Roy’s West End View: The day when military terror came to a small Scots town
What happens when small people get caught up in big events My generation was never taught at school about the tragic events of the Lowland Scottish weavers’ doomed insurrection of 1820, and even the “Peterloo” massacre in Manchester in 1817 – despite Mike Leigh’s excellent film on the subject – is only vaguely recalled today. […]
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Monday, September 5, 2022 | Filed under: Roy's West End View
Roy’s West End View: History is bunk …and it ends just outside London
This is going to sound like a rant from an embittered nationalist who, like those wee terrier dogs that can’t resist a nip at any likely passing ankle, take offence at practically anything and sometimes nothing at all. But truth will out. There I was, happily watching a BBC item about how a ship carrying […]
Read the full article: Roy’s West End View: History is bunk …and it ends just outside London
Tuesday, June 21, 2022 | Filed under: Pat's Home Page Blog, Roy's West End View, Writing
Roy Beers: Is there any sense in oor ain wee Scottish census?
Are you Trans? What’s your religion, and do you by any chance speak, understand or write Gaelic …or auld Scots? To those whose immediate gut response to these and many other questions might be “mind your own business” the Scottish Government, whose national census was originally due for completion on May 1, has the definitive […]
Read the full article: Roy Beers: Is there any sense in oor ain wee Scottish census?
Saturday, April 30, 2022 | Filed under: Roy's West End View
Roy’s West End View: It’s time to end Lord Elgin’s wretched Game of Marbles
Everyone has heard, if only vaguely, of the Elgin Marbles, and any mention of the subject typically resurrects ancient quips about “Greeks lost their marbles” or “what are the marbles doing in Elgin anyway” …etc. However after a Homeric historic wrangle that has bubbled away since the end of the Napoleonic Wars it could be […]
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Saturday, January 29, 2022 | Filed under: Pat's Home Page Blog, Roy's West End View
Roy’s West End View: Battered Boris savaged by top Scots true blues
(Image attribution: Think London, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons) There’s a memorable scene at the start of the epic movie Waterloo, starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon, where – with allied armies converging on Paris – the Emperor’s marshals gather to insist that he should resign. “I will NOT! I will NOT! I will […]
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Thursday, January 13, 2022 | Filed under: Pat's Home Page Blog, Roy's West End View
Is this ‘Black Bitch’ name ban really justified?
Hundreds of people are reportedly seething this week at a move to erase the name “Black Bitch” from a popular Scottish bar. A UK pubs firm has decided the name of a historic bar should be “cleaned up” to avoid inadvertently giving offence, and many locals are far from happy. As detailed in a welter […]
Read the full article: Is this ‘Black Bitch’ name ban really justified?
Sunday, December 12, 2021 | Filed under: Pat's Home Page Blog, Roy's West End View
