The 6th Pennsylvania Regiment
Yet another blog that will take up gigs of space, be accessable to anyone on the face of the earth, and will be read by (maybe) three people... If I'm lucky.
The internet correspondence of the world's elders has always been a wonderful thing, filled with email subject headings like 'MESSAGE FROM YOUR DAD' and text messages kept to about 12 characters despite length limits no longer really being a thing.
It is grandparents' foray into Facebook that has been the most adorable however, with comments left in the wrong places, superfluous sign-offs and plenty of ALL CAPS.
The latest error arises from Facebook's auto-suggest tagging feature, which is causing anyone who starts writing 'grandma' to be presented with a link to pioneering hip hop DJ Grandmaster Flash.
This coming Thursday the Scots will vote on whether to make Scotland an independent nation. And I hope they do because it will be a disaster.
I don't say this as a prejudiced Irishman. Even though the thistle-arse sheep-shagger Scots swiped Ulster and sent a herd of Presbyterian proddy dogs and porridge wogs to squat on our land and won the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 by using unfair—indeed, unheard of —- organization, discipline, and tactics on an Irish battlefield. We Micks only hold a grudge about such things for 300 years or so.
I, however, have a personal reason for wanting an independent Scotland. I'm an ex-foreign correspondent, vintage 1983-2003, who retired after the Iraq War, too old to be scared stiff and too stiff to sleep on the ground.
Yet once foreign correspondenting gets in your blood…
Ah, there's nothing like a primitive, quarrel-torn, disastrous Third World country. And Scotland has everything it needs to be what old-school foreign correspondents fondly call a "shit-hole."
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It's pretty rich for the US to be telling other countries not to leave the United Kingdom.
Julian Hattem @jmhattem
Labels: 18th century, colonial, history, revolutionary war