By Ree Allity, Our Features Editor

It’s becoming a contentious issue across Scotlandshire – do you support separation for the region or do you back the survival of the Union?

Nearly everybody is beginning to have some sort of an opinion on the matter, in anticipation of the referendum scheduled for September 2014.

Doctors, lawyers, tea ladies, binmen, whoever makes skirting boards – the decision to vote yes or no will affect everybody, not just in Scotlandshire but across the rest of the United Kingdom.

BBC Scotlandshire was, for the first time, lagging behind a rival media organisation when The Telegraph asked a Scottish-born spaceman for his views.

Despite being born in the year 2222, lieutenant commander aboard the Star Trek Enterprise Montgomery Scott told the Telegraph he would have to “absolutely, boldly go” with a Yes vote if he had been alive at the time to do so.

“Why should Scotlandshire suffer under a government that England has voted for?” Scott explained. “For years Scotlandshire, which was predominantly a Labour voting region, has had to languish under Conservative governments which they didn’t vote for and didn’t ask for.

“From reading my history books, in at least one parallel universe this occurred well into the 2100’s.”

Such impressive technological improvements by the Telegraph in order to publish serious, hard-hitting news stories can only be congratulated and BBC Scotlandshire quickly followed their lead by sending me out to track down others who are hard to reach but who may have an opinion on separation.

My travels initially took me somewhere not too far from Glasgow, to a small town called Chiselton. Granny Smith is a local hero, having carved herself a bit of a reputation as a vigilante. Smith was known for single-handedly standing up to a local gang called The Muscles, led by awful bastirt the Scunner Campbell (no relation to Ming "The Merciless" Campbell, MP for North-East Fife).

“Och those times are well past me noo” Smith told me, chugging down a strange concoction in a glass which was handed to her by her carer. I asked her what she was drinking. “My favourite - we call it a Jandymeister. It’s brandy, and jagermeister. Still makes me think I have a buzz inside me after all these years.”

Smith recalls the incident that first got her press coverage. “I was sitting in the park watching me grandson play fitba, minding me own business, when I received a nasty shock. Some mad inventor was playing with his toys in the park like he would a kite, and the bastirt hit me with a ray gun.

“From them on, I had these weird super powers only I could use. A’body called me Super Gran after that. The Scunner Campbell had nae chance.”

We turned to society today and whether the same thing would happen again.

“I’m nae sure, nobody plays in parks anymore do they? They sit inside watching 3D movies or typing up ridiculous parodies of news stories.

“Ah tell ye whit though, the NHS here has helped me no end. I’ve nae idea what toxins I have inside me after the accident, but I feel fit as a fiddle. Of course, that could just be the Jandymeisters!

Smith lowers her tone a little when she talks about separation.

“There was a rumour around the home here about the NHS being scrapped if we went it alone. Perhaps people who need help might not be able to get it if stuck in a foreign country like England.

“But then someone else said that was complete bollocks, so I can’t say I’m 100% on either side yet.”

The media coverage of the referendum has been focused on the Yes and No sides, but I sense a lot of indecision on my travels.

I meet Fat Bastard in a London hotel room – that evening he will be flying out to Shanghai for a sumo wrestling tournament. He is standing in front of a mirror getting dried after a shower.

“Ayyyyye. I’m still dead sexy. This is a written piece? Then make sure you put that in. I’m still dead sexy, me.”

Even though he’s out the shower, Fat Bastard continues to smell awful. I doubt I’ll be able to rid myself of the stench anytime soon. The flab on show is disgusting but I persevere.

“Scotlandshire has been good to me, it really has.” Fat Bastard tells me.

“There’s all this pish out there about Scots being fat as f*ck, but I get thinner if I stay there any length of time. It’s the f*cking Americans that get ye fat. Ah balloon to the size of f*cking Japan when I have to socialise with those Yank bastards.

“The more ah think about it, the more I believe we should stay under London rule. Better the devil ye know, right? The Yanks left and all they did was get fat and blow things up. I’m fat enough as it is, and my unfortunate wind problem has destroyed many buildings in the past.

“Ah’m just nae sure it’s all worth it.”

The next morning I find myself in 1930’s Manhattan. Don’t ask me how. The café is full of charm and is helped immeasurably by the striking presence of fresh-faced Amy Pond.

“I’m all for it,” Amy says, enthusiastically. “Well, theoretically speaking. There are a lot of unanswered questions. I know what you’re thinking – I’ll be dead before the vote, but I’ll still be eligible to make my choice. It’s all about space and time and all that stuff.

“I think people are concerned about issues that affect them on a day-to-day basis. Things like cracks in the fabric of the universe. They can change your life in an instant much more than a councillor dilly-dallying over your bin collections and garden hedge disputes.

“If the government can prove to me that we’ll be fine cosmically, then I’m in.”

I smile and nod and feel we’re getting on well. I lean in for a kiss across the table, thinking ‘what the hell, folk love journalists’, but the only kiss I receive is one of the Glesga variety.

“Ugh. You smell like Fat Bastard. Get lost.”

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“What are you wasting your time for on this.”

The grumpy tones of Connor MacLeod surprised me. I believed the man they dubbed The Highlander was a determined soul. Famous actor Christopher Lambert once said of MacLeod: “He is a man, a force of nature, that will never give up. If he has to die for a cause, he would go for it because the purpose is not him, it's others. You can't win if you don't try, so you've gotta try. That’s what he always said to me."

MacLeod tells me to shut up.

“Have you seen the polls?”

I concede the polls are one-sided and have been for a while. I push MacLeod for more thoughts on the referendum, whether Britain would work as well if split, if the rest of the UK faces a risky future if Scotlandshire went it alone. He is reluctant and looks old, worn and defeated. Connor MacLeod may well be immortal, but his spirit has succumbed to the backwards complexity that is the UK political system. He has no will to fight it any longer.

MacLeod raises his head to me, leans forward and forces out the words.

“In the end…there can be only One Nation.”

I decide to find someone with more light-hearted banter and take the train from Glenfinnan across the border via Glasgow. The Scottish leg of the journey was awful as the carriages were full of Dundonians, so I kept to myself and had a kip as we rode through the True North region of the Lake District and Yorkshire.

The sound of Wombles wombling free caught me unawares.

Someone had thrown me out the train at London and placed me on a park bench. A couple of the group with vested interests – Tobermory Womble and Cousin Cairngorm McWomble the Terrible - took care of my thirst issues and were happy to speak to me about politics.

“I will be honest and say I’m quite upset,” said Tobermory. “I was named after the capital of the Isle of Mull and I have always felt a great connection to Scotlandshire, yet I don’t get to have a vote next year.

“Are the government saying I shouldn’t have a vote just because I think Wimbledon Common is a beautiful place to reside? I believe family and ancestry is important and that should be reflected when shaping the future.”

“F*ck that sh*te!,” remarks Cousin Cairngorm the Terrible. “Alex Salmond can suck my fat one. He ain’t getting my vote. Why do you think most of us live down here? Full of Tories. Folk like us. I’d rather have 100 years of Tory rule than the turn on the Poles and the Pakis that would follow independence failing to deliver.”

I didn’t stay long after that remark. I had a plane to catch.

William MacDougal has been drinking solidly all day by the time I meet him at Moe’s Tavern. Because of this I can barely figure out where in Scotlandshire he came from. His meandering, nonsensical stories are akin to Billy Connolly’s famous tangents as he tells me of his time in Glasgow, via Aberdeen and Kirkwall in Orkney.

“I barely remember ma last name, sonny,” he burps. “I have been called Groundskeeper Willie for so long I just figured I was too poor to have a last name.”

Nobody knows how MacDougal found the pennies to get from Orkney to the United States but he found his home here in Springfield, working as a janitor at the local elementary school.

Despite his years away Willie can still be categorised under ‘angry Scotsman’, but he says he can’t help it.

“You hiv nae idea how many eejits live here in Springfield,” Willie says, banging his fist on the bar. “Arseholes, the lot of them. But they sure keep things interesting – I wrestle wolves at work. Ah’m nae even making that up. Hic.”

Eventually he opens up about Scotlandshire going it alone, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

“The place was a sh*tehole when I left, it probably still is and will no doubt be in the future. The people look ill – not yellow enough, you know what ah mean?

MacDougall manages to throw one more thought out before he falls off the barstool.

“Ye know what? It has to be a no. No, no, no. Can you imagine the day after separation, when the Great English Empire stands back and does nothing while we’re invaded by those cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Ah’m nae having that.

“Och, ma heid.”

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The separation debate has over a year to go and we’re still missing a few things. The positive case for separation is one. Satire, that’s obviously another one. We could also put the interference of filthy rich men with a very loose connection to the region.

But with Scrooge McDuck – the richest person in the world by miles – this is inevitable.

Forbes magazine puts McDuck’s wealth at an estimated ‘five billion quintiplitilion unptuplatillion multuplatillion impossibidillion fantasticatrillion dollars’. But as a separate Scotlandshire currently has no currency set, the philanthropist and adventurer must be concerned his fortune will be worth nothing after 2014?

“Oh aye, it’s a big concern to me,” McDuck tells me as he leads me on a tour through his vast mansion. “I have almost as much questions for the pro-separation side as I have gold coins. That’s a lot of questions!

“However, I don’t believe in bombarding people with a quintillion questions that the referendum won’t decide – I’m smart enough to know the referendum does not change policy, it determines who has the power to change policy.

“And that’s what I’m interested in. The power. I don’t have nearly enough money, and I want to make sure my loved ones are protected.

“And when I talk about loved ones, I mean myself.”

Scrooge McDuck left Scotlandshire when he was only 13 years old, wrapping himself up in some Harris tweed and stowing away on a wooden boat until he found his paradise. He is the first to admit that everything has not been plain sailing.

“I’ve been tangled up with some nasty characters, I’ll be honest. One time I accidentally handed over a million dollars to a Serbian paramilitary leader. What a doofus I was!"

I press him for more misdeeds.

“Look, sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. Other people have been just as dumb as I’ve been, but check out the end result,” he says as we go into his enormous walk-in money vault.

“Sure, I’ve tried to build my own fortune by giving token donations to political parties while simultaneously avoiding tax on a massive scale, but it all worked out in the end.

“I swim in my own cash. Nobody else in the world can say that.”

McDuck places his cane and hat to one side, and dives into the vault. As I watch the richest man on Earth splash about in front of me I ponder what I’ve learned.

Does anyone really care about Scotlandshire? Do they care about who runs it? Not one of the people I tracked down could even name a politician. They could barely name people in their own families.

These are the types of Real Scots that U-KOK and Yes Scotlandshire want to attract. But it seems obvious now that real Scots have questions that will never be answered because they are simply not realistic enough.

It’s almost like these Scots are not living in the real world.

 

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