Kenneth's guide to Scotland.
One of the many conversations I have with people is about my homeland, Scotland. Most people I meet do not know very much about Scotland and so I do my best to fill them in. As I have met quite a few debate folk, I tend to give things quite a debatey slant and as a lot of former debaters look at the blog, I will include this here. Much of my humour is self deprecating, and this injects itself into the tales of my homeland. So, I thought it might be entertaining to include some of my random banter in my own guide to scotland. This is part one.


Let us begin with St Andrews. The reason being that it is the first place place in Scotland I was ever asked about here. A Korean was thinking of applying for a masters there. St Andrews is possibly the strangest place in Scotland, truly bizarre. Take one of the worlds oldest Universities and plonk it in the middle of Fife. Indeed, you cannot understand St Andrews without knowing a little bit about Fife itself.

Ah yes the Kingdom of Fife. You see, calling themselves the Kingdom is not in anyway an expression of superiority. It is the recognition that their level of social development resembles that of a feudal society. The average intelligence resembles someone from Medieval times and upon entering Fife you are asked by a patrol to present your longbow. When driving through Kirkcaldy, you might reasonably expect to see Kevin Costner being catapulted about and when someone from Fife sues, they do so referencing the Magna Carta. In a more modern move, residents of Glenrothes boast that the oundabouts are the most attractive in Scotland. To which someone might reply: “Ooh, they have flowerbeds, did NASA help you come up with that? Did the relevant council worker get a Nobel Prize? Well done, you have beaten out god forsaken East Kilbride, fuck a doodle do!” Well thats Fife. Ahem.
Now in Fife you have this little pocket of intellectualism and conservatism that is St Andrews. The residents can have quite a haughty and defensive air about them, but people should not be offended, its just the reflexive fear that the rest of Fife will come and rape and pillage them. But St Andrews is conservative. Very. So conservative, that during the American Civil Rights movement they organised themselves into drilled groups of volunteers. Drilled groups of volunteers trained to operate the water cannons firing on the protesting Blacks. St Andrews is also the home of golf and sees many rich white Americans make a pilgrimage to the spiritual home of the great game. (Also, to say thanks for the water cannon help.) Some Golf aficionados are confused about the fact that so few Black, Jewish and poor people play Golf. They are not after they visit St Andrews. In fact many of the rich white Americans like it so much, they feel compelled to send their sons and daughters there to study.

Knowing what a weird place it is, I always used to be surprised at how relatively normal the St Andrews debaters used to be. ( I say relatively normal, because lets face it, debaters are weird.) Over the years I have known some great folk from the IV crowd, Miranda, John, Jason, Comedy Dave, Doug, Connie, Jazz. (Sorry for any prominent names missed out.) St Andrews have built an absolute machine of an IV squad, Doug and Connie have had massive success this year as have Jason Vit and UCC luminary 'Smooth' Tony Murphy. The only non GUU speaker I have debated with is the man, they myth, the legend, John Stewart. They are probably, I must grudgingly admit the strongest debating society in Scotland. Yet, yet the basis for all these victories are the phenomena known as Lower Parliament Hall debates.

LPH debates, for shortness, seem to be the greatest gatherings of fruit loops and weirdos the world have ever seen. First off, they all kick about wearing red robes, but with no other discernible dress code. So you might get a fetching looking gent with a three piece suit and red robe, quite smart. However, another person might wear Chinos and a Hawaiian shirt as sported by a particularly loud American I remember. They are run by the ominous 'Board of Ten', which makes them sound more like the Chinese Communist Party than a debating society. They also do this really weird 'Thats cheap' banter. It works like this, if I understood correctly, any time a speaker in the debate says a sum of money, like a hundred pounds, the audience shout back:
“How much?”
Speaker: “A hundred pounds!”
Audience: “That's cheap!”
Again this strikes me as reminiscent of the Chinese Communist Party. “Seven hundred million dollars to build a Casino in the Gobi desert. Thats cheap!”

There are various other strange procedures and rules thrown in along the way. Now fair enough, internal debating societies do a lot of weird stuff, the GUU certainly has its quirks. However, what is what is really strange is that they do this all these shenanigans at both the IV and individual speakers competition, when other societies come to compete. External debaters just look around slack jawed, waiting for the moment when the masks come off and the lizard heads are revealed. The St Andy's IV debaters, who probably quite enjoy this stuff, all look a little embarassed at the practices. Now its quite funny when your racist uncle comes round for a family Sunday roast, but if your mate Hardeep is around, then his send them back on the boats routine is a bit mortifying.

Now of course I am exaggerating for effect. The LPH debates are actually lots of fun... but still weird. Furthermore, I used to visit St Andrews a lot and it does make a lovely visit. It also has a restaurant called Garfunkel's, which has an enormous model train track going through it, so a little train whizzes by while you munch away. I used to think that this, along with Optimus Prime was the greatest thing in the world. As I have said the IV squad are lovely people and great debaters. In fairness, the rest of Fife is not really that bad. Anstruther, near St Andrews has Fish and Chips, so good, that they may be Ambrosia as spoken of by the Ancient Greek Gods. Also, Dunfermline produced the ace Euan Baxter and Glenrothes' Morag Harvey is far a greater asset than any of its roundabouts. (I can still understand why Rebus is depressed all the time mind.)

Tune in next time for the next stop in Kenneth's review of Scotland. Dundee.