Scotophile

Many people declare themselves to be francophiles and occassionally I've heard people claim to be anglophiles, but today I've realised that I am a Scotophile. (Or is a Jockophile? Probably not)

Putting aside the cuisine (the very idea of haggis scares me), so many of my favourite things are Scottish. So I thought I'd make a list:

• Primal Scream (no huge surprise there as I have mentioned them umpteen times already and they have their own category on the blog!)
• Jesus and Mary Chain - I saw them again this week and they were still brilliant
• Malcolm Middleton and Arab Strap
• Belle & Sebastian
• Teenage Fanclub
• Deacon Blue (uncool but I love them and could happily singalong to the first two albums)
• Simple Minds (again not at all fashionable but who can deny the power of "Don't You Forget About Me)
• The song "The Second Summer of Love" by Danny Wilson
• Even The Proclaimers are better than most English pop
• The Loch Ness monster
• Glasgow
• Edinburgh
• Invereray
• Edwin Morgan - I've just discovered him (I'm somewhat out of the loop with poetry these days). He's way better than our poet laureate and his poem "When You Go" can reduce me to tears
• Ian Rankin, the man as well as his books
• "The Wasp Factory", "Complicity" and "Espedair Street" by Ian Banks
• Trainspotting, the book and the film
• The film "The Flying Scotsman" about cyclist Graeme Obree
• Jonny Lee Miller when he's pretending to be Scottish (as in the above films)
• Sean Connery
• Taggart
• Robbie Coltrane in Cracker
• This album "Ballads of the Book" which combines music with writers and poetry and looks fantastic and is on my 'to buy list'
  

I even like their politicians. While my Amercian colleague lusts over Alistair Darling (I kid you not), I have a bit of a thing for Alex Salmond and the SNP could have my vote.

Hate Mail

I'm furious.

On Wednesday, I received a card through the door from Royal Mail about collecting post that the postage had been underpaid. I assume it is a book from ReadItSwapIt and am slightly peeved. So today, I go down to the depot, queue for 20 minutes along with it seems half of west London.

It tunrs out it is not the book at all but junk mail for a local estate agents. So I have to pay 23p plus a £1 handling fee to receive something that is going straight in the bin. Plus I've wasted an hour of my day and had to walk through quite a rough estate for this honour.

I'm very tempted to send Sinton Andrews (of 84 Northfield Avenue, Ealing, London W13 9RR) some unstamped post in return. Perhaps something heavy.

I realise this is petty, but is it illegal?