LongTimeLurker

Schalke 04 were originally known as Scheissenbruen-Weiss Gelsenkirchen.

Rose

Prior to the arrival of the Gaels of Dalriada the Druids of Brythonic Scotland crowned King Arthur in Camelon. Medieval scribes made a transcription error and the legend of Camelot was born.

Benfica were traditionally very left wing leaning (hence the red), while Sporting were the pro-Salazar clerical fascist regime club. Throw in the shared green and white hoops factor and it's maybe no surprise that the Estoril Young Defenders Accordian Band would be putting in an appearance like this.

Motherwell Not part of Scotland's Tourist Trail

Can you imagine the seethe from Gaelic language advocates if Gaelic placenames were all translated into English in the Highlands and Hebrides and the English translation was placed on road signs alongside the traditional Gaelic one? There's an attempt at the moment to pretend that Gaelic is a national language in an Eire under De Valera sort of way and that definitely does deserve to be subjected to closer scrutiny.

The modern values of political correctness haven't really been internalised by most people in Scotland and that very much includes the chattering classes and political elite. What happens instead is that the PC agenda is used selectively as a weapon to target certain groups within society in a way that pushes a favoured identity politics agenda that wins votes for political parties based on visceral level tribalism. The first step to moving away from this scenario would be genuine secularism and an end to all of the state sanctioned involvement of religious groups within institutions of the state, such as the monarchy, armed forces and primary and secondary education.

Given he's from a part of Belfast that makes Bainsford look like Beverly Hills, I seriously doubt it.

Where are you getting condemnations of celebrations in what I have been posting? All I have been arguing is that some of the outbursts on this thread look a lot like what people claim to be opposed to (i.e. bigotry). In Scotland people use that word in a way that's a wee bit different from how it's defined in the dictionary, which is holding an opinion to an unreasonable extent that results in an intolerance of others, and use it in a tribal sort of way as a blanket description of entire groups of people that they don't like.

...because freedom of assembly is a fundamental human right protected by European Charter.

^^^Prime example of what I was talking about. How about Remembrance Sunday?

No, but some people simply can't stand the sight of a Union Flag and project their own hangups onto it in an exaggerated sort of way & not likely to be mistaken for a MENSA convention but more than just drunken jakey types lining the streets to watch the bands go by

I think the only actively "practicing" Orangeman posting in this thread is an Aberdeen supporter, for what it's worth, which shows why stereotypes are best avoided. Not sure how informative the post really was beyond that. The Dan Winter's cottage stuff that revolved around rural paramilitarism didn't have much to do with what led to the growth of Orangeism later on in Ulster, the Scottish coalfields and beyond. Many/most Presbyterians were on the side of the United Irishmen in 1798 because 18th century Ireland wasn't a fun place to be if you weren't Anglican and it was the Presbyterians that had the numbers in Ulster rather than the CoI. What the LOL later provided was a vehicle for Protestants, who were split between several different denominations, to meet socially and organise in the face of an Irish nationalism that moved away from being inspired by the ideals of the French revolution to being driven by ancestral tribalism. Think people also tend to lose sight of the importance of the meeting socially angle on this in a just another excuse to get bevvied sort of way. But I bet he'll still deny being prejudiced against the aforementioned individuals.

When the SNP hold a parade in Stirling over Bannockburn over some old battle from centuries ago of questionable relevance to the present day is it also absolutely driven by hatred and intolerance? Grew up hearing both Ulster unionist and Scottish nationalist narratives on history and the difference on why one is the end of civilisation as we have known it while the other is perfectly socially acceptable where the chattering classes in Scotland are concerned has never been that obvious to me, given the similarity in having an underlying them vs us mentality underpinning it all was always obvious.

26 + 6 = 2

Hearts changed their colours to maroon and white because one of their players was quite partial to aubergines.

Belfast city hall and clueless fringe nutters from Scotland, who didn't understand who was really supposed to be wound up by it, rather than anybody from the "failed statelet".

Suspect you would be in for a surprise if you checked up on what side the Pope was on in that particular conflict. It was more a wider European dynastic dispute and in a British context a lot of it revolved around how much power the monarch should have relative to parliament. The emergence of a largely symbolic constitutional monarchy is seen by some as a key breakthrough on the road to a fully functional parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage. Personally think Tom Nairn was on the money with his critique of the UK's constitution in The Enchanted Glass and it is something that should be viewed as having been an impediment to the sort of progress that Scotland's 18th century Enlightenment subsequently helped to inspire elsewhere.

So the kneejerk visceral reaction to the sight of a few neds with a union flag is to ship them off to Blair Drummond safari park. How very tolerant. Hopefully Scottish middle class society won't get a nation state to lord it over. Once Westminster and the English are no longer available as the scapegoat to blame anything and everything on, a lot of people would go completely haywire when the new shortbread tin republic turns out to be more of the same old Scheidt dressed up in a tartan skirt.

After Cardinal O'Brien's various hypocritical antics why would that be in any way unexpected?

decision

Don't think it's any great mystery. Marking out territory and annoying the other lot would be one way to sum it up. All the OTT exaggerated criticism lets the LOL (fewer keystrokes and instantly recognisable my only reason for using this) off the hook on criticisms that would hit the target a lot more. If the Ardoyne stuff is a major flashpoint again this summer it isn't likely to do anything to help the No campaign in Scotland, but that won't stop them. Beyond that it isn't accurate to say that the Glorious Revolution was the start of parliamentary democracy. Oliver Cromwell in England and the Thrie Estaitis in Scotland? All it did was get rid of a monarch who still wanted to push the divine right of kings stuff well past its sell by date. You could probably use the fingers of one hand to get to the percentage of the population that actually had the ability to vote in the aftermath. The LOL tends to be at its strongest in mining villages, which means people are effectively celebrating a constitutional arrangement that had their ancestors living in serfdom up to 1798. It must have been a great comfort to eight year olds working down a pit in 18th century Scotland to know that the monarch was the head of the CoE.

Down the traditional route.

If you deal with people as stereotypes and have prejudices on that basis then it's no doubt useful. The official legal name remains Londonderry, but the commonly used colloquial name amongst both communities in and around the city has always been Derry. Nothing wrong with using either. Using the former doesn't make you a clone of Johnny Adair, while using the latter doesn't mean you have a penchant for armalites and balaclavas.

Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland is the official name of the overall organisation in Scotland. Something that's a bit mind boggling about them given their posture on constitutional politics is that over 90 years on from partition they are still organised in an All Ireland rather than a "failed statelet" basis. The KKK analogy is a prime example of the exaggerated nonsense that people go in for on this.