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‘SNP slammed for ‘IGNORING’ Christmas in favour of Scots winter festivals. The SNP has been accused of undermining Christmas after spending millions of pounds promoting Scotland’s “winter festivals” while ignoring the biggest Christian celebration of the year.’
The main target of the ‘slamming’ was international development minister, Dr Alasdair Allan, who it seems has launched a £390 000 campaign to attract tourist to ‘Scots winter festivals’ but has ignored Christmas in his programme. Could that be because Christmas in Scotland tends not to be any more attractive to tourists than it might be anywhere else and he’s going for the ones we do especially well like Hogmanay and Burns’ Night or as the Express has it, ‘Burns Night’. That missing apostrophe matters. I don’t fancy a night in the Burns Unit at the local hospital.
Reading further, we see the ‘slamming’ came only from the Catholic Church who seem to represent around 9% of the population according to the recent ScotCen survey and shown in the graph below:
The once mighty Kirk, which in the past condemned Christmas as a pagan festival, made no comment. Maybe they’re pleased or just too busy holding their collective breath as identification with it plummets to the same level as that of their once hated rivals.
Even more worrying for Christian groups, a Survation poll for the Humanist Society (Scotland) found that 72.4% of Scots said they were not religious while only 23.6% said they were. This is quite an increase from a similar poll in 2011 in which 56% said they were not religious and 35% said they were.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41294688
I’m not following the Express, of course, but this story just popped up when I was searching for good news to report.
Footnote: I read somewhere, perhaps in an Angela Carter novel and not an academic source, that the original tree decorations in pre-Christian times were varied bits of meat including giblets, celebrating the fact that the tribe would survive the winter. Nice. Also, Santa flying through the sky on a sledge pulled by reindeer derives, it said, from the magic mushroom-induced trips of the local shaman.
Talking-up Scotland 
“Burns’ night” surely though – Robert Burns?
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Glad to see someone else with grammatical knowledge.
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Knowledge of his name rather than grammatical knowledge?
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Shit! Made an arse of myself trying to be clever
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Sorted, thanks
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The mere existence of the SNP infuriates the Express.
Don’t have look hard to find good news today . . . . Killie won yesterday . . . .
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The photo is a premonition . . . . Independence Day celebrations at Freedom Square . . . .
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Yes, I’m sure it is!
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Hear, Hear, Clydebuilt – Those are celebrations I want to attend!
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Lido, you will be there, have a look at the folk in the fore ground in the spot light. . . Yes it’s you
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Lido? He’s not inflated. Quite modest really
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Ha ha ha . . . Good one John. . . . I didn’t notice the spelling mistake . . . . Took a few goes before I spotted it . . . Apollogies to Ludo . . . Dam spell checker. . .
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SNP blamed for Christ’s crucifixion! It wasn’t a pilot study after all.
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Doubtless the Express will be fully supportive of the, clearly, high art pantomime that is being inflicted on the good folk of Manchester by those z-list Bitter Together ‘celebs’ The Krankies and John Barrowman (See below – from Beeb website):
A mum has called for a “lewd and offensive” pantomime starring the Krankies, and former Doctor Who star John Barrowman, to be axed.
Natalie Wood has made an official complaint about Dick Whittington at Manchester Opera House, saying it was “too smutty” for children.
During the show, she said, Barrowman fondled co-star Janette Krankie’s breasts, and also invited audience members to chant “Alice loves Dick”.
Among the moments she took issue with was one where Wee Jimmy Krankie, played by Janette Krankie, poked her finger out of her trousers, emulating a penis.
“The main issue for us was the actual fondling of Jimmy Krankie’s breasts and all the different cheap smutty jokes,” she said.
“Normally we share the jokes from the show afterwards – these kind of jokes you would have to discourage the children from repeating and or acting out,” she said.
Pantomime authority Roy Hudd, who has starred, written or directed in more than 50 festive productions, said there was a place for innuendo but they “should be aimed at the children”.
Good to see the Better Together campaign maintain its famously high standards as it gears up for Indyref 2.
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Personally, I think the Winter Festivals are a great idea. I was in Glasgow for a couple of days and it was great to see George Square full of hustle and bustle. However if the Daily Express journo had just popped along the road to The Tron Church he/ she would have been in an entirely different world. There in this little quiet corner of Glasgow, there on a bench was The Sleeping Jesus, which made me reflect on how lucky I am compared to many sleeping on the streets, to have a roof over my head, a family that cares.
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The Express is like a projectile vomiting, doubly incontinent home counties retired military type, to put it politely.
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Accurately too.
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I’d crawl over broken glass from deepest england, to Scotland to celebrate our independence.
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Regarding your footnote about the significance of tree decorations etc., I suggest that those interested in such things take time and effort to read Sir James George Frazer’s classic work “The Golden Bough”. It’s best edition is the controversial 1890, two-volume one.
As a taster, and of interest to an Ayr dweller, the similarity of the harvest festivals of the old-time farmers of mid-Ayrshire and of SlavicTransylvania is almost uncanny.
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Just downloaded “The Golden Bough” from Project Gutenberg.
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I may have contributed (insignificantly) to the rise in the non religious in Scotland. When my two youngest were pre school age the roll out of Blair’s pre school learning project had scooped them up. This was when I first heard mention of something we never ate, “baby cheese”. Listening closer I realised baby cheese was baby jesus. I never corrected them, baby cheese it was, for several years. Indeed I probably added to the confusion when answering their questions about the Father in Heaven, “aye he’s the father of baby cheese, big cheese. You’ll hear adults talking about people in companies as being the big cheese, same sort of thing, top person.” I don’t feel good about it but it does have a moral ending; if you’re going to teach religion, pick someone with good diction.
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Alan, is religious teaching then like Swiss cheese—full of holes?
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Ooooooh, good!
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Nice story. I remember the shock in the face of one of mine at about 5 or 6 hearing John Prine sing: ‘There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes and Jesus Christ died for nuthin ah suppose.’
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Robert Burns. Not Robert Burn, so there is no missing apostrophe! Unless we go with Burns’ Night, which, arguably is correct. Never read any further than that… as I can’t be arsed with pontificating idiots
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Me neither
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Any reason for the spike in religiosity in 2014?
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I don’t know. More in the Kirk so a nice new Moderator?
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