HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-12-24, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
T hat garret of the earth – that knuckle-
bone of England – that land of Calvin,
oat-cakes and sulphur.
That would be Sydney Smith running off at
the mouth.
Smith was an English clergyman, essayist
and wit, a contemporary of Napoleon and
Beethoven and, obviously, no great friend of
Dear Auld Scotland, which is what he was
slagging for being an attic, a skeletal leftover
and a repository of brimstone religion and bad
food.
Mister Smith must have been possessed of
an admirable set of gonads to bad-mouth
Scotland that way, considering that he was
ordained as a minister in Edinburgh and even
helped to found the esteemed Edinburgh
Review in 1802.
He’s not the only famous name to take a
flinty view of Scotland.
Lord Byron called it “a land of meanness,
sophistry and lust”.
Charles Lamb sniffed, “I have been trying
all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged
to desist from the experiment in despair.”
That curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, Samuel
Johnson grumbled, “The noblest prospect
which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road
that leads him to England.”
Harsh words, laddies – although to be fair,
Scotland does have a few things to answer for.
Argyle socks hop to mind.
Closely followed by haggis, plaid shirts,
kilts, porridge and caber tossing – all
accompanied, of course, by the banshee
keening of a set of Highland bagpipes.
I haven’t even mentioned Scotland’s most
cursed bequest to the world. (Hint: it involves
dressing up in geeky clothes in order to take
long walks in faux-wilderness surroundings
punctuated by acts of personal flagellation and
self-mortification inflicted with a variety of
clubs and cudgels specifically designed for the
aforementioned exercise in embarrassment.)
Ah, yes. No accident that, backwards, it
spells ‘flog’.
On the other hand, Scotland also bequeathed
us Robbie Burns and single-malt scotch. Not
a bad bargain.
And, oh yes – Canada as we know it.
If the Great White North could show the
ribbons and strains of Scottish blood absorbed
just in the exploration of this land -– the
Mackenzies and Frasers, the Thompsons and
Raes, the Douglases and Dunsmuirs – we’d
have a brand new tartan on our hands.
Those early Scots-Canadians mastered
parchment as well as paddles. The names of
the first six prime ministers of Canada carry a
certain burr: Macdonald, Mackenzie,
Macdonald, Abbot, Thompson, Mackenzie
Bowell.
For a mere knuckle-bone of England,
Scotland has made a rather impressive
international splash over the centuries.
It’s interesting, then, that there’s a move
afoot to stamp all that out. And more
interesting that the initiative for the move
comes from Scotland itself.
It’s even given the English language a brand
new word: de-Scottishification.
This profoundly ugly mouthful means ‘to re-
brand a product or a company in order to play
down or remove its Scottish connotations.’
Why would any company want to divorce
itself from its Scottish background?
It all has to do with the decision this year by
the Scottish government to release Abdelbaset
al Megrahi – aka the Lockerbie Bomber. The
man had been found guilty of involvement in
the aircraft bombing that took 270 lives over
Scotland.
In 2001 he was sentenced to life
imprisonment, but this year the Scottish
government cut him loose and sent him back
to Libya – a decision thought to be not
unconnected to a massively favourable oil deal
between Scotland and that country.
Whatever the politics, it was a PR disaster
for Scotland, leading to world-wide calls for a
boycott of all Scottish businesses.
The Hebrides company that manufactures
the famous Harris tweed fabric blinked. The
company has dropped the word “Scottish”
from all of its North American marketing
campaigns.
“We have been getting a lot of (negative)
feedback and we have had to ‘de-Scottishify’
the image of the brand,” said a company
spokesman.
No more Harris tweeds? What next – a
blackout of all Sean Connery movies?
Do we have to re-name Scotch broth, Scotch
tape and Scotch eggs?
At the risk of compounding their misery I
think Harris tweed should be cited for
contempt.
Of the English language. “De-
Scottishification”?
Ugh. Even Sydney Smith wouldn’t stoop
that low.
Arthur
Black
Other Views De-Scottishify? Och, terrible!
Ontario MPPs at this time of year
traditionally inflict some of the
world’s worst poetry on the
legislature, but they now have added a
way to help rescue this neglected literary
form.
MPPs who feel touched by the muse and
season of goodwill typically write and recite
poems such as that by Progressive
Conservative Jerry Ouellette, after a session
that was particularly rowdy:
“’Twas just before Christmas and all
through the House, the members were
scurrying for the rise of the House. The
Speaker said ‘I know you are restless and
posturing about, but it’s order we’ll have or I’ll
toss you all out.’”
The poem never climbs to greater heights as
it goes on about “the chamber you see,
influencing generations to be,” but is
well meant and no-one expects it to provide
the beauty or inspiration of Byron
or Shelley.
Monte Kwinter, a longtime Liberal, earlier
moved the legislature create the position of
Ontario Poet Laureate to promote art and
literacy in the province and all three parties
enthusiastically supported it.
This may seem an unlikely initiative for
Kwinter, because he was a successful
businessman and held such heavyweight
economic posts as minister of industry, trade
and financial institutions, but he has a fine arts
degree and was vice-president of the Ontario
College of Art.
The MPP says he was motivated first by a
love of poetry, from which he receives
stimulation.
He remembers word-for-word the first poem
he read as a child, the drama of Sir Patrick
Spens sitting in Dunfermline town, drinking
the blood red wine and answering his king’s
call to sail on a stormy sea in which he
drowned, which is moving enough to bring a
tear to many who recall it.
Kwinter believes many young people grow
up communicating in high-tech, using forms
of shorthand and missing a lot if they do not
appreciate the written word.
He says government places high priority on
building a stronger, more competitive
economy and its cultural sector plays a key
part and has created more jobs recently than
the economy generally.
It provides some funds, although not nearly
enough, for writers and has annual awards for
poetry.
Kwinter said the poet laureate could write
poems commemorating important events,
sponsor readings of his or her own poetry,
speak in schools and other venues of the power
of words and encourage creativity in using
them.
Kwinter points out legislators take a lot of
pride in using words well and have
a responsibility to encourage this among
others.
The federal parliament appointed its first
poet laureate, George Bowering, in 2002, and
now has Pierre DesRuisseaux. They are not
known much to the average Canadian, which
may reflect reduced interest in Canadian
poetry.
Several provinces have poet laureates and
Britain has had one under a variety of titles for
six centuries, including Chaucer, Spenser,
Dryden, Wordsworth and Tennyson, whose
names are household words to many
Canadians.
The United States Library of Congress has
appointed poet laureates, again under various
titles, since 1937 and they included Robert
Frost.
Ontario’s Conservative premier from 1995-
2002, Mike Harris, was considered hard-
nosed, preoccupied with saving money, and
not versed in the arts, but knew enough to say
somewhat aptly he had chosen Frost’s “road
less travelled by.”
Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has said
he writes poems to his wife saying he
misses her when he is away from
home on politics, but has not made examples
public.
A social services minister under Harris,
David Tsubouchi wrote poems. In one he
described shooting and killing a mime with his
finger, which worried some, who interpreted it
as meaning he had less respect for those on the
fringes of society.
Kwinter also says his aims do not include
trying to raise the standard of the poetry MPPs
contribute to the legislature, but anything he
does to encourage people to read real poetry
has to be on the right track.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
Christmas is a time of wonder and for the
past few years we have asked some
folks with an especially ‘wonder-ful’
view their take on the holdays.
As a result, the Grade 1 students at our
elementary schools have provided their
ingenuous perspective on everything from life
at the North Pole, to what Santa eats before
heading out on Christmas Eve.
This year we did have a bit of a concern with
one of our questions, however, assuming that
in asking the students their favourite part of
Christmas we would receive a common
answer.
Much, to our delight, this was not the case.
Not only did this mean we would have
something more entertaining for our adult
readers, but it seemed besides childlike wonder
we also had a thing or two to learn about their
wisdom. Little ones of an age when selfish
thoughts would easily be forgiven talked not
about the goodies they get or want, but of time
with family and charity as examples of what is
the nicest part of Christmas for them.
Discussing this revelation, I reflected back to
my childhood Christmases to see what the first
thoughts would be. Not so strangely, it wasn’t
the presents for me either; born in the mid-
1950s, it was a time when the bounty under the
tree was modest by today’s standards, a stuffed
toy or a doll often the biggest, if not only, treat.
No, what came to mind was first, family,
second, Christmas lights.
The latter was an annual ritual, a highlight at
the end of the Sunday school pageant, when we
bundled into the car and toured the ‘ritzy’ side
of town to see the beautifully-decorated
homes. Oohs, aahs, and simple time spent in
wide-eyed wonder.
A few days later would be Christmas Day,
and more than being excited for opening gifts
after church was the idea of going to my
grandparents’ home to play with my cousins.
Though all lived within a short drive from my
house and we saw each other with some
frequency there was a different feeling being
together at Christmas.
Being the youngest by eight years in a family
of three, it was a rare and lively treat for me to
find myself surrounded by so many,
particularly some my own age.
When I think of those days I see girls in
crinolines racing up steps and sliding down
bannisters. largely ignored by the adults. The
women, dressed smartly beneath their aprons
tottered sprightly on heels between kitchen and
dining room, while the men held court in the
living room, occasionally intercepting us mid-
frolic on a frenetic trip through.
Though the houses stayed the same, the
numbers around the table grew over time of
course as our teenage siblings brought others
to the mix. Yet, for the youngest things never
seemed to get too crowded as we staked our
claim on any free space that remained.
But time has a way of changing things. Our
grandparents passed away, children married,
moved and had children of their own. Getting
together as an extended family became harder
and eventually I guess everyone just gave up.
And this is what happens when everyone
grows up I guess.
But I thank those Grade 1 students who
became my Ghosts of Christmas Past. While
memory will often fool us, romanticizing
events and places, my images of these times
seem true. The anticipation in heading off to
Christmas dinner with family is something I
can still feel. It was the highlight of the day. It
was fun then, and it still looks like fun now.
MPPs to boost poetry factor
Small wonder
At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
– Thomas Tusser
Final
Thought