Monday, June 30, 2014

Making History (The Bannockburn Live! Song)

I always wanted to be Robert the Bruce
Bonnie Scotland I would save
I lined the garden shed with loft insulation
And built myself a cave
Then I got myself a spider
From a pet shop in Mothereell
Tied it to a string, watched it swing
Till it began to smell




Mum knitted me some chain mail
From some very lovely Shetland wool
I sprayed it Volvo grey and then one Friday
I wore it to the school
I got a kicking in the playground
They tore my chainmail to bits
I swore vengeance on they English
Even though I lived in Coatbridge

 Oh Bannockburn
Or maybe it was Flodden
Or it could have been Culloden
It's all the same to me
Stirling bridge or Prestonpans
I'm just a simple fighting man
Plastic broadsword in my hands
I'm making history

In our re-enactment society
We re-enact an awful lot
We did the Battle of Jutland
On Queen's Park Pond with some model yachts
for Bannockburn I said I'd be Robert
But it was all stitched up before
I played the front end of Edward the Second's horse
Which wisnae what I signed up for

All rights reserved. By Scar Quilse, 2014




Wednesday, June 25, 2014

From The Referendum Songbook: Sturgeon Wall (The Buckfast Song)

Sturgeon Wall (The Buckfast song)

Barbed wire on the border
Got to cross The Sturgeon Wall
Barbed wire on the border
Got to cross the Sturgeon Wall
You should see the tailbacks on the A7 at Mosspaul



Checking the lorries
I'm no' pleased
Got sixty crates of Buckfast heading for Dundee

The monks don't like it,
The monks don't like it
The monks don't like it, naebody likes it
Take my freedom if you like that's fine
You’ll never  take my tonic wine

Immigration man
He's wearing tartan trews
And a wee Mac10 submachine gun he's dying to use


Looking for a payoff
In those daft Caledonian groats
In my passport, sonny
there's 200 million note
That'll buy a few votes

Now I'm heading for Tayside
With my electric soup
Everybody in Broughty Ferry is pure dead cockahoop

Lanliq!
Sanatogen!
Eldorado!
ScotsMac

Copyright Scar Quilse 2014. All rights reserved



Thursday, June 19, 2014

Robert Dunn's 1834 An Ornithologist's Guide to Orkney and Shetland - excerpts

From An Ornithologist's Guide to Orkney and Shetland, by Robert Dunn, 'Animal Preserver' of Hull, published in 1834.

 In the book he complains that after his visits, local landlords blamed him for threatening entire populations of especially bonxies (Great Skuas), which were apparently much prized for defending sheep against sea eagles. He blamed parties of hooligan southern sportsmen and the officers from warships. It's a fantastic and sometimes very funny read. I'm hoping to publish a limited edition for Christmas.


"At certain times the voe (Ronas) abounds with seals; during my first visit I shot 26. Likewise Crested Shags, Red Breasted Mergansers, Large Black Backed Gulls, Black Guillemots, Lesser Black Backed Gulls, Herring Gulls &C. I never saw more than three Edier Ducks, two of which I shot."

"As soon as our cavalcade arrived (at Stenness) all work instantly ceased that they might have an opportunity of scrutinising the strangers, or asking questions with an impertinent curiousity peculiar to the Shetland peasantry."

"To the admirer of the wild and grand scenes of nature, Northmaven will afford high gratification and sufficient employment for both pen and pencil."


Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Check out The Referendum Songbook

...featuring a protégé of Blind Boy Flugga's and myself, the strangely-bearded individual known as Scar Quilse. A song a week until 19 September...

http://www.referendumsongbook.blogspot.co.uk