The Scots have it against the English for banning bagpipes and tartan: now, dear Lord, they're doing it to themselves?

Grrrrrr!!!!!!

GGGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!

Out of my cold dead hands, etc etc.

We Welsh arnt daft!
We wear our sporrans under our kilts.
It's very bracing !

Mr Tremayne, you're a genuis. Is this because people have been avoiding the underwear changing regulations by not wearing any under their kilts?

A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said the new rules had been put in place to bring Scotland into line with existing European legislation designed to protect vulnerable species.

Wouldn't do to have anyone out of line with the EU.

"The licence will allow people who possess artefacts made from these species in circumstances compliant with earlier laws to keep them," she said.

New restrictions to allow people to do things. Typical authoritarian ass-backwards logic.

This is a classic.

You have mastered irony; I can no longer tell whether the things you report in your posts are invented or not.

"Donald, where's your licence?" - I love it!

Portsmouth just removed the rights of smokers to adopt children under 5 years old for "health reasons". Next we'll probably hear about removing the right of anyone who habitually wears a kilt to adopt children under 5, since young children might be subject to psychological gender-identification confusion between their father and mother at a later stage in life ...

I have finely figured it out. What we need is a season on public employees. They are not unfortunately an endangered species. Remember how the Spartans would declare war on helots every year. This is what we need. A one week open season on public employees. The Queen could be exempt and have the privilege of chousing which week. All the hounds and horses put out of business by the fox hunt ban could be put to use hunting politicians and civil servants instead.

I was told that in fact it was an Englishman who invented the kilt.
Not sure about the wee Badger Handbags though.

Surely you meant "purses" RAB?

Nope I got that line from a Billy Connolly skit
He should know.
But I agree- they are hardly Imporance of being Ernest size, are they!
We Welsh dont wear kilts by the way
We wrap ourselves in flannel to flail the English with!!
Some go so far as to say that we are all flannel.
You must remember Neil Kinnock?

Nope, but I looked him up on Wiki. I knew there had to be an advantage to not being British!

There was a lot of nastyness after 1745 RAB (with various bans and other such). And the Victorians (English and Scottish) did redesign some things (including the kilt - I believe they made it a bit longer)- but they were really bringing things back not "inventing" them some critics claim.

However, I believe a traditional part of Highland dress in the "dirk" (the dagger worn in the sock). So, surely the solution to the problem is clear, use the dirk on anyone who demands (by the threat of violence) to see a licence for wearing traditional clothing.

The kilt was last banned by the English imperialists two hundred or so years ago.
Beware the clearances.

By 'dirk'I would presume you intend to mean the Sgian Dubh - a blade by which every dutiful Scot casts a metaphorical 2-fingered salute to Westminster by wearing (its technically a sharp edged weapon so therefore banned by our caring masters). Add this ban to the sporran licensing and we are probably looking at Sir Liam Donaldson (the Blairite civil servant in charge of the nation's health) eventually banning the haggis, restricting whisky sales and effectively ruining Burns' night for all.

Scotland has risen in anger against its rulers for far less than that in her history.

Well they've brought it on themselves
Havent they!
I mean Alex Salmond!!!

This comment on political correctnes is very apt for this subject:
"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a Turd by the clean end."

Thomas Sowell once pointed out that the only endangered species are the ones that nobody owns. So the solution should be obvious...

Badger ranching, anyone?

A joke I first saw on the Goodies-
Q. what is worn under a kilt?
A. Nothing- it's all in perfect working order!
How come people say, 'going Commando', and not 'Going Skottish'?

So it won't be long before we see job ads for Sporran inspectors?

I guess this will be in the next Christmas cracker's joke list:
What's worn under a Scotsman's kilt?
A Sporran license.

Otterly ridiculous. I wish the Poms would stop badgering the Scots.

'Going commando' in the British army used to refer to being unwashed or unhygeinic - i.e. 'like a a Royal Marine Commando'. I rather think that it is just an update from what the Scottish refer to as 'going regimental' i.e. nothing under the kilt.

I apologize for my error Mr Taylor.

Excellent stuff, Thaddeus. Just one minor linguistic point: in the second line of the first and last verses, "nae" should be "no'" (pronounced, well, "no"). Other than that, marvellous.

Ah the kilt...

An effective example of civil society in action.

How so, you say?

Well, like this. I would never dream of wearing a tartan skirt because I'm English. A friend of mine is dating a Scotsman and if they ever marry I'm sure he'll wear his ancestral tartan. But that's OK, because he's Scottish. The kilt self-regulates you see.

Because a non-Scot in a kilt is generally (rightly) regarded as being a twat.

So rather than liberalize the Scottish economy and bring much needed jobs north of the border or indeed even "invest" more in schoolznhospitalz they are regulating something for which a million years could pass and I wouldn't even consider it.

Screw illegal immigration, Islamic terrorism, global-sodding-warming, catastrophic European birth-rates, the lecky running out (very soon) or anything else. The true existential threat we face is from the (unregulated) "Devils in Skirts".

Oh, my giddy aunt! Some here have praised TT's gift for irony. No, people, you're wrong. Much though I'm sure Thadeus is a bright lad he didn't really have to work this one much because it's so completely beyond parody as to be a hilarity on it's own. This is so un-fucking-believable in the non-hyphenated sense of the term.

The hyphenated sense is the sense in which it is typed. The non-hyphenated is the sense in which it is shrieked as a barbaric yawp.

I guess we know what "the low road" leads to now.

I know I've said it before but I'm of the opinion that the Clearances weren't entirely a bad thing. They got me out of having to have a license for a piece of animal skin.

Or even a licence.

Is there a Double-oh-seven tartan?
License to 'Kilt'?

What's "lecky"?

"lecky" Alisa is the gift of the C19th to the C20th.

It is what seperates us from the barbarians.

It is the baby of Oersted, Volta, Maxwell, the divine Tesla and many others.

It is the second industrial revolution.

It is the flow of electrons and holes through conductors and doped semi-conductors.

It is fire stolen from jealous Gods and used for every purpose imagineable. It is made by burning coal at Drax and by burning Uranium at Sizewell.

It is the reason I can tell you this.

It is power at the speed of heat. It is poetry, it is information, it is strength, it is Electricity.

And ya wouldn't want to be without it now would ya?

Try Captain Beefhearts album Safe as Milk from 1967.
On there you will find a track called
Electricity. That is what lecky is.
The way the Captain sings it, and he has a 4 and a half octave voice, you feel like you have been plugged into the mains!
Broke the microphone too!!

Er.. that's the third Industrial Revolution there Nick.

Water, Steam then Lecky!! ;-)

"Going commando” is pretty much universally understood in the USA as going sans underpants; a la Britney Spears.

Along the same lines, I had read somewhere that displaying a family crest or a heraldic coat-of-arms was also strictly regulated in Scotland. I am curious since I have a couple of friends here in the USA of Scottish descent who may be interested in such matters.

Nick, I am all teary now! It is poetry!