Newsletter #4: Memory Lane, Tribal Football, and More
Hello one and all, I hope you’ve had an excellent week. Myself, I’ve finished my ‘holidaying’, having visited St Andrews and my hometown of Falkirk (pictures below). I’ve been doing a lot of driving, and other things have kept me quite preoccupied, so this newsletter will be a short one, and there’ll be no ‘proper’ piece this week. If I was to write something, I’d be dredging it up for you and it wouldn’t be worthwhile.
I said in a previous newsletter that many of the trips I’ve been doing with my friend Shankar have been to places I frequented with my late father. That theme was all the more apparent this last week, as St Andrews is a place I used to go with him fairly often. We would take a few days there, renting out a room in Cairnsmill Caravan Park’s bunk house, to travel around and see the sights. St Andrews was one of the last places we visited together, and I’ve told the cosmic tale elsewhere of how our last picture was taken there. It’s a beautiful place, small but packed full of history, so if you ever have the chance, I recommend you visit it.
Falkirk, being my hometown and the area I grew up in, was also full of memories. We did a couple of touristy things, going on the Falkirk Wheel and visiting the Kelpies, but I also self-indulgently took a trip down memory lane, driving around to see my old homes and the house in which my Dad was born, among other things. The relationship with one’s hometown is a strange one: Falkirk might not be the prettiest of places, but it has its objective charms (Callendar Park) as well as its personal ones. It’s my town, and that means something.
Also this week, I got my degree certificate. Something concrete to show for the past few years! It’s official, nothing can take it away from me now. I wrote last week about my feelings regarding graduation and the University of Edinburgh in general.
Again, I’ve been out of the loop regarding news and such. But while in St Andrews, Shankar and I sat in the pub and watched the Denmark-England game. Neither of us is particularly bothered about football, but I confess I got into it a little. And it was funny that Shankar was the only Englishman around, and thus the only one quietly cheering at England’s victory, while the surrounding Scots raucously cheered on Denmark. Shankar’s brother was down in England, where the atmosphere was quite different, and the thought of the reverse image is amusing: Harry Kane’s attempt at a goal is knocked back by the Danish goalkeeper, England groans while Scotland cheers, and then Kane gets the ball in on the rebound and Scotland groans while England cheers. This reverse image will always be the case between the sides of the opposing teams, but the fact that a third party is so passionately against their fellow citizens is somehow funny.
Sorry to any Englishmen/women reading this, then. There’s probably an opinion piece to be written about Scotland and England and football, and what this all means for the Union. In fact, there have probably been a few such opinion pieces written already. And I admit that, surrounded by fellow Scots as I watched the game, I was cheering on Denmark. Why? I don’t really care about football, but the tribal instinct and peer group pressure got to me, I suppose. A more interesting piece could be written on that subject. But not by me, not today, for I am too tired. All that remains to be said is: good luck to [insert England or Italy here depending on preference] tonight!
All the best for now,
DJS