for free, I’m too much of a lover of travel to turn down the chance for free trips.  And the vouchers will certainly come in useful.

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to Glasgow overnight to see Explosions in the Sky play – the third time I’ll have seen them live – and I’m very much looking forward to it.  In April, I’ll be attending the joint Scottish and British Esperanto Congress in Edinburgh.  Both will be all the more enjoyable for them costing me nothing in terms of train tickets.

Those trips will still leave plenty vouchers left, which will come in handy for another rail adventure I am planning.  I am not sure when precisely it will be, but it will be this year, certainly.  I want to get under the skin of my very regular Inverness-Edinburgh journey, by finding out more about the places I pass through with often the barest of glances, towns and villages I have mostly never been to.  The plan, therefore, is to travel from home in Inverness to Edinburgh by rail, stopping for a minimum of two hours at every station.  It will take me the best part of a week: though of course that doesn’t account for any delays…

For the first time in a long time, I found myself watching the Queen’s Speech this year; that annual broadcast of thoughts from Her Majesticness to her subjects.

I expected some dull platitudes about Christmas, family, the Commonwealth, hope for the future, and the togetherness of the “nation” in the face of various unspecified challenges.  While she certainly delivered on that underwhelming front, I was also moderately surprised by the substantial mention of Christianity, Jesus and the story of his coming from the Bible.  She said that as people we need saving from ourselves, referring to this “great Christian festival”.  She also spoke of the love of God, described Jesus as “a saviour, with the power to forgive”, quoted the Bible, and spoke words of personal prayer.

It was quite astonishing.  Of course, I agreed with her sentiments and thoughts, and it was a well-written and quite powerful presentation of the Gospel story at Christmas time, with a fairly uncompromising portrayal of Jesus as the hope for the world.  In three or four minutes, it was as good a sermon as you could hope to hear.

Why do I feel uncomfortable about it, though?

The thing is, agreeing entirely with the substance of a message doesn’t mean I agree with the basis on which it was made.  We live in a constitutional monarchy where our head of state is also automatically head of the Church of England.  This establishes Christianity as an official religion, its intertwining with government evident in many other ways, not least CofE bishops sitting by right in our parliament.

The Queen’s status, therefore, as an inherently religious head of state undermines the validity of her statement.  Her words are not broadcast to the UK and her other realms by popular demand or because, purely on the quality of her words, the speech goes viral and captures the public imagination.  They’re broadcast because she’s the monarch.

And how damaging it is to the Gospel message that it is pronounced from on high by a privileged monarch who is constitutionally obliged to believe it.  Yes, there’s no chance of our monarch ever being Muslim, Jewish, Sikh or Hindu; or, heaven forfend, an atheist or agnostic.  Neither is there any chance that our monarch might feel more comfortable in another branch of Christianity, such as Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism.  And within Protestantism there’s no choice either: he or she must be Anglican, and specifically Church of England.

There’s nothing wrong with a head of state speaking personally about their faith, and I don’t doubt that the Queen is a committed Christian.  Many heads of state speak of their faith, not least in the USA, but at least then they can be held to account for their views and are often constitutionally prevented from allowing their religious convictions to prejudice the machinery and decisions of government.  In the UK, such safeguards do not exist: our monarch is there by birthright and cannot renounce the Church of England without also renouncing the throne (or at the very least, triggering a massive constitutional crisis).

I blogged about this before in relation to the royal wedding last year, but it is disgusting that the Church of England is happy with this bloated, artificial, constitutionally-upheld sense of importance, and Biblically repugnant that it can only speak the good news of Jesus while being propped up by the trappings of establishment.  And their complicity in the potentially very cynical confirmation of Kate Middleton into the Church of England is the kind of opportunistic, Machiavellian politics you expect from a corrupt archbishop in the Middle Ages.

When the message of Jesus is at its best, it speaks for itself.  When it is at its worst, it is a tool of human self-interest.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best thing that could happen for Christianity in this country is disestablishment, as it would remove the cloud and clutter of constitutional privilege and force its believers to rely on nothing more than the power of the Holy Spirit.  Read the book of Acts to find out what such a light-footed, resourceful, dynamic, attractive and above all Christ-centred community would look like.

Not, of course, that other churches who don’t have this privileged position don’t still try to tell people how to live their lives anyway.  I was aware of two instances here in the Highlands over the festive period that infuriated me.  One was the decision taken by the Stornoway Amenity Trust to end their Hogmanay street party in Stornoway at 11pm.  An hour before New Year.  This was because the following day, starting at midnight that night, was the sabbath, a day treated with Taliban-like sanctity by some (and significantly less than you’d think) people of the island.  Many Stornowegians were livid, and rightly so.

The other example was a protest made by the Free Church (Continuing) in Skye about a Hogmanay party in a hotel next door to their church.  Again, they were concerned about the fact that the sabbath would be broken by the party continuing after midnight, despite the fact that it would not in any way encroach upon the following morning’s Sunday services.  The protest, in the form of a letter to the West Highland Free Press, basically presupposed that the church had the right to tell a licensed premises what it could do, when the hotel was acting purely within the law.

Who is the church to tell people how to live their lives, if those lives do not affect the church?  The church has no authority except that which it gives unto itself.  If individuals wish to adhere to that authority, that is a personal choice for them.  But there are others who choose not to (or who do not even acknowledge that there is a choice that needs to be made), and they should not have their lives encroached upon by those who would seek to tell them to live their lives another way.

For sure, in a pluralistic society we need to fully respect the freedom of worship and conscience.  But attempting to stop civic celebrations from taking place is an abomination to democracy – unless of course those civic activities prevent the private or collective practice of a religion, which in these two cases it absolutely did not.

Christianity will be all the stronger in this country when its followers recognise that religious authority is a matter for its adherents and is not something that can be dictated to any individual, let alone an entire country’s constitution and system of government.

We need a head of state that is not an institutionalised tool of a religion.  And we need churches that regard themselves as preachers and actors of the Gospel and ambassadors for Jesus, not self-appointed authorities and moral guardians over civic society.  Once we have those, our country (and our churches) will be so much better.

Looking back over the last twelve months of 2012, it’s safe to say it has been a good year.

No, I didn’t win anything at the London Olympics and nor was my glee due to the SNP’s sweeping gains in the May local authority elections or the news of Justin Timberlake’s assassination or Tony Blair’s arrest for war crimes.

Rather on a personal front, much happened that was definitely good news.  Late last year, just before Christmas in fact, I submitted my second book in the mullet series, the sequel to Up The Creek Without a Mullet, to my publishers.  It came out this year to some warm reviews, pleasing sales, fun events, and nice feedback from readers, not least in New Zealand where part of the book was set and where significant media attention greeted my quest to that country’s five mullet locations in 2008.

Getting the book written also freed up some time – and spurred me on – to get more travel writing done, finally getting round to writing up some short travel pieces and publishing them on my website.  Among all that, I even managed to spend some time on the two ideas for novels that I have been merely kicking around my head for far too long.

I also managed to travel quite a bit this year, with a trip or two through various parts of Europe, numerous explorations around Scotland, and plans emerging to go to New Zealand to help promote the book.

In other news, my Esperanto continues to improve, and I attended the joint Scottish/British Esperanto congress in Edinburgh in April, the first of many opportunities to use the language in travel.

As for 2013, I’ve no idea what to expect.  I am not really one to make predictions.  Instead I am simply content that 2012 was a happy and enjoyable twelve months.

At least… that’s the plan.  How was your 2012?