Happy New whatever...

And the New Year came in. You could hear the fireworks going off, but WE had to watch it on television. You would think that seeing the real thing is better, but no, people wanted to sit inside. BORING! A bit of a waste of a 12,000 mile trip. Why do people insist on living life second hand through television and reading reviews rather than risking life itself? I think I'm too polite and accommodating with others. Well, I've not made New Year's resolutions before but I know what I will be doing now...-(ie what I choose to do.)

And then in our dinner group, a so-called educated Shakespeare lecturer, who described the Scots language as 'bastard English' spent the evening singing Rolf Harris songs to me as a 'celebration' of Australian culture. He thought he was being witty, of course. Unfortunately, there's so much prejudice, ignorance and a born-to-rule mentality here. I thought he was going to stand up and sing 'Rule Britannia' any minute, except he'd had far too much to drink (which others had to subsidise by 'splitting the bill' - not doing that ever again - subsection e of the New Year's resolution). I had people correcting my pronunciation of Gaelic by people with no knowledge of the language! I've experienced this sort of ignorant patronising behaviour before, especially when people make fun of the Australian accent in Scotland, and I'm so disappointed sometimes with the depth of stupidity of some people, with perhaps the worst of it, that they perpetrate their ignorance with such confidence as if by some God given right, that what they believe is true.

Don't get me wrong - I'm actually optimistic about humanity and like most people, but be warned fellow travellers, ignorance, prejudice and boorish behaviour against colonials is alive and well in the Scottish capital. Be prepared to ignore it...

A very young friend of mine said it's the same life before and after the 31st December, and he's dead right. It's what you do in the moment, rather than construct false hopes based on a date. I think that's called astrology, or some related psychosis.

So happy new whatever!