I offer the following for your consideration (with the original spellings, grammar and punctuation): “i wish they would just sod off! let them have their independence, and see them suffer without English money, which they have been quite willing to take without a grumble” “The scots want to go it alone, BUT would still want our money i bet??????????.Cut them loose and see who comes back in say 10 years time??????, build hadrians wall higher again i say. Give them their own country and passport, then if they stay in England, then they would be classed as immigrants!!” “Should Scotland become independant, does that mean the billions the UK sends them will be stopped?” “yes goodbye scotland thanks for coming, just pay your own way yes.” “Bin Scotland Bin Wales and we in England can live free of the traitors in the Labour party…bin the union and we bin Labour….a double whammy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gets my vote. Bin the English haters…………” Multiple exclamation marks, ellipsis that goes on forever, ironic claims of hatred and whingeing: what can it all mean? Here are some more for your consideration: “We don’t need freeloaders we have enough here already so let them go and the EU also!” “Give the Scots independence. They have bludged off England for too long. The English will be glad to see the back of them. The fact they support free University education for Scottish students yet discriminate against the rest of UK is disgusting. It is about time Parliament did something about this. It makes my blood boil” “If it wasnt for the English the Scots would be butchering each other , As all Celts are good at Hateing what are they going to do without the English . N.B. Most English were done mines ,in dark satanic mills. serfs on the land and had nothing to do with what the Aristo’s did .” “Oh please you have the English peoples blessing, ignore the Tory boy, just go. Our brickies could do with the work making Hadrians wall higher.” And so on. The latter selection is from the Mail on Sunday and the former from today’s Sun as I write. These leading intellectuals are commenting online after stories in Londonbased newspapers about Scottish independence.
One need not feel outraged by them. You hear plenty of Scottish people — many in suits and having been elected — voicing similar opinions, but then it’s a scientific fact that Scots are the weirdest folk in the world.
Yup, yon internet has fair opened our eyelobes to the thoughts of our fellow citizens. Such hatred, bile and opprobrium. It’s odd so much attention should have been directed at so-called Cybernats, who now have their own sites and whose contributions are generally moderate, rational and, indeed, pro-English. One got the impression that the bile directed their way by unionist politicians was based on anger that they should have any voice at all.
But they’ve grabbed gratefully at the internet, which is going just a small way (so far) towards creating a level playing field for debate in the media.
Not that I approve unreservedly of the great unwashed having a voice. The first time I wrote a political sketch in a daily paper and it went online, several hundred comments appeared below it. Nearly all were offensive, and quite a lot were from Nats. Most, however, were simply anti-journalist. How they hate us!
The confusion was caused by most of them thinking the sketch was the straight political report. Clearly, they didn’t know what a sketch was — rather like a lot of central belt MSPs when Parliament started — and were used only to tabloid fare. That’s the trouble with the internet: it’s simple to cross boundaries of status and intelligence. Or as someone said the next day: “Welcome to your new audience: cretins.” Though initially I set about tracking down a couple of them, with the intention of killing them slowly, I soon calmed down, and my then partner and I agreed that we’d never look at these comments again. I never have since, even when friends beg me to because they’ve apparently swung to the positive.
Funnily enough, out of all the bile appended to that first online sketch, the one that angered me most and stayed in my mind was from an amoeba complaining that I’d used the same word twice in a sentence. I remember doing that deliberately for the emphasis and rhythm, but this colostomy-brained psycho thought she’d be smart — and was praised afterwards from other simpletons for spotting the hideous faux pas.
Aaaargh!
But such is the price of technological progress. And at least we know where we stand with many of our brothers and sisters south of the border.
The levels of ignorance are bizarre, the hatred distressing. I can’t think they speak for all English people, even if they’re just parroting with poorer punctuation stuff that appears in the Guardian and Telegraph.
You wonder if UK Prime Minister David Cameron goes on record saying we can’t let wonderful Scotland leave the Union, then gets home and writes in his diary: “Damned scrounging jocks. Let them eat haggis, I say!!!!!”
This entry was posted in
Comment,
Rab McNeil. Bookmark the
permalink. Follow any comments here with the
RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
Fighting talk
One need not feel outraged by them. You hear plenty of Scottish people — many in suits and having been elected — voicing similar opinions, but then it’s a scientific fact that Scots are the weirdest folk in the world.
Yup, yon internet has fair opened our eyelobes to the thoughts of our fellow citizens. Such hatred, bile and opprobrium. It’s odd so much attention should have been directed at so-called Cybernats, who now have their own sites and whose contributions are generally moderate, rational and, indeed, pro-English. One got the impression that the bile directed their way by unionist politicians was based on anger that they should have any voice at all.
But they’ve grabbed gratefully at the internet, which is going just a small way (so far) towards creating a level playing field for debate in the media.
Not that I approve unreservedly of the great unwashed having a voice. The first time I wrote a political sketch in a daily paper and it went online, several hundred comments appeared below it. Nearly all were offensive, and quite a lot were from Nats. Most, however, were simply anti-journalist. How they hate us!
The confusion was caused by most of them thinking the sketch was the straight political report. Clearly, they didn’t know what a sketch was — rather like a lot of central belt MSPs when Parliament started — and were used only to tabloid fare. That’s the trouble with the internet: it’s simple to cross boundaries of status and intelligence. Or as someone said the next day: “Welcome to your new audience: cretins.” Though initially I set about tracking down a couple of them, with the intention of killing them slowly, I soon calmed down, and my then partner and I agreed that we’d never look at these comments again. I never have since, even when friends beg me to because they’ve apparently swung to the positive.
Funnily enough, out of all the bile appended to that first online sketch, the one that angered me most and stayed in my mind was from an amoeba complaining that I’d used the same word twice in a sentence. I remember doing that deliberately for the emphasis and rhythm, but this colostomy-brained psycho thought she’d be smart — and was praised afterwards from other simpletons for spotting the hideous faux pas.
Aaaargh!
But such is the price of technological progress. And at least we know where we stand with many of our brothers and sisters south of the border.
The levels of ignorance are bizarre, the hatred distressing. I can’t think they speak for all English people, even if they’re just parroting with poorer punctuation stuff that appears in the Guardian and Telegraph.
You wonder if UK Prime Minister David Cameron goes on record saying we can’t let wonderful Scotland leave the Union, then gets home and writes in his diary: “Damned scrounging jocks. Let them eat haggis, I say!!!!!”