Espousers of the Contrived,
At Kirkcaldy station, I noticed a fairly large crowd dismount and head down towards the town centre. As I waited for a train to the city, I forgot about this abnormality.
As I’ve documented before in The Bellyaches, I love the train journey to Embra. Musing over a book, I could ride the Fife Circle for hours on end. Today, I was reading Swing Hammer Swing by Jeff Torrington and what turned out to be a particularly relevant portion of it.
I amassed some materials from the city: God Help the Girl, Lord Cut-Glass and Ohbijou walbums, a couple of pairs of trousers and some polo shirts - standard fare. The weather was dismal and at the height of eastern Scotland summer, I was at risk of trench foot on Princes Street.
Arriving back in Kirkcaldy, from the train, I spotted more groups of people walking down the streets and police officers at regular vigilant over the hideousness. I still did not know what this hideousness was until it confronted me, the train doors opened, there stood Mr and Mrs Orange with their glum, put upon children bedecked in scarves, of a useless proportion (I anticipate a bout of pneumonia round at the Oranges' this winter, nevertheless when they remember buying their little orange tickets for this fun train journey, their hearts will be warmed), brandishing slogans relating to Ulster waiting to go home from their religious pilgrimage to the Mecca that is Kirkcaldy.
The idea of blaming parents is something I find is contentious. I can think independently from my parents, I’ve always had different views, but maybe that is because they have allowed me freedom of thought. In the case of the Oranges in their ridiculous garb, the parents are accountable; they have warped the delicate minds of their offspring, who in turn could bear another generation of Oranges, unless they emancipate themselves soon, should they be allowed to grow smart enough to understand their parents, their idols, are wrong.
People have always had to believe in something. I don’t have a problem with religion but in Scotland, the Orange walk is the only instance where lives are intruded upon and ‘religion’ is forced upon people and their activities infringe upon the lives of others. When religious people come to knock, doors can be shut upon them. Parents can choose to have their children exempt from religious lessons or assemblies in schools, the children themselves can choose not to pay attention (like I and most people did). People don’t need to watch Songs of Praise on television, they can choose to watch Come Dine With Me. Marches don’t give those along its route any choice, but then the same could be said of Colin Fox and the Scottish Socialist Party who were on their soapboxes with megaphones on Princes Street urging up rise against plans to privatise Royal Mail – life is a paradox, the socialists try to maintain the existence of a business with ‘royal’ in its title. I'm struggling to decide if such noisy and intrusive methods used by the Orange folk and these political campaigners are the same thing, but at least, the socialists hadn't brought their children with them - they could have dressed them up as post boxes and axes or made them act out an episode of everyone's favourite high-octane drama set in Greendale whereby Postman Pat is made redundant and becomes so skint that he has no choice but to send Jess to a home.
The mystery surrounding the existence of free will might never be solved. Kurt Vonnegut battled with it throughout his work and I’m just contrary.
As I’ve documented before in The Bellyaches, I love the train journey to Embra. Musing over a book, I could ride the Fife Circle for hours on end. Today, I was reading Swing Hammer Swing by Jeff Torrington and what turned out to be a particularly relevant portion of it.
I amassed some materials from the city: God Help the Girl, Lord Cut-Glass and Ohbijou walbums, a couple of pairs of trousers and some polo shirts - standard fare. The weather was dismal and at the height of eastern Scotland summer, I was at risk of trench foot on Princes Street.
Arriving back in Kirkcaldy, from the train, I spotted more groups of people walking down the streets and police officers at regular vigilant over the hideousness. I still did not know what this hideousness was until it confronted me, the train doors opened, there stood Mr and Mrs Orange with their glum, put upon children bedecked in scarves, of a useless proportion (I anticipate a bout of pneumonia round at the Oranges' this winter, nevertheless when they remember buying their little orange tickets for this fun train journey, their hearts will be warmed), brandishing slogans relating to Ulster waiting to go home from their religious pilgrimage to the Mecca that is Kirkcaldy.
The idea of blaming parents is something I find is contentious. I can think independently from my parents, I’ve always had different views, but maybe that is because they have allowed me freedom of thought. In the case of the Oranges in their ridiculous garb, the parents are accountable; they have warped the delicate minds of their offspring, who in turn could bear another generation of Oranges, unless they emancipate themselves soon, should they be allowed to grow smart enough to understand their parents, their idols, are wrong.
People have always had to believe in something. I don’t have a problem with religion but in Scotland, the Orange walk is the only instance where lives are intruded upon and ‘religion’ is forced upon people and their activities infringe upon the lives of others. When religious people come to knock, doors can be shut upon them. Parents can choose to have their children exempt from religious lessons or assemblies in schools, the children themselves can choose not to pay attention (like I and most people did). People don’t need to watch Songs of Praise on television, they can choose to watch Come Dine With Me. Marches don’t give those along its route any choice, but then the same could be said of Colin Fox and the Scottish Socialist Party who were on their soapboxes with megaphones on Princes Street urging up rise against plans to privatise Royal Mail – life is a paradox, the socialists try to maintain the existence of a business with ‘royal’ in its title. I'm struggling to decide if such noisy and intrusive methods used by the Orange folk and these political campaigners are the same thing, but at least, the socialists hadn't brought their children with them - they could have dressed them up as post boxes and axes or made them act out an episode of everyone's favourite high-octane drama set in Greendale whereby Postman Pat is made redundant and becomes so skint that he has no choice but to send Jess to a home.
The mystery surrounding the existence of free will might never be solved. Kurt Vonnegut battled with it throughout his work and I’m just contrary.
posted by Leif at 2:00 PM
1 Comments:
They have the impudence to refer to it as "Orangefest" here, as if it were the Ned equivalent of the Notting Hill Carnival or Carnival in Rio. Last night, a big cheese in the organisation was on the BBC Scotland News saying that they don't sing sectarian songs, they only play tunes. A modern version of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, no doubt. Anyway, I avoided it all by staying at home and cleaning windows, unlike last week, where I was caught in the crossfire at our Armed Forces Day celebration.
Good to see you are still blogging. The name may have changed, but the quality remains the same.
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