SINKING OF THE TARTANIC

This pair look like they're having a great time, no? Call me a party pooper but can anybody tell me what's the point of Tartan Week?

Roll out Shir Shean Connery, a shite for shore eyes and shurely the nation's most patriotic tax dodger, who's in the Big Apple, according to the Hootsmon, to front his charity 'Friends of Scotland' though why he needs a handout from the Scottish Executive is beyond me. Adding to the nation's embarrassment there's the 'Dressed to Kilt' fashion show. If you wonder why Scotland's population is plummeting, here's the reason. In New York, at our expense, you've got freeloading First Minister, Jack McConnell who, when he's not scrapping with Shir Shean, is tripping on the catwalk with hasbeens such as Darius 'dinner dance' Danesh, Kathleen McDermott (whose last film was...?) Atta Yakub (ditto) Alex Salmond (yawn) and just to prove there's no show without Punch (or should that be punch-up?) bare-arsed Brian 'four houses' Cox. Did they fork out for their own flights? Will sales of kilts rocket? Do we care?

What I object to is the bogus version of my country being peddled as reality. And as much as the media complains about Scotland's 'traditional' image being outmoded - the tartan and shortbreid and all the other hangovers from when Scotland was invented by the English in the eighteenth century - they and our politicians and entertainers still cling desperately to the lie. Tartanalia is their default mode, having neither the guts or the imagination to try something else. It's the equivalent of the Uncle Tom syndrome, only without the blackface, as our pathetic figureheads parade in their tartan skirts, just so Donald Trump won't pull out of the golf resort deal.

Browsing the Friends of Scotland website, I'm intrigued to see it's got a .gov suffix. Strange, when we're told it's a charity, but that's quality journalism for you. Even stranger is the fantasy FOS sells - of a nation overflowing with creative spirit - I quote - Today in Scotland this spirit is very much alive and kicking in the fields of architecture and design, literature, art and sculpture, music, film and the brave, new, largely unexplored world of digital possibilities. This is pure tosh, where only the creative spirit on show comes out of the copywriter's keyboard. Tell it to the poor filmmakers who have to part with 100% of their rights to get a few measly grand out of Scottish Screen. Assuming they get their phone calls returned.

Why pretend that Scotland's a happening place? Judging by the number of ex-pat and clan societies, New Yorkers can take care of their own romantic notions of Scotland, thank you, just like their Oirish counterparts do on St Patrick's Day. Hell mend the American tourist who arrives at a shitty airport only to pay over the odds to see some clapped-out historic attraction. Where tea rooms serve two quid scones and slam the door shut at three on the dot and where the overpriced hotel beds are miniscule. Bring your own soap and lightbulb.

To get back on topic, Tartan Week only gets worse when it comes to celebrating Scottish film. The most up-to-date offerings are Festival, directed by American Annie Griffin, financed mostly outside these shores and On a Clear Day, a by-the-numbers take on the working class directed by another non-Scot, Gaby Dellal, ex-wife of a Working Title mogul, who must've really struggled to get public funding and I don't think. Semi-recent works include Young Adam, four million quid well-spent, no? The best of the bunch, a couple of old dears by the names of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Maggie may be Scottish in content, but Scottish they ain't. Duh, why do you think Sandy McKendrick quit the place? But when did that ever stop Scottish Screen from hijacking other people's movies? After all, didn't a recent Roughcuts applaud Manderlay as a Scottish movie, just because a Glasgow producer filled in the Lottery forms for Zentropa?

Let's face it, the most exciting things to come out of this country in recent years are Grand Theft Auto and Rustboy (check it out) creations that owe nothing to hokum, couthy Scottishness. Like Japanese whisky or Braveheart, what the Scots excel at is cherry-picking ideas and icons from other places and reinventing them. To claim Oor Wullie and Tunnock's Tea Cakes as cultural icons is soooo last century, the kind of lazy-minded tripe you expect from BBC Scotland arts programme-makers. Oh man, I'm beelin', so ah um. But as ma mammy tells me, you could moan for Scotland, so ye could. I think she means mourn.