A bridie also sometimes is the name for a home knit womans sweater.
Posted on 03/31/2007 8:56:20 PM PDT by GMMAC
I am not self-proclaimed anything. I am Scottish and you are not. You are not merely indifferent to Scotland you seem to hate it.
And you are right, considering you don’t even know the basics of what Scotland and Britain are I am beginning to see what you are.
Let me remind you - you said that Brits are trying to stamp out Scots culture. Now if you had said English instead of Brits, you would be laughably wrong, but at least you would have some understanding. It’s as hilariously wrong as to suggest that Americans are trying to stamp out the culture of Kansas/Arizona/Florida/California etc. LOL
BTW, here is a little video of the passion real Scots feel for their country - similiar to Americans at the Olympics or other international event.
You will never understand what it is to be Scottish. To sing that national anthem with such pride. Pretending is not the same. The pity is, if you weren’t such an enemy to the people of Scotland you could share in it. Like the Irish-Americans who left in the same context but who (unlike you) help modern Ireland.
I think your ancestors would be ashamed of your hatred of their land, and your laughable idea that they are somehow genetically superior to their literal brothers, sisters and parents they left behind.
We don’t need to like one another, but why not start with dialogue instead of silly slogans?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiixc4GFBVo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QNMmBpYB98&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fGCsItMlq4
“In the last referendum, Quebeckers voted some 49% for independence.”
Actually, they voted 49% in favour of a question that asked whether the government of Quebec should enter into negotiations with that of Canada seeking “sovereignty”, and so on. The question was not at all a clear question of whether or not Quebec should fully and properly separate from Canada to become its own country. The general opinion is that if the question had been a clear one like that, support would have been no more than 20%-30%. True separation scares the pants off most Quebecers.
Elle court...elle court...
la maladie d’amour
dans les coeurs des enfants
de sept a soixante-dix-sept ans.
Elle chante...elle chante...
cette riviere insolente,
qui unit dans son lit les cheveux blonds, les cheveux gris!
Feel the burnin’ electronic love!
If there is a north american predujice against scotland, I think it must have something to do with the lockerbee(sp?) thing. It was the terrorists that requested trial in scotland, no? That makes americans suspicious of scotland.
Or do I have my facts all mixed up? I have been known to do that.
BTW, I believe it is true that scottish canadians are more scottish than the scottish are. I’ve read similar statements about the french canadians and the irish canadians. The french canadians beleive that european french language has become to americanized. The irish canadians speak forms of gaelic that are extinct in ireland. I believe I read both of these things in the national geographic.
However, I suppose these beliefs could be chaulked up to that arrogant english blood that flows in north american’s veins...we are better than the english we despised, and our non english british descendents are better than their british counterparts as well!...hehe. Perhaps in some ways we have become the english that we detested.
Let me remind you - you said that Brits are trying to stamp out Scots culture. Now if you had said English instead of Brits, you would be laughably wrong, but at least you would have some understanding. It’s as hilariously wrong as to suggest that Americans are trying to stamp out the culture of Kansas/Arizona/Florida/California etc. LOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He meant the government, not the people.
You have a point in there.
The people who came to America were, in a very real sense, Europe’s, and Africa’s and Asia’s - even Latin America’s - rejects.
Who came from England? There were always a few powerful bigwigs to rule everyone else, but Virginia was originally populated primarily with transported prisoners. Women were originally procured by rounding up English whores and forcing them off to the Americas. Before the English Civil War broke out, the detested Puritans fled into the American wilds. Once the Puritans won and Cromwell was established, the broken Cavaliers fled to Virginia. Maryland was founded as a place to dump off unwanted English Catholics. Georgia, of course, was a penal colony. The Enclosure Acts kept a steady population of the unlanded poor flowing into America. The Navigation Acts and Tarrifs and other rules broke the Ulster textile industries and began the 18th Century mass immigrations of the “Scotch-Irish” into the American wilds. The Catholic Irish, of course, who came over were the ones who were otherwise facing death in the Potato Famine or, later, were unemployed.
Which of the Scandinavians came? Not the landed and established? The surplus populations of the unemployed.
Among the Germans, first it was the unwanted Anabaptists and Brethren, hated for their religious beliefs. Then, later, it was the poor and unemployed.
The French experience was a little different, in that it was usually higher classes of people who moved to Protestant America. But they did so, again, because they were rejected in France: the Huguenots, then the nobility, especially the nobility of the Empire. French-Canada, of course, was actually populated by hand-picked colonists of good Catholic character, which explains the very different early experience of the Quebec colony.
And into this welter were injected the black slaves, the defeated of Africa’s tribal struggles.
And later, the Chinese and Japanese coolies, workers who had nothing in overpopulated China and Japan.
Today, it is not the well-establish landed class of Mexico that immigrates. It’s the poor laborers and Indians.
America has gotten the rejects, the dregs, of every continent. But the stones that the builders rejected have become the cornerstones of a greater nation than any of those left behind.
It is only natural that Americans should harbor a degree of rejection, a degree of contempt and a degree of scorn for Europe. After all, Americans are descended of people who were driven - oftentimes violently - from their homelands as rejects. America filled up with people Europe treated like crap. European states showed no loyalty or love for the debris of their society they offloaded in America. These people, and their children and grandchildren, built a civilization that is more advanced than Europe scientifically in every field of endeavor, that is wealthier than Europe and is more sophisticated financially as well, that is militarily superior to every armed force in Europe on an equipment level and on a unit-by-unit level. And they built an America which has successively destroyed 6 European Empires: the French (in the Americas), the British (in the Americas), the Spanish, the German, the Italian and the Soviet Russian.
There is no love lost between America and Europe, and Americans have no historical reason to treat Europe with respect. Americans’ ancestors were driven from Europe as “the wretched refuse from a teeming shore”. No thanks to Europe, at all, they built the greatest civilization the world has ever known in North America, and then reached out and ended European world domination, establishing their own.
Some of us still have strong ties to Europe, but not very many. For most there is a sense of an emotional tie to some distant “Homeland”, be it in Africa, in Asia, or in Europe. However, closer acquaintance with any of the ancestral homelands causes most Americans to thank their lucky stars that their ancestors were badly beaten up by these ancient lands, such that they left, dregs all, and made a better world in the New.
It is unsurprising that Europe and America do not really get along well, and never have. America is in a literal sense a rejection of Europe.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
- Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, New York harbor, USA.
(By the way, it is not as though all Europeans are oblivious to this. ‘Twas France that was inspired to give the Statue of Liberty to America, apres tout.)
Maybe he meant “The British Empire, alone”.
In a sense that’s true, when it comes to organized government. Of course, there was a French government in exile, and a Polish government in exile, and a Dutch government in exile, and the French and Polish and Dutch and other resistance movements began immediately. They were not very strong, but they were in the field fighting.
Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Indians, etc. were all in the field, under the grand banner of the British Empire.
China was in the field too, of course, but that was on a different front.
If we said that the only organized major national fighting force in the field in Europe still fighting Hitler in 1940 after the Fall of France were the forces of the British Empire, that would be true. Canadians would be included prominently in that.
To say that the British, qua British, were the only folks facing Hitler alone during that time period would be false. But I wonder if the intent was to ignore the others, or it was just an oversight.
Up thread, for example, I called the Scots and English “English”, but that’s not really what I meant. What I meant was that they’re both Anglo-Saxons, and THAT is true. So are the Irish, in that sense. And the Americans. If by “British forces” we mean “British Empire forces”, it’s a different case.
By the way, I have a question. Perhaps someone can answer me. Back in 1940, could the Americans trade directly with India or British Africa, or were there all sorts of trade restrictions in American access to those markets sown up by British Imperialism? And if the latter, what was the strong American interest in fighting for the British Empire (other than that the bad guys were bad)?
It's obvious that you are new here, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that you might not be here too much longer.
It is an accepted practice at FR to look up the posting history of people.
It's one of ways we judge a FReepers credibility and intent.
It's a good way to identify trolls.
Ummm...what’s a bridie?
It’s a fair cop.
Anyway, he appears to have retreated.
“When danger reared its ugly head,
Sir Robin turned his tail and fled,
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin...” - Monty Python
“Elle court...Elle court.......”.
“Laizzez les bon temp rouler” back atcha! And thanks for Lafayette!
“Ummm...what’s a bridie?”
I don’t know either. But being as it is a darkly-named food from the British Isles, you can rest assured that, whatever it is, it is ghastly.
"Make 'em dry," he wrote, "Make 'em rubbery. If you have to keep 'em fresh, do it by scrubbing them once a week."
A bridie also sometimes is the name for a home knit womans sweater.
However, I will admit to some very guilty pleasures, but I must keep this hush-hush and NEVER be heard to admit it:
The British make a thing called “Mint Lamb”, and it is delicious. It is roast leg of lamb, with mint in it, and mint jelly on it. Very good.
Also, the staple fare of Shepherd’s Pie is good in England.
The large English breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, beans and tomatoes is good (granted, it’s hard to screw up an egg).
Greasy fish and chips are a staple, and the fish part, anyway, is good (if definitely not good for you).
An English stew, or an Irish stew, is really nothing other than a pot-au-feu. The only difference is in the seasoning, but I have had English stews in England that were properly seasoned and good.
Yorkshire pudding is not bad.
The English cook beef as well as anyone, when they roast it. Boiling good beef is unfortunate, but I have had good roast beef in England.
And finally (my citizenship could be revoked for this admission), I actually like steak and kidney pie. I never would have tried it but for being in a place where there was nothing open but a pub, nothing to eat in the pub but steak and kidney pie (it was a holiday) or bags of crisps. So I gagged and ordered the pie.
It was good.
Actually, it is very, very good. Very filling and savoury.
The name is appalling. The appearance is unpleasant: a dull thick crust under which body parts are strewn. The steam coming off it has that faint aroma of urine which hot kidneys do. But it was nevertheless delicious to the taste.
And the English make good ales. I like English ales.
We must not get carried away. I have had haggis at the Printemps Celt celebration had in spring in Paris. Haggis looks horrid. It doesn’t taste horrid, really, but it’s definitely a food you try to try, but don’t go looking for when you go back. Similarly English deserts. Creme-puffs are actually nice. Jiggling jello is alarming, especially when it is meat jelly. This is the part of the canned product which is normally discarded in other countries. However, whenever I find myself in England, I do tend to prefer English breakfasts, and I always make a point of going to a likely looking pub and having a steak and kidney pie. But whenever I do it, I look around very carefully, and make sure that I go alone. Steak and kidney pie is my guilty English food pleasure.
I will not say that the English get a “bad rap” for their food. I will say, rather, that I have an appetite for certain foods which most people might consider bad.
But steak and kidney pie is my guilty English pleasure.
I like it.
This is a disgrace to my race.
It also appears to strongly resemble a Cornish pastie.
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