Maybe I'm a bit touchy about this, but as a Scot - albeit one with an english father, an irish mother and a bit of welsh in there somewhere too - I do feel rather offended by your "the scots" this and "the scots" that. Isn't what you've just written about the scots as racist as the shite some scots spout about the English? The picture you've painted doesn't resemble the majority of Scots I've been friends with, communicated with or worked with.

> Just to be clear: yes, there are lots and lots of great non-racist Scots, some of whom are the best friends I've ever had and am ever likely to have.

In my experience, they're the majority. Our nutjobs are, unfortunately, rather vocal and rather visible.

> Tell us, David, what more could the Scots do to encourage anti-Scottish feeling amongst the English?

I dunno whether it's by design or accident, but you make it sound as if David's - that's half-english, half-irish, married to an englishwoman and living in England David - guilty of all the things you mention in your piece. Which he patently isn't.

It's the repeated use of the definite article that's annoying me, I think. Had you written "some scots" rather than "the scots" i'd have agreed with a lot of it.

Sorry Jo, for quickly typing a comment on Gary's site without proof-reading it 100 times. I'm at work and don't have the time.

Your 800 word dissection of my comment was appreciated. Thank you.

I'm not particularly good at english Jo, and I've been sitting for the last 10 minutes trying to explain exactly what I meant in my single sentence comment. I don't think I can without giving you something else to pick apart.

These were 2 incidents of relatively minor violence. Both involved England strips. I do not understand why two people who are probably violent bastards of the type you've run into all your life and you would kick the utter shite out of you for no reason at all should justify the government condemnation and so on. Every time I've seen any act of violence reported as been motivated by race then it has made things worse. My concern was that instead of the anti-english stuff in scotland being dealt with, condemned or whatever - the population of England who are largely ignorant of the feelings of rabid scots would decide to reciprocate. I've been in England several times over several world cups and euro championships and every year there is more anti-scottish feeling. This cannot be a good thing.

I'm glad that you feel reciprocal hatred and violence is justified.

Please Jo, when you decide to repost comments here that I make elsewhere so can ridicule them, kindly go and fuck yourself.

My intention certainly wasn't to ridicule your comment, David, neither was it to dissect it particularly; it was more just a reaction to it. It's interesting that you say that you're bad at English (can't say I've ever noticed), because, frankly, if I've caused this much offense, I've made a hash of expressing what I meant. I'll take this down for now and reword it more carefully later.

> Had you written "some scots" rather than "the scots" i'd have agreed with a lot of it.

Since we've discussed this before, I think it's safe to say that, broadly, the bits you disagreed with are the bits I didn't mean.

Jo, sorry, but I entirely agreed with your article.

DK

I must say, when I first moved to England, that I was quite taken aback at the negativity displayed towards England by the couple of Scots that I met. Not violent, of course, but it seemed excessive.

I also don't really get this "enemy of my enemy" stuff. Like Spurs fans cheering when Barcelona beat Arsenal. If Spurs made it to the final, I'd rather a London team won the trophy than a team from another country. But maybe I'm naive.

you make it sound as if David's - that's half-english, half-irish, married to an englishwoman and living in England David

Quite: he is living in England. I think that's pretty significant myself...

DK

As the wind howls through the bonny heather...

I take it that it was more economical to graze sheep in this bit of your wee blog than to allow the crofters to remain.

Jo

I'm sorry. I really am. I was having a shitty day and that came at a bad time but that isn't an excuse for me to be a dick.

Hugs n stuff

No worries. You were probably right.