The Ned Wood Archive

We’re nobody’s children at all,
after all

I’m on a quest. In fact, I’m on more than just one quest. Many quests. For example, searching for second hand books with arty, classic covers. For example, searching for the perfect pop single. For example, searching for the young soul rebels.

I told Cat about these quests. I said that I’d have more chance of finding the objects of my quests than Pete. I said that I wasn’t searching for some holy grail or anything. And she said that I’d misunderstood what that quest was all about. She said that the quest wasn’t any sort of search for a physical object. It was a search for an ideal. She said that the holy grail wasn’t really the cup of Christ. She told me I should read Malory, although that went over my head at the time. I’d met a lass called Mallory in London, but that wasn’t what she meant. She pointed out that the grail kept moving from place to place rather than remain in a single location. She told me that only the purest knights of the round table could grasp it. And she told me that therefore it represented the ideal of purity. So, she said, I wouldn’t find it in any book shop or record shop. And Pete wouldn’t find his grail in any dried up lake. She said we’d find our ideal by looking inside ourselves.

But that wasn’t really true. Because this particular quest that I was on, the one I’m talking about now, was a search for an ideal. The search for the ideal Coffee Bar. Having spent at least 50% of my time as an undergraduate in the Union Coffee Bar at Southampton, I was keen to find the Scottish equivalent. Not easy. I hadn’t found one in London, but maybe Edinburgh was classier. In London, we didn’t have anywhere decent at Imperial, just Mooney. The Royal College of Music next door to the Albert Hall was the best place to eat, but nowhere at Imperial had the same vibe as Southampton. Not the same energy or the same tea or the same jukebox.

Kind of the same with politics. A little. Seemed we were always talking politics at Southampton. Seemed like there was a lot to discuss. And always arguing. And not just with the folk from the Monday Club. Grunwick, Gay News, Chile, Fees. We argued about everything. Up in Edinburgh, everyone agreed. Thatcher’s government – that’s bad. Recession – that’s bad. Rising unemployment – that’s bad. Russian invasion of Afghanistan – that’s bad. Result of the devolution referendum – that’s bad. US hostages in Iran – that’s bad. Everyone just said “Yeah, it’s crap” and moved on. Seems like we were more involved & more active during the Labour government. Now the Tories are in, we just hate everything.

My search around Edinburgh for a coffee bar isn’t having much luck either. There is a coffee bar in the department building up at King’s Buildings. Decent, relaxing chairs and reasonable tea, but one major problem: no-one ever goes anywhere near it, so no atmosphere, no vibe. The King’s Buildings refectory is fairly dull. Like the New Ref at Southampton. Too clean. The Union caff is reasonable: they thoughtfully provide newspapers for me to read if I get there just before 12, so that’s making it bearable; however, I have to admit that most of the folk up at King’s Buildings are scientists which makes it hard. And ALL of the folk I’ve met so far are first years: Pete, Gav, Pall, Fi, Cat, Nessie, Sarah. The lot. All of the first years congregate down at George Square, even the scientists, so I never see any of them up here.

The other post grads don’t usually bother coming over for a break. They prefer making their own drinks in the department. Jim sometimes comes over to the Union to go out running, so we sometimes strike up a conversation, but it isn’t the same. It’s mostly about work. As I’m mostly trying to do a nine till five shift, I rarely go down to Teviot or Potterrow, and when I do, I never see anyone. Worst of all, we did actually arrange to all go down to George Square from the department one lunch time, for a beer. However, Harry, one of the lecturers, bless him, wanted to go to the haunted topless bar on Chambers Street or Lothian Street or wherever it was. I can’t remember where – I’ve erased most of that lunch from my memory. It was grim. (A topless haunted bar is not a bar where the staff carry their heads under their arms, just in case you were wondering.)

Bottom line is, the best tea we got that year was at the Marchmont Palace or at the Banshee twins place in Bruntsfield, or at Nessie’s place on the Mile. Nessie had the view, namely the Mile. Fi had the entertainment – she’d got a TV and a tape machine with all her tapes in their kitchen. But (obviously), I spent most of my drinking time in our flat. Various folk would turn up and grab a cuppa in our kitchen which would be the excuse for all of us to pile in and have a little discussion. Or a big discussion.

Mostly we talked about music. This could be “my music’s better than your music”, especially if Pete was there; however, that’s a fairly dull discussion. Often not a discussion, just name calling. Sometimes the discussion would centre around the fab new sound that one of us had discovered (Fad Gadget, Fire Engines, Josef K, Delmontes, Visitors, etc) and we were all (most of us) trying to get one up on the rest, especially me and Pall. The more interesting arguments were driven by the tyranny of small differences. Were the Human League expanding the boundaries of modern music? (Me & Nessie: yes; Pall: no). Did punk music really ever have anything to say? (Me and Fi: yes; Pall: no). Was punk music still relevant? (Fi: yes, Me and Pall: no). Were PiL the future of British music? (Pall: yes, everyone else: no). What’s the Perfect Pop Single? (Me and Pall: Waterloo Sunset; everyone else: go away, Pop is rubbish). And so on ….

And then there were the reruns of Bannockburn, particularly if Gav or Pete were in the room. We did actually have some fairly interesting discussions, mainly when Fi and Cat were there and Pete wasdn’t. Fi was probably the most sensible of the lot. Well, Sarah was the most sensible, the wisest, and the most coherent, but she never came round. She was far too sensible and wise and coherent to get involved in any of our incomprehensible, dumb, nonsensical arguments. Cat was pretty sensible too, but she only ever said anything once everyone else had exhausted their viewpoints. And then she’d put us all right like a school teacher correcting a bunch of fourth years trying to guess what osmosis was or sommat like that. Pete and Gav would provide the spark, though. Gav tried too hard. I got the feeling that Gav was trying to impress Fi with his Scots Nat credentials. Pete, like I said, mostly tried to annoy.

After Pete moved out, the conversations got better. The stereotypes only came out by accident as it were. Like Pall would over apologise when Fi bumped into him as they manoeuvred around the kitchen and she’d say “You English say sorry all the time. Except when you’ve done something wrong like colonise half the planet and ship all the locals off as slaves.”

Or Nessie would come out with excessive politeness when Gav passed her the sugar or something across the kitchen table and he’d say “What’s this with the English and all of this fake politeness, like pretending to have good manners and then trashing everywhere you go abroad and refusing to learn the language or the customs and then just shouting to try and make yourself understood?”

Or when anyone not living at the flat would suggest to Gav that he was paying too much rent even though we all paid the extra into a kitty so we could save up for a washing machine or TV or some other luxury but Gav would say that it was only because the English (viz me and Pall) were thieving rentiers and raving Thatcherites and not equality loving socialists like the entire population of Scotland.

Are we really like that? Nessie is resilient and laughs off all the cuts and bruises she gets from all those crazy rock climbing stunts and whatever. Is that English stiff upper lip? And I can see that Pete and John Pike from the department come across as rude, but it ain’t xenophobia. They can be like that with everyone. And Sarah was always dead polite but she also spoke about 23 different languages

Anyway, the more sensible discussions were on why not what. As in why are we different? If, and we aren’t saying that those stereotypes are all true, but if there was an element of truth in them and there are differences between Scottishness and Englishness, then why would that be? What is it that makes us either Scottish or English? Where does that come from? Nature or nurture or what?

We decide that most life is a function of its environment – and most life is adapted to its environment. At least the scientists among us say that (the scientists being me and Gav and Pall; and Nessie, if you count geography as a science). So does the English or Scottish environment make us what we are? Unlikely, because there is no single English or Scottish environment. The places we come from are so diverse.

Is it in the genes? Not really. We are all a right mix of genes and we probably share most of them. Unless you’re talking about the ruling classes. Fi’ll point out that Robert the Bruce and Richard the Lionheart were both Normans, so we shouldn’t be holding either of them up as national heroes. And that also goes for that bloke Edward what nicked the Stone of Scone – he was Norman too!

I can see that, way back in the day, your genes may have been selected by your environment, both in terms of where you lived and what you did. For example, the hotter it was, the less likely you were to run around all day, so you were less likely to be hot tempered: surely a tendency to lose your rag when hunting or whatever would have disappeared through evolution. And if you were hunting, then bravery and fearlessness in your genes would have been favoured. If you were arguing over a patch of land or some livestock, then aggression would be a more favourable characteristic than pacifism or resignation. But then, when did we stop evolving? Was all that still relevant?

To which Gav says: “Have you ever been to the Highlands? You’d need to have pretty resilient & tough genes to live up there. Especially with nothing on under your kilt.”

We ended up deciding that, nowadays, we are defined by the stories we tell. Rumours and lies and stories we make up. Actually, we didn’t decide that, Cat told us and we sort of nodded in agreement. The English tell stories about having a stiff upper lip and all that jazz and that teaches the kids not to show any emotion ever. The Scots like to think of themselves as hospitable, welcoming, egalitarian, socialists, so they tell stories to each other from an early age of how they always leave their houses open on New Years and never vote Tory and that gets nurtured into the young.

And, yes Gav, Scottish folk also like to tell stories of how the English ripped off their stone and have been ripping them off ever since, not least with the oil and now with the referendum. To which Gav says “well 52% voted yes by the way, so where is our independence then huh?”

Some of the stories are more subtle and they brainwash you steadily and continuously. And they come from everywhere: your parents, your school, your TV, the books you read (if you can be bothered to read any). And I’m thinking that some of that stuff fits with me and some doesn’t, so I reckon that means I have to go and figure out my own stories, I guess.