Highbrow Magazine - scotland https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/scotland en Glasgow’s War Against the Anguish of Urban Life https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10214-glasgow-s-war-against-anguish-urban-life <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/travel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Travel</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 10/27/2019 - 05:33</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1glasgow.jpg?itok=wQTM4VOq"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1glasgow.jpg?itok=wQTM4VOq" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>Mosaic</strong></a><strong> under a </strong><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><strong>Creative Commons license</strong></a><strong>. Read the rest of the article </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow has become notorious for the kind of mental and physical ills that plague city dwellers everywhere. Is urban life itself harmful to humans – or can we rethink cities so that they can help us to thrive?</p> <p> </p> <p>If you live in Glasgow, you are more likely to die young. Men there die a full seven years earlier than their counterparts in other UK cities. Until recently, the causes of this excess mortality remained a mystery.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Deep-fried Mars bars,” some have speculated. “The weather,” others suggested. For years, those reasons were as good as any. In 2012, the <em>Economist</em> described it thus: “It is as if a malign vapour rises from the Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The phenomenon has become known as the Glasgow Effect. But David Walsh, a public health program manager at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, who led a study on the excess deaths in 2010, wasn’t satisfied with how the term was being used. “It turned into a Scooby-Doo mystery, but it’s not an exciting thing. It’s about people dying young; it’s about grief.”</p> <p> </p> <p>He wanted to work out why Glaswegians have a 30 percent higher risk of dying prematurely – that is, before the age of 65 – than those living in similar post-industrial British cities. In 2016, his team published a report looking at 40 hypotheses – from vitamin D deficiency to obesity and sectarianism. “The most important reason is high levels of poverty, full stop,” says Walsh. “There’s one in three children who are classed as living in poverty at the moment.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But even with deprivation accounted for, mortality rates in Glasgow remained inexplicable. Deaths in each income group are about 15 percent higher than in Manchester or Liverpool. In particular, deaths from “diseases of despair” – drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related deaths – are high. In the mid-2000s, after adjusting for sex, age and deprivation, there was almost a 70 percent higher mortality rate for suicide in Glasgow than in the two English cities.</p> <p> </p> <p>Walsh’s report revealed that radical urban planning decisions from the 1950s onwards had made the physical and mental health of Glasgow’s population more vulnerable to the consequences of de-industrialisation and poverty.</p> <p> </p> <p>Shifting theories of city planning have profoundly altered people’s lives everywhere, and particularly over the past half-century in Glasgow. The city’s population stands at about 600,000 now. In 1951, it was nearly double this. Glasgow’s excess mortality, the report suggests, is the unintended legacy of urban planning that exacerbated the already considerable challenges of living in a city.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/2glasgow.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Studies have consistently linked city living with poorer mental health. For example, growing up in an urban environment is correlated with twice the risk of developing schizophrenia as growing up in the countryside. By 2050, 68 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, according to UN figures. The consequences for global health are likely to be significant.</p> <p> </p> <p>Can we learn from what happened in Glasgow? As an increasing number of people move to or are born in cities, questions of fragmented communities, transient populations, overcrowding, inequality and segregation – and how these affect the wellbeing of residents – will become more acute.</p> <p> </p> <p>Are urban dwellers doomed to poor mental health, or can planners learn from the mistakes of the past and design cities that will keep us healthy and happy?</p> <p> </p> <p>In postwar Glasgow, local authorities decided to tackle the city’s severe overcrowding. The 1945 Bruce report proposed housing people in high-rises on the periphery of the city center. The Clyde Valley report published a year later suggested encouraging workers and their families to move to new towns. In the end, the council did a combination of both.</p> <p> </p> <p>New towns like East Kilbride and Cumbernauld are now among the most populous towns in Scotland. Many of those who stayed in Glasgow were relocated to large housing estates like Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Castlemilk.</p> <p> </p> <p>The rapid change in the city’s makeup was soon recognized as disastrous. Relocating workers and their families to new towns was described in mid-1960s parliamentary discussions as “skimming the cream”. In an internal review in 1971, the Scottish Office noted that the manner of population reduction was “destined within a decade or so to produce a seriously unbalanced population with a very high proportion [in central Glasgow] of the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable…”</p> <p> </p> <p>Although the government was soon aware of the consequences, these were not necessarily intentional, says Walsh. “You have to understand what sort of shape Glasgow was in, in terms of the really lousy living conditions, the levels of overcrowded housing and all the rest of it,” he says. “They thought the best approach was to just start afresh.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna left the tenements for a high-rise in Glasgow’s Sighthill estate, where she has lived on and off since the mid-1960s. She was a teenager when she moved with her mother and sister to a brand-new fourth-floor flat – picked from a bowler hat. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a glass partition in the hallway. “It was like Buckingham Palace,” remembers Anna. She is now 71, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, with a blonde bob and a raspy cough that doubles as a laugh.</p> <p> </p> <p>Sighthill’s 10 20-storey tower blocks were meant to herald the future. North of the city center, set in parkland, with a view over the city, they would house more than 7,000 people drawn from the tenements and the slums.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3glasgow.jpg" style="height:450px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Until then, Anna’s family had lived in a tenement building in nearby Roystonhill. “I slept with my mammy and my sister in a recess,” she says. The toilet was shared. This was typical; little had changed since the 1911 census revealed that in Glasgow almost two-thirds of dwellings – many housing large families and lodgers – had only one or two rooms, compared to a third of dwellings in London.</p> <p> </p> <p>But when the tenements went, something else went, too. “There were communities which had a social fabric, if you like, which were then broken up by these processes,” says Walsh.</p> <p> </p> <p>Anna recalls the change. “When we were in the tenements, you’d shout up to the window: ‘Mammy, I want a piece of jam!’ Before you knew it, there was a dozen of them being thrown out of the window.” In the tower block, she did not let her own children play unsupervised. Neighbors only spoke if they took the same lift. Her daughter was threatened with a bread knife.</p> <p> </p> <p>By the 2000s, the tower blocks were infamous for deprivation, violence and drugs. Many residents had moved out, including Anna and her family. Empty flats were used to rehouse asylum seekers. Fractures within the community were worsening.</p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow Housing Association decided to condemn the buildings. The towers were demolished over eight years; the last one came down in 2016. Photographer Chris Leslie, who documented their dismantlement, remembers how the buildings were stripped and the crane picked the concrete shell apart. The interior of the flats was revealed, each a tiny different colored cuboid.</p> <p> </p> <p>But the roots of Glasgow’s excess mortality stretch back further than new towns and high-rises – to the Industrial Revolution, argues Carol Craig, who has written two books on the subject. In Glasgow, then called the Second City of the Empire, factories and the docks needed workers. Overcrowding coupled with a culture of drinking produced an explosive situation.</p> <p> </p> <p>Faced with the prospect of returning to a cramped tenement, many men preferred to visit the pub; there were few other public meeting places. “You’re more likely to have violence, you’re more likely to have conflict, even sexual abuse is much higher in households where there are drinkers,” Craig says.</p> <p> </p> <p>Being exposed in childhood to stressful events like domestic violence, parental abandonment, abuse, or drug and alcohol addictions is thought to be linked to poor mental and physical wellbeing in later life. The higher a person’s number of Adverse Childhood Experiences, as they are called, the more likely they are to suffer from mental illness or addiction. In turn they are more likely to expose their children to similar types of experiences, she says. “ACEs tend to cascade through the generations.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4glasgow_0.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In the early 20th century, cities were meant to show us how to live. Modern urban planning would make people in the world’s cities healthier and happier. In 1933, the influential Swiss-French architect and urban planner Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, published his blueprint for the ideal city. In contrast with the past, he said, the city would now be designed to benefit its residents “on both the spiritual and material planes.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In his plans for the Radiant City, industrial, commercial and residential zones would be segregated to allow workers to escape pollution; homes would be surrounded by open green spaces to allow residents to meet; wide roads would be set out in a grid system; and high-rise blocks would help clear the slums, remnants of the rapid industrialization in many cities during the 19th century. These slums were overcrowded and insanitary, and their inhabitants were, as the architect put it, “incapable of initiating ameliorations.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Glasgow was among the first and the most enthusiastic to adopt these new buildings. In 1954, a delegation of councillors and planners visited Marseilles to see the Unité d’Habitation, an 18-storey block of flats and amenities resting on concrete stilts, designed by Le Corbusier and finished two years before. Glasgow soon had the highest number of high-rise dwellings in the U.K. outside London.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since Le Corbusier, we have learned more about how the design of buildings can affect behavior. In an oft-cited study from 1973, the psychologist Andrew Baum looked at how the design of two student dormitories at Stony Brook University in Long Island changed how the 34 residents in each interacted with each other.</p> <p> </p> <p>In the first design, all the students shared common lounge and bathroom facilities along a corridor. In the second, smaller groups of four to six each shared bathrooms and lounges. They found that the first design was a “socially overloaded environment” which did not allow residents to regulate who they interacted with and when. Being faced with too many people, at times not of their choosing, led students to experience stress; they became less helpful and more anti-social than those in the second design as the year went on.</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps the most famous case study of buildings’ effects on their inhabitants still referenced today is Pruitt–Igoe in St Louis, 33 11-storey towers inspired by Le Corbusier and designed by the modernist Minoru Yamasaki. Finished in 1956, it was initially seen as a miracle solution to inner-city living. Less than 20 years later, the social problems the blocks seemed to have spawned were deemed so irreparable that the buildings were imploded by the local authorities.</p> <p> </p> <p>The architect Oscar Newman toured the complex in 1971, a year before demolition started. He argued that the design of a building affected the extent to which residents contributed to its upkeep. If people feel responsible for both keeping an area clean and controlling who uses it, it is likely to be safer. He called this sense of ownership over a territory “defensible space.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“The larger the number of people who share a communal space, the more difficult it is for people to identify it as theirs or to feel they have a right to control or determine the activity taking place within it,” Newman wrote. Pruitt–Igoe was not designed to accommodate defensible space. “Landings shared by only two families were well maintained, whereas corridors shared by 20 families... were a disaster – they evoked no feelings of identity or control.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Tower blocks with more wealthy residents are less likely to have issues with defensible space: They can pay for cleaners and security guards. Children, on the other hand, are often most affected: These common areas – communal corridors, or landings, or the nearby park – are usually spaces for play.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/5glasgow.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>During his inauguration as rector of Glasgow University in 1972, the Clydeside trade unionist Jimmy Reid argued powerfully that working-class communities left behind by economic advancement were being stored out of sight. “When you think of some of the high flats around us, it can hardly be an accident that they are as near as one could get to an architectural representation of a filing cabinet.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Inequality is at its most conspicuous in cities: the very poor and the very rich live side by side yet separately. Relative social status is more likely to be the first measure by which we judge people in places where communities are more transient and inequality starker. This has been shown to have an impact on our psychological wellbeing.</p> <p> </p> <p>In their book, <em>The Inner Level</em>, epidemiologists Kate Pickett and Richard G Wilkinson argue that inequality not only creates social rupture by highlighting people’s differences but also encourages competition, contributing to increased social anxiety. They cite a 2004 paper by two psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles – Sally Dickerson and Margaret Kemeny – who analyzed 208 studies to find that tasks involving some threat of social evaluation affected stress hormones the most.</p> <p> </p> <p>Pickett and Wilkinson argue that this type of stress harms our psychological health. “The more unequal countries had three times as much mental illness as the more equal ones.” This affects people of all social classes. In high-inequality countries, such as the USA and the UK, even the richest 10 percent of people suffer more anxiety than any group in low-inequality countries except the poorest 10 percent.</p> <p> </p> <p>Research has also shown that living in a city can alter our brain’s architecture, making it more vulnerable to this type of social stress. In 2011, a team led by psychiatrist Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of Heidelberg University’s Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, looked at the implications of urban living on brain biology in one of the first experiments of its kind.</p> <p> </p> <p>The scientists scanned the brains of 32 students while they were given arithmetic tasks and simultaneously subjected to criticism on headphones. This was designed to simulate social stress. A further 23 performed the same test but were subjected to a different kind of social evaluation: they could see the frowning faces of invigilators while completing the puzzles. The results of the test were stark: The participants who lived in a city demonstrated a greater neurophysiological reaction to the same stress-inducing situation. The amygdala, an area of the brain that processes emotion, was activated more strongly in current urban-dwellers. The test also showed a difference between those who’d grown up in cities and those brought up in towns or the countryside. The former displayed a stronger response in their perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, which regulates the amygdala and is associated with stress and negative emotion.</p> <p> </p> <p>Meyer-Lindenberg’s previous work on risk mechanisms in schizophrenia focused on genes. But these are only thought to account for a 20 percent increased chance of developing the illness at most – and growing up in a city is associated with double the risk. Meyer-Lindenberg’s research has shown that stressful experiences in early life correlate with reduced volume of grey matter in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, a factor often seen in people with schizophrenia. “Mental health is almost uniformly worse in cities… that’s just what the data shows,” Meyer-Lindenberg says over the phone. “There isn’t really a bright side to this.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Lack of agency – the feeling that we don’t have control over a situation – is one of the core mechanisms determining how strongly social stress is experienced, says Meyer-Lindenberg. “People who are in leadership positions tend to cope better with a given amount of stress.” In a city, and particularly if you are poor, you are far more dependent on other people and the urban infrastructure, whether it’s waiting impatiently for a bus or a lift, wondering who you’ll have to share a lift with in your high-rise complex, or hoping the local council will not choose your neighborhood for redevelopment.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/7glasgow.jpg" style="height:402px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Cities can also of course be liberating. “The flip side of being more stressful is that they may be more stimulating,” Meyer-Lindenberg says. “This tighter community that you have in a village, say, can be very oppressive if you don’t feel like you belong, if you’re an outsider of some sort.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Inequality has been shown to lower trust in others and damage social capital – the networks between people that allow societies to function effectively. People are so worried about security that they’re mentally building walls around themselves, says Liz Zeidler, chief executive of the Happy City Initiative, a research center based in Bristol. “We need to be doing the opposite: We need to be creating more and more spaces where people can connect, learn across their differences.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Happy City has designed a way to measure the local conditions shown to improve well-being. Its Thriving Places Index looks at housing, education, inequality, green space, safety and community cohesion.</p> <p> </p> <p>Perhaps, however, a good measure for the happiness of a place, Zeidler says, is the status of the “indicative species”. It’s an idea borrowed from the author and urbanist Charles Montgomery. For ponds, she says, it might be that the presence of a certain type of newt tells you whether or not the water is healthy. In cities, the newts are children. “If you can see children, it’s probably a healthy and happy city.” The way a city is laid out can foster this environment, she says, by “closing of streets, making it more pedestrianized, more green spaces, having more what urban planners would call ‘bumping spaces,’ where you can literally bump into people. Slowing places down is really good for everybody’s wellbeing and, obviously,” she adds, “you then see more children on the streets.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Without looking at the car swinging towards him, Christopher Martin, one of the urban planners behind the Avenues regeneration project of Glasgow city center, crosses the road. Thankfully, the car slows down. Martin continues, blithely, discussing the priority of pedestrians and rule 170 of the Highway Code. “Nicely acted, don’t you think?” quips Stephen O’Malley, a civic engineer and Martin’s colleague, who’s stayed safely on the curb beside me.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman used to perform a similar trick in the early 2000s. He would walk, usually with a journalist in tow, backwards, eyes closed, into a four-way crossing with no traffic lights or signs. Monderman believed roads were safer without traffic signs; in order to navigate unfamiliar routes, cars would slow down. The common sense of the drivers would act as a more powerful safety guard than any sign.</p> <p> </p> <p>“What we’re trying to do is to get people to interact with each other – be human beings,” Martin says as we continue to walk up Sauchiehall Street. “It’s a very dehumanizing effect stepping into a car.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Sauchiehall Street is the first area to be worked on as part of the Avenues, a £115 million project to form an integrated network of pedestrian and cycle routes on 17 roads and surrounding areas in the city center between the Clyde and Glasgow’s infamous motorway, which forms a near noose around the area. Glasgow’s central grid is mostly made of four-lane roads. When you walk across the city, the roads, some at a steep incline, others stretching towards a grey horizon, seem solely taken up with cars and buses. “The city will get what it invites,” says Martin. Now parts of these roads will be given over to those walking and biking, and to trees and benches.</p> <p> </p> <p>City planners the world over have a history of favoring the needs of cars. In 1955, Robert Moses, New York City parks commissioner, was planning to build a four-lane road through Washington Square Park. Some of the residents demurred, including journalist Jane Jacobs. In 1958, three years in to what would become a 14-year fight to save Greenwich Village, she wrote an article in <em>Fortune</em> magazine, which eventually formed the basis of her book <em>The Death and Life of American Cities</em>.</p> <p> </p> <p>To keep downtown activities “compact and concentrated,” Jacobs advocated removing cars. “The whole point is to make the streets more surprising, more compact, more variegated, and busier than before – not less so.” She argued against planners’ grand schemes that sought to demolish and redevelop, instead saying that cities should grow in line with what people want and how they use the spaces that already exist. “There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Giving priority to cars has distorted cities’ proportions, Martin says. “If you build at the scale of cars, you get wide roads, you get wide streets, you get cities which stretch out because cars are fast and cars are big.” Taking space away from cars gives the public realm back to the people. “It’s very anti-social being sat in a metal box by yourself,” he says. “The rise of urban loneliness and mental health [issues] to do with that disconnection is vast.”</p> <p> </p> <p>In Glasgow, Sauchiehall Street is being used as a proof of concept, while the other Avenues will be implemented over the next eight years. “The opportunity is that it’s an absolutely magnificent city,” Martin says, punctuating his excitement by sweeping his hair back. “It’s a grid system and the streets are so wide: there’s a lot of space. In one fell swoop, we’re going to make an enormous change.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>This is an excerpt from an article originally published in </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>Mosaic</strong></a><strong> under a </strong><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><strong>Creative Commons license</strong></a><strong>. Read the rest of the article </strong><a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/"><strong>here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Image Sources:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/tag-glasgow-street-art-2810648/">Calard</a> (Pixabay, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6199594">Robin Stott</a> (geograph.org.uk, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Merchant_city.jpg">Denis Jacquery</a> (Wikimedia.org, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/929326">Pxhere.com</a> (Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--<a href="https://libreshot.com/silhouette-of-lonely-man-on-the-street/">Martin Vorel</a> (libreshot.com, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Victoria_Park.jpg">--Stara Blazkova</a> (Wikimedia, Creative Commons)</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>--Cover photo: <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/city-street-road-urban-business-3314025/">STE92K</a> (Pixabay, Creative Commons)</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/glasgow" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">glasgow</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/urban-life" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">urban life</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/depression-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">depression</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/city-living" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">city living</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/high-rises" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">high rises</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/poverty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">poverty</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-welfare" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social welfare</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/uk-austerity" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the U.K. austerity</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/inner-cities" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">inner cities</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/population-health" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">population health</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scots" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scots</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fleur Macdonald</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 27 Oct 2019 09:33:42 +0000 tara 9114 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10214-glasgow-s-war-against-anguish-urban-life#comments Scotland Votes: The Logic and Rhetoric of the Independence Campaign https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4314-scotland-votes-logic-and-rhetoric-independence-campaign <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 09/22/2014 - 14:25</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scotlandvotes.jpg?itok=gebecYFE"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scotlandvotes.jpg?itok=gebecYFE" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2014/09/19/scotland-votes-the-logic-and-rhetoric-of-the-independence-campaign/">PunditWire.com</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Scotland has voted decisively against breaking from the United Kingdom and becoming an independent country.</p> <p> </p> <p>The key thing to grasp is that there is no precedent for a modern, highly integrated country breaking into two pieces in peacetime. True, Czechoslovakia divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia back in 1992. But both new countries were emerging from communism. Both had to bring in huge numbers of new laws, rules and regulations to create modern, market-based democracies almost from scratch. In such a tumultuous all-change situation, the fact that Czechoslovakia split more or less neatly down the middle was arguably an advantage: the two new smaller units could each advance at their own pace.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Scottish case is not like that. The relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom has unfolded over centuries. There is no one single written constitution. All  sorts of laws, regulations, conventions, legal precedents and informal understandings bring together Scotland and England (with Northern Ireland and Wales) in one of the world’s most sophisticated economies.</p> <p> </p> <p>So, question. If Scotland had voted to become independent, how would this process have unfolded? There is only one answer: It would have been protracted, messy, bad-tempered and astonishingly expensive.</p> <p> </p> <p>Any large organization thinking about making a strategic change of direction typically makes two basic mistakes. It plays up the glories of the shiny new situation after the big changes have taken place. It plays down the steadily compounding benefits of doing nothing drastic and underestimates the transaction costs of moving from where it is now to where it wants to be.</p> <p> </p> <p>Hence, the basic logic of the Yes to Independence campaigners in Scotland. They did not want voters to look in any great detail at the benefits of staying in the United Kingdom, and they did not want scrutiny of the costs and upheavals that would inevitably accompany any separation. Why? Because they had no clear answers to searching questions about the scale of those costs and upheavals.</p> <p> </p> <p>In general terms, we can accept the proposition that after a choppy and unhappy few years Scotland might get on track to become a small, independent Nordic-style modern country featuring clean living and enviable high-tech industry. But getting there would be tough, given Scotland’s engrained populist socialist bad habits and wider economic uncertainty across Europe. There was no chance that the Yes and No campaigns could agree on how to calculate the cost/benefit analysis of this turbulent transition for the coming decades.</p> <p> </p> <p>The Yes campaign, therefore, had to present a Yes vote as something natural, reassuring and almost natural. This meant glossing over reality, telling voters that they could have all the benefits of independence as well as the stabilizing benefits of staying within the United Kingdom. Scotland would be independent but keep the pound sterling as its currency. Scotland would not have to re-negotiate in any serious way its membership of the European Union. Scots would continue to enjoy the doubtful benefits of the decaying British National Health Service. Scotland could afford anything it wanted since it would have its huge oil reserves. And so on.</p> <p> </p> <p>As the independence debate gathered steam, British Prime Minister David Cameron seized on the issue of Scotland’s future currency. Scotland could not expect to use the pound without the consent of what remained of the United Kingdom, and what remained of the United Kingdom would not give that consent. This was a crafty but powerful move. It helped create generalized unease across Scotland. Scots began to wonder what was going to happen in an independent Scotland with the very money they used every day.</p> <p> </p> <p>This question also played into Scotland’s future (or not) within the European Union. The Yes campaign wanted to distance itself from nasty, Eurosceptic English Tories and not get involved in discussing the merits of EU membership. However, there is no precedent for part of one EU member becoming independent. Does it stay within the European Union, and on what basis? Surely it must apply for EU membership – that’s what being independent means. But if that’s the position, what about the requirement that any new EU member must promise to join the Eurozone?</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3scotlandvotes.jpg" style="height:326px; width:544px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Alex Salmond, leader of the Yes campaign, tried to bluster his way through these vital strategic questions. During the second televised debate with former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Salmond hooted victory at Darling’s exasperated admission that indeed Scotland would be free to use the pound sterling if it wanted to do so. Darling’s point was that an independent Scotland could do what it liked for its currency, with any number of options available. However, different options had different costs, and the costs to Scotland of trying to use the pound in the face of opposition from Westminster would be devastating.</p> <p> </p> <p>Salmond then tried to deflect this too, arguing that Scotland could force Westminster to cooperate over Scotland’s use of the pound by threatening to create generalized economic confusion otherwise. This clumsy blackmail threat made no sense at all even in its own terms.  If Scotland wanted to launch itself as an independent financially sophisticated country, why would steely international capitalists invest funds in an Edinburgh behaving like this? Plus such belligerent talk undermined the wider Yes claim that a vote for independence was the calm, rational decision.</p> <p> </p> <p>Into this furious final bickering came former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself Scottish. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave some of the worst speeches ever emitted by a top British public figure: clumsy, boring and stuffed with bizarre mixed metaphors. On 17 September 2014 he made the speech of his life in favor of a No vote. He grabbed the banner of national confidence from the Yes campaign, and carried it triumphantly into the No camp:</p> <p> </p> <p><em>What kind of message does Scotland send to the world if tomorrow we say we’re going to give up on sharing, we’re going to smash our partnership, we’re going to abandon cooperation and conflict, and we’re going to throw the idea of solidarity into the dust?</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>This is not the Scotland I know and recognize and we must make sure it is not the Scotland we become… </em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Have confidence that people know that our Scottish Parliament and its new powers give people the powers they need and meet the aspirations of the Scottish people. Have confidence, stand up and be counted tomorrow.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Have confidence tomorrow and have confidence enough to say with all our friends: we’ve had no answers. They do not know what they are doing, they are leading us into a trap.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Have confidence and say to our friends: for reason of solidarity, sharing, justice, pride in Scotland, the only answer for Scotland’s sake and for Scotland’s future is vote No.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1scotland%20%28wiki%29.jpg" style="height:416px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Gordon Brown’s stirring but pragmatic view of the independence issue prevailed. Scotland did vote No.</p> <p> </p> <p>Conclusion? In any fierce but honest democratic campaign, basic truths always come out.</p> <p> </p> <p>In this case, the Yes campaign in Scotland had too many obvious contradictions. Its specific policies were incoherent if not dishonest: it promised improbable gain with negligible pain. Too many of its supporters claimed to represent Team Scotland, but jeered at fellow Scots who tried to ask tough questions. The heavy if not humiliating defeat of the Yes tendency was richly deserved.</p> <p> </p> <p>The partnership between Scotland and England has been one of the greatest motors of liberty and innovation in human history. Those wanting to end it need to make a mighty strong case. Perhaps there isn’t one?</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Charles Crawford is a British former career diplomat turned writer, public speaking specialist and mediator. His work for HM Diplomatic Service featured postings in communist Yugoslavia, South Africa as apartheid ended and Russia after the USSR collapsed, then three ambassadorships: in Sarajevo after the conflict (1996-98); in Belgrade after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic (2001-03); and in Warsaw when Poland joined the European Union (2003-07). He also served as FCO Speechwriter in the 1980s and has drafted or contributed to speeches by members of the British Royal Family, Prime Ministers and different Foreign Ministers and other senior figures.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2014/09/19/scotland-votes-the-logic-and-rhetoric-of-the-independence-campaign/">PunditWire.com</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish-independence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish independence</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland-votes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland votes</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/great-britain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">great britain</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gordon-brown" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gordon brown</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/david-cameron" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">David Cameron</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/united-kingdom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">united kingdom</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Charles Crawford</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">punditwire.com; Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 22 Sep 2014 18:25:19 +0000 tara 5218 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4314-scotland-votes-logic-and-rhetoric-independence-campaign#comments Who will govern England if the Scots split? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4206-who-will-govern-england-if-scots-split <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 08/11/2014 - 12:18</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/4london.jpg?itok=r_U8t8Zj"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/4london.jpg?itok=r_U8t8Zj" width="480" height="319" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2014/08/05/who-will-govern-england-if-the-scots-split/">Punditwire.com</a>: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>All kinds of questions are being asked about what will happen if Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom on September 18. How will the national debt and the North Sea oil and gas reserves be divided? What about fishing rights? Will Scotland be allowed to keep the pound? Where will the Royal Navy base its nuclear submarines, since they are not welcome in Scotland? What will the remainder of the United Kingdom do for a flag if the white cross of St. Andrew on a blue field is ripped from the Union Jack?</p> <p> </p> <p>All of these are very pressing questions to be sure, but there is one even more pressing question that appears to be going unasked. Namely this: If the Scots split, who will govern England?</p> <p> </p> <p>This question is by no means frivolous. Look at the present prime minister, David Cameron. Yes, Mr. Cameron was born in England, and is the product of Eton and Oxford. But he is very obviously of Scots descent. His surname fairly reeks of heather and haggis.</p> <p> </p> <p>Mr. Cameron’s immediate predecessor, Gordon Brown, was born and educated in Scotland. Mr. Brown’s immediate predecessor, Tony Bair, was also born in Scotland. Brown and Blair were both from the Labor Party, which was co-founded by a Scotsman named Keir Hardie. Ramsay MacDonald, another Scot and Labor Party co-founder, became Labor’s first prime minister in 1929.</p> <p> </p> <p>The list of British prime ministers who were Scottish by birth or of Scotthish descent is a considerable one. In addition to MacDonald, Blair and Brown, two other post-1900 prime ministers were born in Scotland: Arthur James Balfour (1902-05) and Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905-08).</p> <p> </p> <p>Prime ministers of Scottish descent include one of the towering figures of the Victorian Age, William Ewart Gladstone, who was four times prime minister (1866-74, 1880-85, 1886 and 1892-94). Gladstone was born in Liverpool, but his father was born in Leith (now part of Edinburgh). Gladstone represented a Scottish constituency while in Parliament, as did Herbert Henry Asquith (1908-16) and Andrew Bonar Law (1922-23). Bonar Law was born in Canada, but was raised in Scotland.</p> <p> </p> <p>Two more recent British prime ministers who boasted of their Scottish roots were Harold MacMillan (1957-63) and Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64).</p> <p> </p> <p>Scots with political ambitions have been migrating south ever since the Scottish Parliament was dissolved after the union with England in 1707. This migration did not go unnoticed by Englishmen, especially those who found themselves elbowed aside by pushy Scots.  Dr. Samuel Johnson once sneered that “The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.”</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/gladstone.jpg" style="height:625px; width:460px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Johnson scored with that one, but many years later an anonymous Scot delivered a riposte. There is a story about an English candidate standing for Parliament from a Scottish constituency. After giving his first speech to his prospective constituents, he opened the floor to questions. An old Scotsman raised his hand and asked, point blank, “Are ye an Englishman?”</p> <p> </p> <p>The candidate decided that he would not spend the whole campaign being dogged by questions about his national identity. He would settle the matter then and there. Drawing himself up proudly, he replied, “Yes, I am an Englishman. I was born an Englishman. I have lived an Englishman. And I will most assuredly die an Englishman! What do you say to that?”</p> <p> </p> <p>The old Scotsman was thunderstruck. “Mon!” he exclaimed, “Have ye nae ambition whatsoever?”</p> <p> </p> <p>England will survive if the Scots leave, but its pool of political talent will certainly shrink.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Hal Gordon, who wrote speeches for the Reagan White House and Gen. Colin Powell, is currently a freelance speechwriter in Houston. Web site: <a href="http://www.ringingwords.com/">www.ringingwords.com</a>.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2014/08/05/who-will-govern-england-if-the-scots-split/">Punditwire.com</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland-recedes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland recedes</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/england" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">England</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/uk" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">U.K.</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/british-prime-ministers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">british prime ministers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/godrdon-brown" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">godrdon brown</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/david-cameron" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">David Cameron</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/gladstone" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">gladstone</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scots-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the scots</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hal Gordon</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 11 Aug 2014 16:18:20 +0000 tara 5056 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4206-who-will-govern-england-if-scots-split#comments In Search of Scotland’s National Poet https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3986-search-scotland-s-national-poet <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 05/15/2014 - 10:07</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scotland%20%28wiki%29.jpg?itok=c_PEDgxj"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scotland%20%28wiki%29.jpg?itok=c_PEDgxj" width="480" height="319" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2014/05/13/in-search-of-scotland/">PunditWire.Com</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>On September 18, the people of Scotland will have the chance to vote on whether or not they want to remain part of the 307-year-old United Kingdom, or whether they want to reclaim their ancient status as a sovereign nation.</p> <p> </p> <p>Anyone curious as to how the Scots could have held on to their sense of nationhood for more than three centuries in tandem with England could do worse than consult <em>In Search of Scotland,</em> by H.V. Morton.</p> <p> </p> <p>A veteran of the First World War, who later witnessed the opening of King Tut’s tomb, Morton was a journalist who earned international popularity as a travel writer. Author Jan Morris called Morton “a master of his genre” and said that his books “are genuine classics.”</p> <p> </p> <p>She was right. In Search of <em>Scotland</em> does not disappoint, even though more than 80 years have passed since its publication.</p> <p> </p> <p>Consider how Morton sketches a Scottish highlander in a few deft strokes of his pen: “Every one who numbers a real Highlander among his friends knows that he inherits a number of qualities that mark him off from ordinary men. He is quick to take offense and he is a fighter. He is as punctilious in matters of honor as an Italian nobleman. Personal loyalty is a tradition with him. So is whisky. He loves to arrange, often on the flimsiest pretext, occasions for convivial celebration, a relic perhaps of old times when men, separated by mountain and flood, would meet together and pledge themselves in strong drink.”</p> <p> </p> <p>And Morton’s chapter on Robert Burns is exquisite.</p> <p> </p> <p>He poses a playful question: Why should a sober, respectable and hard-headed people like the Scots choose for their national poet a romantic rebel who thumbed his nose at all authority and was as free with liquor as he was with women?</p> <p> </p> <p>Instead of Burns Night suppers, asks Morton, shouldn’t we expect the practical-minded Scots to have founded Macadam Societies, to honor the pioneer of improved roads? Or Mackintosh Societies, to honor the inventor of the waterproof? Or perhaps to hold annual Patterson Club dinners to commemorate the founder of the Bank of England?</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2scotland%20%28wiki%29.jpg" style="height:571px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>But no, it is Burns, “the Pan of Scotland,” who holds the place of honor in the nation’s heart. Perhaps, Morton suggests, it is because Burns is a true bard – “a warm, living force … part of daily life.” England, he says, has “many fine poets, but no bards. We have poets of the first class, finer, as poets, than Burns. But not one of them has influenced our lives as Burns has influenced the lives of Scotsmen … There is no English poet whose songs have curled up like an old dog on the heathstone.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Morton proves his point with a moving personal anecdote. He was visiting the Burns Museum in Alloway. He had for his guide an elderly caretaker who could quote Burns backwards. The caretaker was suddenly called from the room, and when he returned, Morton could see that the old man had been deeply affected by the message that he had received.</p> <p> </p> <p>Without explanation, the man started to recite, with deep emotion, another poem by Burns, “To Mary in Heaven”:</p> <p> </p> <p><em>Thou ling’ring star with less’ning ray</em></p> <p><em>That lov’st to greet the early morn,</em></p> <p><em>Again thou usher’st in the day</em></p> <p><em>My Mary from my soul was torn.</em></p> <p><em>O Mary! Dear departed shade!</em></p> <p><em>Where is thy place of blissful rest?</em></p> <p><em>See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?</em></p> <p><em>Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?</em></p> <p> </p> <p>When the caretaker finished, he was in tears. “You must forgive me,” he sighed. “I hae just had a message to say that my wife is dead…”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3scotland.jpg" style="height:625px; width:393px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>He paused, and then added: “There is something in Burns for every moment of a man’s life, good days and bad. I shall find his sympathy here. Burns would have known what I feel now.”</p> <p> </p> <p>A few years ago, the Scottish television network, STV, ran a poll to determine who should be counted the Greatest Scot of all time. Burns won.</p> <p> </p> <p>Some things never change. That’s why Burns is still quoted: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” That’s why books like In Search of Scotland may still be read with pleasure. And that’s why the Scots have been able to hold on to their language, their literature, their heritage and their national pride despite being part of the United Kingdom for over 300 years.  In the end, Scotland’s sense of itself may well determine the outcome of the vote on September 18.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Hal Gordon, who wrote speeches for the Reagan White House and Gen. Colin Powell, is currently a freelance speechwriter in Houston. Website: <a href="http://www.ringingwords.com">www.ringingwords.com</a>.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/seach-scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">in seach of scotland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/robert-burns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">robert burns</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/great-britain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">great britain</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/united-kingdom" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">united kingdom</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/glasgow" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">glasgow</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/edinburgh" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">edinburgh</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scots" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scots</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hal Gordon</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 15 May 2014 14:07:19 +0000 tara 4720 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3986-search-scotland-s-national-poet#comments ‘Scottish Country House’ Depicts the History of Stately Homes With Stunning Visuals https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2261-scottish-country-houses-depicts-history-stately-homes-stunning-visuals <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 03/18/2013 - 12:55</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scottishhouses.jpg?itok=Hsn2B_dp"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1scottishhouses.jpg?itok=Hsn2B_dp" width="365" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> James Knox was raised in Scotland; he has an art history degree from Cambridge and is a trustee for many Scottish trusts including The National Trust for Scotland. He is also an acclaimed writer and publisher.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In <em>Scottish Country House</em>, Knox takes you on a wonderful journey through the history of 10 houses and castles that have survived centuries in the Scottish countryside.  All of these homes are largely privately owned by the original families or as part of a Scottish Trust. Not only does Knox bring you on a delightful tour through these charming houses and castles,  but he also revels in the history of Scottish architecture and interior design.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Complimenting Knox’s narrative is James Fennell’s natural photography. Ferrell uses natural lighting, lending a lifelike feel to his pictures. This really brings out the allure and intimacy of the Scottish home. Ferrell photographs each room, the landscape, as well as specific items in the homes.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2scottishhouses.jpg" style="width: 400px; height: 600px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Great builders are showcased in the book, including William Bruce and his first great masterpiece, Balcaskie, the baroque style of William Adams’ Arniston, the Adams brothers’ Dumfries House in Ayrshire, and Robert Lorimer’s reconstruction of Monzie.</p> <p>  </p> <p> As Knox states, “The Scots engaged with their sublime landscape long before the cult of the picturesque awoke the rest of Britain to the pleasures of a good view.” The Scots were ahead of the curve in Great Britain setting the trend for architecture and landscape that would be copied throughout.</p> <p>  </p> <p> One of the great allures of Knox’s writing is that he focuses on tales of the nobles, ladies and lairds that made these castles and houses home. Some of the characters occupying these homes are more colorful and interesting than the homes themselves.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3scottishhouses.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 397px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> Learn about the House of the Binns, which became the first house handed over to the National Trust for Scotland after World War II. The original structure is tied to Thomas Dalyell, an adventurer, spy, and entrepreneur. Dalyell built one of the first modern Scottish homes of the time.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Then there’s Sir William Bruce’s stunning Balcaskie, which brought him to the forefront of architecture. Bought in 1698 by Sir Thomas Anstruther, it has stayed in the family up to this day.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Knox states, “Bruce was one of the very first architects in Britain to tie the design of his house to the surrounding untamed landscape.”  He constructed gardens and stone terraces all to lead the eye throughout the property. Fennell’s wonderful kitchen photograph showcasing the array of copper cookware lining the walls is a highlight.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4scottishhouses.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 400px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> The Duke of Queensberry built some of Britain’s greatest castles, including the classical style of the castle of Drumlanrig with its contemporary baroque interior design. The castle is filled with towers, courtyards and terraces, yet no one knows exactly who designed the castle.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Each home has a specific history: the stunning Arniston country home that was built by William Adams and the land was once acquired from the Templar knights. Or Foulis Castle with 20 bedrooms and only one bathroom that wasn’t added until 1891. And Monzie Castle was ravished by a fire in 1908 during a luncheon.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Many great items, furniture and artifacts decorate the houses, which show the cozy Scottish appeal. Items include curling stones at Foulis Castle, a sport invented in Scotland; the Russian boots of General Tam at the house of Binns, who was a Russian Czar; telegrams announcing the visit of King George V to Ballindalloch; and the famous Scottish kilt.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Famous people from a U.S. President to a U.S. governor have had ties to these houses. Harry S. Truman can be traced back to the house of the Binns. One of Ballindalloch Castle’s famous owners was General James Grant who fought in the French and Indian War, American Revolution, and became governor of Florida. Then there’s Monzie Castle:  the owner gave up her land in California (because she was tired of it) to Paul Getty, who would strike oil there. Getty became the founder of Getty Oil and donated the home, which is now the Getty Museum.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  Some of the homes, like Ballinalloch, have been rooted in the whiskey rebellion with ties to the first distillery on the Spey River, the famous Glenfiddich. Another story is of Lady Claire Russell who wrote a best-selling cookbook with a section for dogs and built her husband a golf course for his birthday.</p> <p>  </p> <p> All of the interiors of the homes are exquisitely designed. There’s the classical style and rococo ceilings in the Dumfries House in Ayrshire, the Georgian design of Foulis castle, and the baroque style of Balcaskie.</p> <p>  </p> <p> What makes this a great coffee table book is that it’s a perfect blend of history and stunning photography. It’s this balance between the visuals and stories that brings the homes to life.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>Author Bio:</strong><br /> <em>Stephen Delissio is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine. </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/sottish-country-houses" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">sottish country houses</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/vendome-press" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">vendome press</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/james-knox" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">james knox</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/james-ferrell" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">james ferrell</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/stately-homes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">stately homes</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/great-britain" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">great britain</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish-castles" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish castles</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/english-manors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">english manors</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Stephen Delissio</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">James Ferrell</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:55:24 +0000 tara 2532 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2261-scottish-country-houses-depicts-history-stately-homes-stunning-visuals#comments A Brief History of Whisky, the ‘Water of Life’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2211-brief-history-whisky-water-life <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/food" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Food</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 12:29</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumwhiskey%20%28Eelco%20Flickr%29_0.jpg?itok=cBUm3gzo"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumwhiskey%20%28Eelco%20Flickr%29_0.jpg?itok=cBUm3gzo" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>Ahh, whisky. You soothe and keep us warm on these cold winter’s nights. But who are you really? And who’s this so-called bourbon that shows up to the party sometimes? In the endless quest to decipher the meaning of life, let the journey begin with whisky.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Into the Barrel</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Whisky is made from a fermented grain mash. The mix might include corn, rye, wheat, barley and other grains, and is aged for a long time in wooden barrels.</p> <p> </p> <p>Whisky can only be classified as scotch if it was made in Scotland. The earliest record of distilling in Scotland is from 1494, according to whisky.com. It was often made in monasteries and used for medicinal purposes, termed “aqua vitae,” or “water of life.”</p> <p> </p> <p>After whisky went through an underground smuggling period due to taxes on both malts and the whisky itself, the government passed the Excise Act in 1823, sanctioning whisky distillation for a cost of 10 pounds and a payment per gallon of the pure spirit. Smuggling died down immensely as a result.</p> <p> </p> <p>Then came grain whisky in 1831, which was less intense than malt whisky, capturing a wider audience to enjoy drinking the spirit.</p> <p> </p> <p>A stall in brandy production in 1880s France left an opening for whisky to emerge as the top player in spirits. Whisky is enjoyed in more than 200 countries, from India to Sweden to North America.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2mediumwhiskey%20%28Michael%20Kalus%29.jpg" style="height:640px; width:424px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>General Spelling Rules</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>“Whiskey” is used for whiskeys made in Ireland and North America. “Whisky” is used for those made in Canada, Japan, Scotland, and Wales. Your best bet is to go by what’s on the label of the bottle. (For example, Maker’s Mark is labeled as bourbon “whisky,” even though it’s made in Kentucky.) Though “scotch” has become ubiquitous, it is simply known as “whisky” in Scotland.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Varieties of Whiskey in North America</strong></p> <p>North American whiskeys must be no more than 62.5 percent ABV (125 proof) before being aged in barrels and the result must be no less than 40 percent alcohol (80 proof) to be bottled. They are classified by the type of grains used, the percentage of alcohol at which distillation occurs, and the length and method of aging. Ninety-nine percent of US-produced whiskey is made at 13 large distilleries.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Bourbon Whiskey</strong></p> <p>Bourbon whiskey must be produced in the United States, have at least 51 percent corn, be distilled at less than 80 ABV (160 proof) and be aged for at least two years in new charred barrels.</p> <p> </p> <p>Tennessee whiskey has the same requirements, but is made in Tennessee and filtered through a bed of sugar maple charcoal, which gives it a clean and very smooth finish. Rye whiskey has the same requirements as bourbon, replacing the corn with at least 51 percent rye grain. Some straight rye is sold, but most is blended with other whiskeys. Its taste is more dry and grainy than a creamy, slightly sweet bourbon.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3mediumwhiskey%20%28Patrick%20Connelly%29.jpg" style="height:398px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Blended American whiskey must have at least 20 percent straight whiskey, balanced with an unaged neutral spirit or sometimes high-proof light whiskey. It tastes similar to bourbon. Moonshine whiskey is clear corn whiskey, distilled from corn and sugar and aged in Mason jars and jugs. Moonshine is known as the first American whiskey, dating back to the 1600s.</p> <p> </p> <p>Canadian whisky is made mostly of corn or wheat, with some rye, barley or barley malt. It doesn’t have regulations for grain percentage like American whiskey. It must be aged at least three years.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>How to Drink the Drink</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Purists argue that adding ice (which then melts) dilutes whiskey and causes it to lose flavor. But some distilleries actually recommend adding a splash of water, which they claim brings out the aroma of the beverage. It also decreases the harshness of the spirit, allowing you to recognize some of the subtle nuances. The House of Walker, for example, serves up Johnnie Walker varieties, and guides guests through tasting them individually as is, with a dash of water, and then with ice.</p> <p> </p> <p>A tour at Old Jameson in Dublin, Ireland includes an epic finale -- the tasting. Surprisingly, options include Jameson with cranberry juice, Sprite, or the increasingly popular beverage Jameson and ginger ale.</p> <p> </p> <p>Other popular whiskey cocktails include the Manhattan (rye whiskey or bourbon), Old-Fashioned (bourbon or rye whiskey), Whiskey Sour (bourbon), Sazerac (rye whiskey) and Mint Julep (bourbon).</p> <p> </p> <p>However you drink it, this historic drink offers a ton of exploration of tastes and is perfect for warming up a cold night.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Beth Kaiserman is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/whiskey" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">whiskey</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/whisky" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">whisky</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/makers-mark" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">maker&#039;s mark</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/johnny-walker" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">johnny walker</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotch" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotch</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/rye-whiskey" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">rye whiskey</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/malt-whiskey" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">malt whiskey</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scotland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scotland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wales" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">wales</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ireland" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ireland</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/irish-whiskey" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">irish whiskey</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/scottish-whiskey" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">scottish whiskey</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Beth Kaiserman</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Eelco, Flickr (Creative Commons); Photos: Eelco, Michael Kalus, Patrick Connelly (Flickr, Creative Commons)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:29:35 +0000 tara 2438 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2211-brief-history-whisky-water-life#comments