Lost Horizons

The independence referendum is scheduled, according to the Scottish Government, for the second half of the current parliamentary term. This will mean it will probably be in 2014 or 2015. It sounds like a long way away, but we can expect its influence to beat regularly throughout politics between now and then, and I daresay it will get an increasingly frequent mention on this blog. You’ve been warned!

Questions are already being asked about how the two campaigns will be run, and what level of cooperation there will be among the unionist parties, especially the mortal foes (yet ideological bedfellows) Labour and Conservative. One answer has potentially emerged to this in the form of Our Dynamic Nation, a cross-party coalition of individuals hoping to set out a clear case for maintaining the union. On first glance, it’s an admirable effort – the website is crisp, clear, easy to read and the tone is unusually positive.

However, scratch the surface just a little and its case for the union is weakly stated – a reflection, it must be said, of the case more generally. For a start, the title “One Dynamic Nation” makes the mistake of referring to the United Kingdom as a “nation”, when it is in fact nothing of the sort – the fact it is composed of England, Wales, Scotland (all nations) and Northern Ireland (arguably either a nation or a part of one) demonstrates that it is not.

But let’s not linger on terminology – instead, and excuse the slightly long post, here’s a brief deconstruction of the arguments the group make on their Benefits of the Union page.

History

• The Union has been one of the greatest political success stories of modern European history. It has helped to provide us with a degree of political stability in the United Kingdom that is virtually unparalleled anywhere else in Europe over the past 300 years.
• Thanks to the Union the English language is possibly the greatest export that Britain has ever produced.
• In the 18th century, the Union helped create the sense of possibility that inspired the Scottish Enlightenment. In the 19th century, the Union brought unparalleled prosperity to both our countries in what was Europe’s first common market between Scotland and England. In the 20th century, we confronted side by side totalitarian regimes that were the scourge of mainland Europe.

Why is history a factor? Even if a case could be made that the union benefitted Scotland in history – and admittedly there is evidence it’s done better out of the union economically than, say, Ireland prior to its independence – how is that relevant to today? At best the argument of history portrays the union as a relic that has served its purpose, but at worst it misses the point that we do not know how successful Scotland might have been had it never been a part of the union.

The first point, for instance, say that the UK gave us stability. Well, I doubt the UK was especially stable during the Jacobite uprisings, for instance, or the various wars and civil disturbances it has experienced over the past three centuries. But even then, stability in itself is not a good thing – the Soviet Union was entirely stable for many years. Communist China arguably is today. Does that in itself legitimise the model of government? Of course not. And who is to say that an independent Scotland might not have been stable for the past three centuries?

The site also argues, in the second point, that the English language is Britain’s (note, not the UK – they don’t even know what the country they are defending is called) greatest export. Well who is to say that the English language could not have been a success without the union? It was arguably on the ascendency anyway prior to 1707 and England’s early colonial exploits. And why is it automatically assumed that the English language is a morally good thing? It’s the tool of international trade and business, but that’s at the cost of countless indigenous languages and cultures throughout Africa, Asia, North America, Australia and – let’s not forget – the British Isles. And much of English’s success is down to the USA’s economic strength anyway.

Economy

• The Union allows Scotland to be part of a larger, more powerful economy and within the Union, Scotland enjoys the four freedoms – movement of goods, services, people and capital.

No it doesn’t – the European Union does. Or if it does, then the EU allows us to be a part of an even larger and more powerful economy. And the UK economy, geared towards and sensitive to the economy of southeast England is often accused of not serving the needs of the north of England let alone Scotland.

• By remaining part of the Union, Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world. Edinburgh’s role as a major financial centre is built on the expertise of its workforce and underpinned by its position in the UK.

Excusing the misuse of “Britain”, this point ignores that according to the OECD some years back, Scotland would be the eighth richest country in the world by GDP, rather than the UK’s 14th.

• Being in the Union allows us to pool resources and risk. The fact that Scotland receives more from the UK Treasury than she contributes does allow the disproportionate remoteness of some regions and the disproportionate economic disadvantages of others to be catered for.

What really annoys me are arguments for the union that are based on loose principle that actually undermine the idea of independent countries at all. If the union does allow us to pool resources and risk then the logical extension of this is that we should merge the UK with other countries. And the claim that Scotland receives more from the UK Treasury than “she” contributes is not only incorrect, but even if it was true it would demonstrate that the union has failed to improve the Scottish economy and is thus not worth maintaining. And spare a thought, under this myth, for England, having to tolerate a subsidy junkie – why on this basis would the union be in England’s interests?

• Most of the Scottish budget comes from a block grant from the UK Parliament, paid for out of taxes collected from across the UK.

This point is absurd, not because it is not true but because it is a simple statement of the current funding methodology. Why should the way things work now be a reason in themselves for them not to work a different way? In any case, there is an increasing consensus amongst even unionist parties that Scotland should be moving towards some form of fiscal autonomy whereby it raises more revenue itself and pays something to the UK treasury.

• Being part of the Union and the current funding setup means that public services are less exposed to sudden fluctuations in revenue with a tax base as wide as the UK’s

Again, this is an argument for full EU economic integration, or, stretching the point just a little, some form of world government. In the global sense, the UK’s tax base is tiny and surely at risk as an isolated independent country.

• Social security payments are available and are paid on the same basis to people across the country, according to their needs. This principle of fairness should not be undermined.

We have different welfare systems from people in Norway, Ireland, Belgium and France. This grossly undermines the principle of fairness, no?

• Being part of the UK allows the costs of say bank rescue plans to be more easily absorbed and spread out across a far larger tax base and therefore makes the costs less acute on the individual.

See above. Honestly, you’d think from reading this that the One Dynamic Nation people must abhor the terrible risks the poor little UK faces every day in its tragic isolation.

Political

• Being part of the UK, Scotland is able to wield meaningful influence for good around the world. Scotland is in the privileged position of being amongst the five permanent members of the Security Council, is in the G8 group of the most prosperous nations, is one of the three big nations at the centre of the EU and leads the Commonwealth. Scotland’s interests are therefore represented in the most influential and important international organisations in the world by virtue of the Union.

This is mildly laughable: Scotland is not on the UN Security Council, in the G8 or a member of the EU or Commonwealth – the UK is. Not only is Scotland absent from all of these organisation’s membership lists (with the exception of our appearances as a separate Commonwealth Games participant), the actions of the UK Government within these forums is often against the interests or opinions of Scotland: take the Iraq war as an obvious example of the costs of being beholden to UK foreign policy.

• It goes without saying that Scotland is physically safer with the pooled resources of the UK military and counter-terrorist services at our disposal.

It most certainly does not go without saying. As one example, if we ever experienced a nuclear war, then Faslane, on the shore of the Clyde, would, as the home to the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines, be among the very first sites to be taken out. Moreover, being a part of the UK’s hypocritical and imperialist foreign policy has increased our exposure to the risk of terrorism. And even if I’m wrong, the point being made is logically indistinguishable from the argument that the EU should have a combined military and counter-terrorist infrastructure.

• Over the centuries, Scots have made an outstanding contribution to the UK’s military successes. Scotland punches above its weight in Britain’s Armed Forces and Britain punches above its weight in the world because of the expertise and bravery of those Armed Forces.

Precisely why a Scottish armed forces would punch above its weight if independent. Many small countries play valuable and unaggressive roles militarily throughout the world, and there’s nothing to stop Scotland’s forces being major contributors to peacekeeping, rather than warmongering.

Social Benefits

• The Union allows individual Scots to continue to play a major part in the social fabric of the UK.

Scots play a major part in the social fabric of many countries throughout the world, like the USA or Australia. Do we need to be the same country as them for this to happen? No. Scots will continue to play a major role in the rest of the UK upon independence, and English, Welsh and Northern Irish folk will do likewise in an independent Scotland.

• Many of us will have family in other parts of the UK.

I have family in Spain. Your point, caller?

• Sports stars like the Scottish Olympic Gold Medallist cyclist Chris Hoy trained in England and competed at international level for Britain.

Chris Hoy could technically train in Ireland, Mongolia or Australia if he wanted. If he really wanted to train in or even compete for the remnant UK he’d still have the right to.

• A common bond we have is the Royal Family.

It’s a bond we also share with Jamaica, New Zealand, Bermuda, Canada and a dozen or so other realms throughout the world. Last I checked, we didn’t all need to be a part of the same country for this to happen.

• Within the Union there are aspects of Scotland’s national life which are different from the rest of the UK. The distinctive Scottish legal system and the Scottish education system are good examples.

Ah, so it’s viable for Scotland to have distinct ways of doing things from the rest of the UK. That’s nice. I wonder if we could extend this principle to broadcasting, social security policy, foreign affairs and economic planning for instance? Just a thought.

Honestly, is this the best the unionist camp can come up with? I’m not saying that intellectually there is no case to be made for the Union. But if the “no” camp can only make arguments which actually undermine the whole concept of independent countries, including the UK, they’re unlikely to persuade many of the undecideds who are going to be so crucial in deciding Scotland’s future.

If there are any arguments in favour of maintaining the United Kingdom that are not, by logical extension, arguments for big countries or world government, then I’d love to hear them. Post your comments below.

I think it comes from being a over a hundred miles away from any place of a similar size and thus being in no other city’s shadow, but there is a great confidence to Inverness.

No more so is this true than in the city’s music scene.

Half-decent (or, indeed, full-decent) bands can crop up in the city or the wider area, last for years, and accrue large and loyal followings.

The flip side of this, however, is that the Highlands’ best bands are rarely on the radar of the music industry’s labels, venues and promoters in the central belt or beyond Scotland and thus rarely gain the coverage or success they arguably deserve.

That must be a frustrating experience for bands who genuinely believe in themselves yet who admirably choose not to relocate south.

That’s probably especially true for The Side, a long-running indie rock band from Alness, not desperately far north of Inverness, who after seven years and a handful of EPs decided to quit.  Their farewell gig was at the Ironworks on Friday past, and I was not only there but (unintentionally) first in the queue at the door which got me jokingly labelled a “groupie” by the security staff.  Not that I know the band – I’ve never met any of them but have seen them play a handful of gigs in smaller venues around Inverness and their bouncy, catchy songs are all the more enjoyable for the band’s energetic performances that are almost exhausting simply to watch.

Their album “Nowhere Left To Run” was my album of the year a couple of years ago when it came out (check out “One Fine Day” on their MySpace which is a particular favourite track).  The release threatened to propel them into the big time, with the band played in various locations around Europe and got some big gigs supporting names such as Texas and Bon Jovi.

However, the band sadly made the recent announcement that they were to split – it was sad that the intended success did not emerge, with my network of spies in the Easter Ross music world speaking of that old chestnut “creative differences”.  It’s a credit to the band that they’ve decided to go their own way before sliding into obscurity, instead leaving as they do pretty much at their peak.

Their gig was excellent, and a fine send-off to one of the best bands to have come from the Highlands in recent years.  Their album is still available, and they have a number of songs on MySpace.  For much better photos of the gig than my grainy, shaky efforts, I refer you to local music photographer Al Donnelly’s blog (1|2).

If you ever want to know what it feels like to travel to the other side of the world, but don’t have the time or money to do so, then allow me to suggest that you take the overnight bus from London to Inverness.  The feeling of exhaustion, plus the desperate need to sleep during the daytime upon returning, has given me the sort of jetlag that I’ve only ever experienced after flights to or from Australia and New Zealand.

A little over twenty four hours after returning from France I’ve more or less shaken the tiredness off, which is just as well as I have a very busy week’s travels for work coming up.  In that time, a major highlight has been sorting through my Paris photos and uploading a selection of them – we were only there overnight on our journey home but managed to pack a lot in.  The whole set from the trip, incidentally, is here.

I’ll be putting finger to keyboard with a few bits and pieces of what we got up to in France, but as a sneak preview it involved sunshine, castles and industrial quantities of delicious French cheese.

That won’t be all written up for a few weeks, though, as I have mullet-related writing to do.  Yes, despite my promise to myself that I’d finish my draft of my second book finished before going to France, I failed.  I’m nearly there though – perhaps 80-90% finished – so am not feeling too bad about missing what was after all an entirely self-imposed date.  I think I might be done in a month or two, but given my past record I reckon it would tempting fate to announce another deadline.

On with the writing then.  If the post-holiday blues and general work busyness don’t get in the way.

It’s hardly your typical cheerful and easy holiday read, but while in France I finished off The Long Bridge, a memoir of a Polish woman’s experiences in Soviet gulags.

I probably wouldn’t have known about it were it not for the fact that it was published by my publisher, Sandstone Press, nor have bought it had I not happened to be in Edinburgh and have a free evening when it was launched a few months ago.  Though I have enjoyed (if that is the right word) other books in that genre, including by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Arthur Koestler and – not strictly the same but nonetheless related – another Sandstone title, Shadow Behind The Sun.

Such books are inevitably dark and horror-filled, but the small lights of hope we find in the key characters burn strongly and hopefully, making all the more powerful comments about the strength of human nature and the importance of hanging on to what good there is in the world.

The Long Bridge is written by the late Urszula Muskus and brought to life by the efforts of her grandson Peter who lives in the Highlands, and is her account of her life in prison and labour camps in the 1940s an 1950s under Stalin.  Like most people in that extensive, hellish network of Siberian prisons, Muskus was no true criminal nor deserving her decade or so’s sentence – merely she was one of the many middle class professionals (or family members thereof) imprisoned for entirely spurious reasons by the paranoid Soviet leader Stalin from throughout the Soviet Union itself and its emerging central European empire.

The book starts with an evocative description of life in an ordinary Polish (though today Ukranian) village, over-run at the outbreak of World War 2 firstly by the Nazis and then by the Soviets, followed by the latter’s arrest of Muskus’s husband and the author’s own subsequent incarceration.

We then follow her from camp to camp, spending often years in one place, and Muskus is very selfless in her descriptions – she describes her multinational fellow inmates in great detail, not least their suffering, life stories (she appears to be someone others open up to easily) and hopes.  The work in the camps is invariably gruelling, the treatment by guards brutal, and the food awful, but the author’s stoic approach throughout demonstrates a real strength of character.  She was clearly a strong, determined, intelligent woman, with a mother’s compassion and a voice very similar to that of Remzije Sherifi, author of Shadow Behind The Sun mentioned above.

While a certain degree of restraint and selflessness is entirely admirable, and is probably part of what helped her survive, it does lead to the occasional moment where you feel the book dulls the horrors of the story, and because she is so dispassionate about her own afflictions we only truly connect to the evil of the gulags when she describes others’ endurances.  But the strength of character of Muskus shines through the book, not least in the introduction, explanatory footnotes and postscript provided by her grandson.  The conclusion is suitably moving, with a marvellous reflection on human nature that belies the horrors she has experienced.

It’s a beautifully written book about an entirely unbeautiful period of history – which is, scarily, still within the lifetimes of people alive today.  Stalin’s gulags were one of the last century’s great evils, and this book is a good way of hearing from those that experienced them.

Faith, hope and charity are quite a trilogy.  They are a trio of saints, three WW2-era RAF planes, a key verse in the Bible and even a play. But here in Inverness, they are most famous as the Three Graces which used to reside above a magnificent columned building on the corner of High Street and Castle Street, where the architectural (not to mention gastronomic) monstrosity McDonald’s now sits.

When their home was abolished they spent time in exile in Orkney before being recently bought by the council and returned to Inverness.  They now sit on the riverside, just in front of Ness Bank church.  They are quite attractive statues and tastefully fit their new home.  Here they are on the right, standing in a row with their names beneath them.  Click on the picture to see it in detail.

However, sometimes it takes an outsider to see something about a place (something I love about travel).  Recently we had some visitors staying with us, and when we walked along the river one of them pointed out that the names are in the wrong order.

Faith, suggested our friend, is the one in the middle clutching a Bible (who stands above the word “hope”).  Hope is the one with that great metaphor of hope, an anchor, perched atop the legend “charity”.  Charity is the one giving something to drink to a child, oblivious to being called “faith” by the plinth.  Despite being free-standing statues with a custom-made plinth, they have been clearly placed in the wrong order.  Either that or they’ve been playing musical chairs when nobody’s watching.  I can imagine the council stating the names are not meant to indicate the statue directly above, but that runs counter to the way that anyone would logically interpret the scene.

Is this an intentional placing, or has Highland Council made a gaffe that has, until now, been unnoticed?

I’ve begun uploading photos from our time in beautiful France and neutral Switzerland.  We’ve been staying with friends in Annecy, a lovely medieval town in Haute-Savoie, and have also been to Geneva for the day.

I’ll write more soon, but keep your eye on the evolving photo set in the meantime.

The EU will be jealous of me, because unlike them I am shortly to remove that annoying grey bit from the middle of my “where I’ve been” map.

Just as Lesotho makes South Africa look like it’s forgotten something, the European Union purists must have been annoyed for some years now by that irritating and persistently neutral bit that can’t be coloured in despite the union’s recent spread eastwards: yes, the land of yodelling, clocks and versatile pocket knives that is Switzerland.

By the time you read this we will be en route to France on holiday, and are staying in the east of the country within day trip distance of the Swiss city of Geneva.

It’s a country that’s easy to scorn for its resistance to EU membership, and anyone who has returned home to the UK from a trip abroad will know what I mean.

When you approach customs, there are generally channels for two groups of passport holders – those from the European Union, and then those from other countries.  Those benefitting from the freedom of movement the EU allows can, broadly speaking, treat the union’s four and a bit million square kilometres of territory as their home, a cursory check of the passport being enough to welcome you to a country which, if it is not your own, is still somewhere you’re welcome to live and work in, on the whole without restriction.  Meanwhile those outside the European Union are directed to another channel, presumably so their passports and visas can be checked and stamped to ensure they are entitled to visit the country.

But of course, if you look again at the directional signs above the channels, it’s not as simple as “EU” and “other”.  The EU channel also extends the “fast track” to the European Economic Area (which include all EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and to Switzerland.

I can understand the inclusion of the EEA – an agreement exists between it and the EU that allows those three named EEA members to access the EU’s internal market in exchange for adhering to relevant legislation.  But Switzerland opts out of the EEA, for reasons I honestly cannot be bothered to research.  Why, then, they have free passage through the same passport stream as EU and EEA citizens, I have no idea.

Of course, there are strong arguments both for and against membership of the European Union, and the Swiss are perfectly entitled to choose not to be members.  But by joining EU channels at immigration points, it’s clear that they are getting all of the benefits of EU membership without the burden or responsibility of membership.

Why should I be expected to share a passport queue with a bunch of folk who pay nothing to EU coffers, for whom Herman van Rompuy does not speak, and who face none of the joys of the Common Agricultural Policy and none of the ire of UKIP?  This is a major injustice I am sure you’ll agree, and when I return to the UK I shall be sure to tell the uniformed customs person to whom I show my passport that I resent sharing space with the freeloading Swiss.

Revenge is planned, though.  Apart from entry to a few interesting-sounding museums in Geneva, I plan on spending as little money there as possible.  Mind you, that frugality is not just to spite the Swiss for opting out of the EU while claiming its benefits: it’s also because their prices – already among the highest in Europe – are apparently rocketing as their currency strengthens against the euro.

So, the challenge is on to get as much out of Geneva as possible while spending as little as possible.  It’ll be my first time in Switzerland but third time in France.  I’ll report back on both countries – and the rusty state of my French – in due course.

Au revoir!

I like to say that my political retirement must be one of the earliest on record: I quit the Scottish National Party when I was twenty-one, and after being active nationally for some years in the party I am quite sure there is a “Sliding Doors“-esque parallel universe version of me who is still heavily involved and, who knows, is perhaps even a career politician.

I don’t envy my imagined alternative self for a microsecond. I’ll not bore you with the reasons why I gave up active politics (though when I left the SNP I did not stop supporting them or voting for them), but it left me in a position where I could enjoy commenting on politics without any line to tow, or indeed also enjoy being utterly apathetic if I felt like it.

One consequence of this has been that I now read considerably less political stuff than I used to, and probably wouldn’t have read the 2010 biography of SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had I not received it as a present last Christmas. I had every intention to read Salmond: Against the Odds before May’s 2011 election, but various things got in the way and as such I ended up reading it after that astonishing SNP landslide which I am sure would have changed the tone of the biography had it been released now. Though of course, that’s the problem with biographies of people who are still alive and displaying few signs of changing that designation – there’s no perfect time to write them because the story is still constantly being written.

I should declare a brief connection before I continue – I know the book’s author, journalist David Torrance, from university days and recall on one occasion being interviewed by him for the student newspaper, Gaudie, while I was president of the university’s SNP society. David’s article quoted an unnamed source as describing me as a “psychopath”, which proves firstly that he was set on a path for high-powered in-depth journalism and secondly that made the right choice when I got out of politics.

Alex Salmond, for the uninitiated, has been SNP leader for two stints, the first beginning in 1990, and became Scotland’s First Minister in 2007 when the party won a wafer-thin victory in the Scottish Parliament elections, a lead unexpectedly extended in last year’s elections to create the parliament’s first-ever overall majority. The major consequence of this is that there will almost certainly be an independence referendum, probably in 2014 or 2015, and these two major votes past and future will prove a fascinating new chapter to the book if ever David Torrance chooses to update it.

At times, Against the Odds reads like a general history of the SNP or a summary of Scottish politics through the later 20th century, rather than a pure biography, but then again this is firstly reflective of the frequent perception that Alex Salmond is the SNP or that the party is a one-man band. Because more than being First Minister, Salmond has been one of Scottish politics’ biggest figures for years, and his incredible skill, political astuteness and phenomenal debating ability that has swept aside many opponents all suggest that had he been a member of a UK party, he’d doubtless have been a major frontbench figure and, most likely, a Prime Minister if he had been of the Labour or Conservative member. And secondly, Salmond is an infamously private person, rarely discussing his private life and – unusually for a major politician – fiercely keeping his wife from the limelight.

As such, though it is surprising it has taken so long for a biography of such an important figure to appear, the book is all the more remarkable that it is able to tell us anything of Salmond at all given the subject’s tendency to privacy. It reveals stories from Salmond’s early years and family history, while quoting friends and colleagues – often anonymously – from throughout his studies and career. If I have a criticism of the book, though, it is the frequent quotations of one figure from the party’s history, Salmond’s long-standing rival and critic Jim Sillars, who – as far as I recall from my active SNP days, was little more than an irrelevance to the party at that time so must be even more so today. But it demonstrates a depth of research and a balance of perspectives that does leave as few stones unturned as possible in the portrayal of Salmond’s life.

The question at the heart of the book is what makes the man who became First Minister tick, and in a life seemingly devoid of ill intent, scandal or personal failings, the answer seems to be a genuine passion for Scotland and an enthusiasm for revealing its untapped potential. The author, to my knowledge no SNP supporter himself, has therefore produced a book that will probably reinforce the views of Salmond’s fans, reassure any neutrals, but provide no new ammunition to his enemies.

Scotland is at an important point politically, with a party and parliament dominated by one man who will (rightly or wrongly) be firmly centre stage in the forthcoming independence referendum. It’s right that we know something of that man’s history, and so Against the Odds is an important book, and engagingly written.

It’s not making me miss active party politics one bit, though.

Last year I blogged a review of the excellent Max Brooks book World War Z. A documentary description of a fictitious future war against zombies, it was one of my favourite reads from last year and which, as I mentioned at the time, was to be turned into a film.

With part of the film set in Philadelphia, the search for somewhere that could play the part of that soft cheese-inspired American city began and, oddly, Glasgow was the winner. This is rather akin to the famous story of Charlie Chaplain once coming second in a Charlie Chaplain lookalike competition, though of course it also speaks of the financial incentives offered by Glasgow City Council.

I was in Glasgow for work from Wednesday until Sunday last week, and the event we were running was located just a short zombie shuffle from George Square, where the main centre of filming action was.

For many, the key draw was a chance to see the film’s star, Brad Pitt – though the closest any of our event’s participants got was a brief glimpse of one of his stunt doubles. For me, though, the appeal was the surreal and quite convincing way that Glasgow city centre was dressed up as an American city.

The attention to detail was impressive – everything from roadsigns and pedestrian crossings through to newspaper stands, cars and even tourist information signs. Such was Glasgow’s appeal with its grid system city centre and grand early twentieth century architecture that it was a good fit as an American city.

Our event was regularly interrupted with the sounds of gunfire and screaming from outside (and yes, the jokes about how Glasgow normally is were done to death), and at one point we were barred from leaving our building while the street outside was used for filming.

I managed to get a few photos of the streets, although not sadly when any filming was taking place. Take a peek at them on Flickr.

My scepticism about the film, explained in my post last year, remains, but it will be fun to watch it in order to spot bits of Glasgow that I recognise, and to remember that I was just metres away when those parts were being filmed.

It is, apparently, out in late 2012. If the zombies don’t rise up and kill us all first.

In Glasgow this past week, I had occasion to take the subway and was intrigued by a billboard advert for “Oban – seafood capital of Scotland”.  With bright colours, the backdrop to the advert was a picture of the harbour around Oban, the sky suspiciously blue and creating the impression that this was some Mediterranean paradise rather than the usually wet ferry port that it is.

Not that I dislike Oban.  It’s a very pretty place, with a dramatic hillside setting around the bay, an impressive folly at the top of the hill (left), a characterful town centre and lovely views out to the islands of the inner Hebrides.  It boasts two shinty clubs, two cathedrals, a distillery, direct rail access to Glasgow, and some quaint yet grand buildings on the harbour front.  It is significantly nicer than its drab neighbour and rival to the north, Fort William, and an excellent base for exploring Scotland’s west coast.  Not bad for a town of just a few thousand.

“Seafood capital of Scotland”, though?  That’s a new one on me, and – having sussed it out on the internet – it seems it’s an entirely self-appointed label given by companies in the town involved in the seafood industry.  Now I’m not an expert on the seafood industry, and indeed strongly dislike seafood (I never eat any food that goes “crunch-squelch”).  But the idea of having a “seafood capital of Scotland” is disingenuous in many ways.

First, it’s a title Oban invented and gave itself. Dreamt up by prestige-hungry local councillors and business leaders, and no doubt advised by fad-obsessed branding consultants, it is tourist marketing at its most vacuous.  Where was the competition, or the neutral organisers?  Those are details Oban didn’t care about – it just invented a the brand and declared itself the winner.

Second, it of course implies that Oban is the best place to get seafood.  That’s an entirely subjective statement, given the plethora of excellent seafood restaurants around Scotland, many of whom would take umbridge at Oban awarding itself this accolade.

Third, why can’t Oban just be good at something and be known for it without a title?  Why artificially claim a title that suggests the product can’t stand on its own reputation?  If Oban truly is an amazing place for seafood, then word will get out.  People will talk about it.  The title might even be created naturally by the chatter of tourist guides and restaurant critics.  If the world united to declare Oban the seafood capital of Scotland, fair enough – but remember this was Oban’s arrogant and ultimately counter-productive self-anointment.

Fourth, what about the other stuff it’s good at?  When you think about the key features of Oban – see my second paragraph – you think of plenty other things besides seafood.  So why focus on one strength and one potential market at the exclusion of all others?  I wonder how the rest of the local economy in Oban feels now that they’ve been sidelined in the town’s branding at the expense of one particular industry.

And then there’s the wider point: it’s not just Oban.

Sometimes, it feels like every town and city wants to be a capital.

Aberdeen: Oil Capital of Europe.  Inverness: Capital of the Highlands.  Fort William: Outdoor Capital of the UK.

And by far and away my favourite, Stoke-on-Trent: The World Capital of Ceramics.  Not England or the UK’s Ceramics Capital.  The World’s.  Quake at the mention of Stoke-on-Trent, puny humans, and thank your lucky stars that wars aren’t fought with pottery weapons.  Because if they were, then I for one would welcome our new clay-wielding Stoke-on-Trent overlords.

What’s wrong with being a known important centre of something?  Why can’t a town simply be famous for certain things, and attractive in the broadest sense to visit?  Why does it have to misuse the word “capital” and claim a title that never existed before and was awarded by no proper authority?  Frankly, unless you have a legislative, judicial or executive base, then you can’t claim to be a capital.  Any other claim to be a capital is spurious and most of these examples just take the biscuit.  And yes, there’s probably a Biscuit Capital of the UK.

In fact, if you’ll excuse the diversion, I’ve just typed “biscuit capital of” into Google, and I’ve discovered that there are a couple of claims to be Biscuit Capital of the World (including Natchez, Mississippi), one claim to be Biscuit Capital of India, and, most amusingly, a claim to be Biscuit Capital of the Australian state of Victoria (that’s the town of Donald, fact fans).  Is there really so little going on in these places culturally and economically that they need to scramble desperately for such pathetic titles?

And if this trend continues, will there be anywhere in the world that isn’t a capital?  Just imagine this dystopian, capital-obsessed future.  There could be marketing campaigns for Dores as “Capital of South Loch Ness”.  Or maybe Grangemouth: “Oil Refinery Capital of Scotland“. And how about Eoligarry: “Capital of North Barra“? There’ll be a mad scramble as every town, village or settlement rushes to declare itself capital of something, even if it has to be capital of itself.

I think we should do a deal with these places.  If a city or town wants to arbitrarily claim a “capital” title, then we, the unwashed masses, should be able to democratically vote for them to receive a less than desirable title that must receive equal prominence in the branding.  For Oban, accompanying their seafood claim could be the title of “Rain Capital of Scotland”.  Then we could have “Fort William: Scotland’s Capital of Utter Misery”.  And Stoke could be “Capital of Complete Non-Entities That Rely On Claims To World Pottery Titles For Anyone To Actually Notice Them”.

Now those sorts of titles would really make headlines.  And they do say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.