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I just heard John Bell of the Iona Community on ‘Thought for the Day’. He was talking, since it’s St Andrew’s day, about the old Scottish saying, or toast, “Here’s tae us, wha’s like us? Damn few, and they’re a’ deid.” That’s, “Here’s to us, who’s like us? Damn few, and they’re all dead,” in case you have trouble with Scots.
Thing is, Bell was bemoaning the attitude he thinks it represents. He thinks it means, “The only people we can emulate are dead.” He thinks it epitomises a ‘national inferiority complex.’
That’s not how I ever understood it.
Rather than looking back wistfully on past glories, to me it was triumphal, celebratory, even arrogant, if you need a negative adjective. It said—it says—“We’re here, and we’re great; there’s no-one like us.”
So happy St Andrew’s day: we rock.
This entry was automatically crossposted from my blog, A Labourer at the Bitface. You can comment here on LJ, but it might be nice if you commented over there.
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... I read it as
Who has ever been as good as us? Very few, and none of them are alive today.
Meaning that the Scots are the current best people in the world ... I don't know that I'd exclude a few of my non-Scottish friends (or include certain Scottish politicians) but it's a proud boast not an inferiority complex ... unless Bell is starting with one of his own ...!
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Happy St Andrew's Day!
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The average Englishman, in his home he calls his castle, puts on his national costume - a shabby raincoat patented by Charles MacIntosh of Glasgow, Scotland.
He drives a car fitted with tires invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland.
At the office he receives his mail with adhesive stamps which, although they bear the Queen of England’s head, were invented by John Chambers of Dundee, Scotland.
During the day he uses the telephone, invented by Alexander Graham Bell of Edinburgh, Scotland.
At home in the evening he watches his daughter ride her bicycle, invented by Kilpatrick MacMillan, a Blacksmith from Dumfries, Scotland.
He watches the news on television which was invented by John Logie Baird of Helensburough, Scotland and hears an item about the U.S. Navy founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.
He has now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation picks up the Bible, only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot - King James VI - who authorized its translation.
Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots, he could take to drink but the Scots make the finest in the world, he could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick Ferguson of Pitfours, Scotland.
If he escaped death, he could find himself on an operating table, being injected with Penicillin, discovered by Alexander Flemming of Darvel, Scotland, and given an anesthetic, discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.
Coming out of the anesthesia, he would find no comfort in learning that he was as safe as the Bank Of England which was founded by William Patterson of Dumfries, Scotland.
Perhaps his only hope would be to get a transfusion of good SCOTTISH blood.
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and ...
Re: and ...
Also, did you notice that in that clip, the agent calls him 'Mr McLaughlin' (or one of the many spellings of that name) rather than McGlashan?
I still miss Absolutely.
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