What distinguishes Scotland from the rest of the world? If you were to ask people at random, a flurry of responses are likely to emerge. The Scottish folks themselves would try to differentiate themselves from their neighbours in England – who they often outshine. Here is our list of ten things which while not uniquely Scottish are nevertheless Scotland writ large.
1. Midges
The midge is Scotland’s equivalent to the mosquito. It may be even worse than the mosquito, and is worst of all in the west of Scotland, especially over peaty soil (the east, on the other hand, excels in tics). The midge is never found in the singular, but in the mass – it’s not the midge, but midges, clouds and plagues of them. They crawl over faces until minds are lost. They are capable of penetrating clothes, and aim unerringly for the warmest, most sensitive spots, for groins and armpits and the like. Tourists are hereby warned not to visit the Highlands in the summer months when the midges are out in strength. Spring and autumn are safer. But if you are foolish enough to experience the Scottish summer, be sure to be inside at dusk, which is the midging hour – or failing that to stand above a very big bonfire. You might choke on the smoke, but that will seem to be the better option.
2. Novelists
For such a small country, Scotland has produced a very large number of successful novelists. They include classical figures like Tobias Smollett and Walter Scott, and writers whose creations are known globally – such as Robert Louis Stevenson, who invented Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented Sherlock Holmes. There’s also the crime writer Ian Rankin, and the chronicler of the ugly underbelly, Irvine Welsh. And the literary-fiction blockbusters AL Kennedy and Ali Smith. And many more. CM recommends in particular James Kelman, and his prizewinning novel How Late it Was, How Late – tragic-comic, brutal, and entirely written in Glasgow dialect – which does take some getting used to.
3. Scientists
As with the arts, so with the sciences – Scotland has often punched above its weight. James Watt (steam engine), Alexander Fleming (penicillin), John Logie Baird (television), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), and James Clarke Maxwell (electromagnetics) are some of the world-changing inventors and thinkers to originate here. And why is tarmac called tarmac? Because it’s a kind of tar invented by John McAdam. The world’s first stretch of surfaced road is near McAdam’s old house at Carsphairn, in south west Scotland.
4. Haggis
A haggis is a mix of oats, spices, and chopped-up offal stuffed into a sheep’s stomach. It should be cooked, and served with tatties and neeps, that is potatoes and turnip – or what the English call suede. Like many ‘national’ dishes, haggis was once a meal of the poor. Today it’s a delicacy, as well as a chip shop favourite. To try the authentic version, buy it from a recommended Scottish butcher, not from the supermarket. These days there’s no excuse to shirk the adventure. Not only are there vegetarian and vegan versions of haggis, there’s a halal haggis too!
5. Whisky
As far as we’re aware, there’s not yet such a thing as halal whisky – but this hasn’t dented its popularity in Muslim countries any more than anywhere else. There’s long been a whisky black market in Saudi Arabia, for instance. Like cocaine, the reach of this substance is global. Bottles of Scotch turn up in Southeast Asian village shops as surely as they do in European airport outlets. Once, every other Highland home housed its own still. Today – after centuries of state regulation closing out the little man, whisky is an industry worth six billion pounds a year.
6. Fish
Not much of Scotland is arable land. It’s too rain-sodden or peaty or windswept or bare. Only rugged breeds of sheep and cattle do well in its fields. But there is a compensation: its rivers contain perch and pike and salmon and trout. The latter two fish in particular are rich enough in oily nutrients to make up for any deficiencies implied by geography and climate.
7. Water
It’s no surprise that Scotland is abundant in fish when it’s so abundant in water. It has rivers, lochs (lakes) and sea lochs, as well as lochans (small lochs), and ubiquitous burns (streams). Look on the map and you’ll see that the northern third of Scotland is almost separated from the rest by a continuous line of lochs. The North Sea and the Irish Sea, meanwhile, pound against its cliffs. Western Scotland is one of the rainiest places on earth. In the winter it can rain for days without a break. In the summer, the dripping humidity and the abundant greenery gives corners of the country a tropical feel. Scots make good use of their watery resource, and not just for drinking, fishing, and swimming. Grand hydro-electric schemes cover the country, as do wind turbines. In 2022, over ninety percent of Scotland’s energy was generated from renewable sources. As for the non-human inhabitants of the country, sea and river birds, and seals, dolphins, and whales, all benefit from our still reasonably clean water.
8. Oil
Oil is yet another of Scotland’s valuable liquids – though this one these days is more controversial than whisky. From the 1960s to 2014, an estimated 42 billion barrels of oil were extracted from the North Sea. The profits flooded British state coffers in the 1980s, helping to fund Mrs Thatcher’s privatisations and tax cuts. If only – nationalists mutter – an independent Scotland had invested then in its own national oil fund, as Norway did, then Scotland today would be as comfortable as Scandinavia. Somewhere between 12 and 24 billion barrels of oil are estimated to remain under the sea. They could potentially enrich an independent Scotland in the future, but nobody really wants to say so. Unlike Rishi Sunak’s Westminster government, Scotland’s local rulers understand the dangers of fossil fuels. The Green Party is part of Scotland’s coalition government, after all.
9. Schemes
Scotland certainly needs enriching. Despite the profits from oil and whisky, and from natural power and tourism, poverty and social deprivation persist. They are most apparent in the schemes – or what in England are called housing estates. Most were built between the 1950s and 1970s, and were supposedly intended to improve the lives of working class people previously crammed into inner-city tenements. The old tenements were demolished, which left space for redesigning the inner cities. But the residents were generally moved out of the cities to more isolated locations – like the notorious Easterhouse scheme. The new residential blocks were poorly designed and constructed, and usually had no shops or recreational facilities in the vicinity. Unsurprisingly, the inhabitants suffered disproportionately from health and social problems. In the 1980s, for instance, Scotland had both the highest murder rate and the highest AIDS rate in Europe. The AIDS infections were in turn a symptom of terribly high levels of heroin addiction. Addicts shared needles – and disease – in the ‘shooting galleries’ in the basements of tower blocks.
10. Festivals
In the last three weeks of August each year, the Edinburgh International Festival showcases music, dance, and drama from everywhere. When the Fringe Festival – at which anybody can perform, not just recognised artists – is added to the International Festival, Edinburgh’s is the largest performing arts event in the world. In 2022, for instance, over 3,300 shows were performed by artists and companies from 63 countries. It isn’t easy to find a place to sleep in Edinburgh in August, but if you do find accommodation, you don’t need a lot of money to enjoy the acts. Alongside the expensive formal events, there are free street performances, and thousands of very cheap plays, concerts, and comedy shows. Scotland also offers the Wigtown Book Festival in October, and a range of small-scale music festivals. Of these, CM recommends the Knockengorroch Festival (at the end of May), for its friendliness, non-commercial atmosphere, and location in the Galloway uplands.