The Crann Tara Test Pictures

White Rabbit

This post is about Revolution.

It takes the virii of the other struggles and exposes you to them.

What you do with them is up to you.

"The Revolutions says:

I was
I am
I will be again"

Seed the First

Today I was at Stonehaven, to commemorate the victory of the Wallace over Dunottar Castle.

I made the rally and photographed it. Photos and story later. I didn't make social for personal reasons. Hopefully someone can recount the carousing for you. I'll probably have to ask them, but in case someone is reading this (e-mail me or PM me on the Siol nan Gaidheal forum).

http://www.waichung.demon.co.uk/william/rebel.htm

Seed the Second

"It wasn’t just about killing Americans, and killing pigs, at least not at first. It was about attacking the illegitimate state that these pawns served. It was about scraping the bucolic soil and exposing the fascist, Nazi-tainted bedrock that the modern West German state was propped upon. It was about war on the forces of reaction. It was about Revolution.

"The Baader-Meinhof Gang certainly didn’t expect to win their war by themselves. They assumed an epic proletarian backlash would be the Revolution’s true engine. They assumed their wave of terror would force the state to respond with brutal, reflexive anger. They assumed that West German civil liberties and civil rights would be quashed as the state turned the clock back 25 years to the Nazi era of open fascism. They assumed that the proletarian West Germans would react in horror as the true nature of their own government was revealed. They assumed that factory workers, bakers, and miners, would be inspired to smash their own oppressors. They assumed that they would be the vanguard of a movement where millions of Germans brought Revolution home."

Richard Huffman from: http://www.baader-meinhof.com/gun/chapter/index.htm


Seed the Third

"In 1972, Currie and McGuigan, inspired by the willingness of an elderly woman to starve herself to death for the independence of Scotland, re-established the Tartan Army, this time to "fight" on Scotland's side.

"When the name exploded on the Scots public it sounded comical. The Scots know little of their own history, political, cultural or industrial and most of them suffer from an endemic disease called The Scottish Cringe. However a journalist in a Scotch tabloid, the Daily Record, hit on the idea of dubbing the tartan bedecked followers of Scotland's national football team with the name which has now passed into the everyday vocabulary, not only of the Scots, but of soccer followers the world over; The Tartan Army."

Author Unknown - The Tartan Army:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/tartan_army2.htm

Seed the Fourth

Tartan terrorist found hanging in cell hours before facing court

FRANK URQUHART

THE notorious Tartan terrorist convicted 11 years ago of masterminding a Scottish National Liberation Army terror campaign, committed suicide in his prison cell yesterday, only hours before he was due to appear in court on charges relating to a security alert linked to the opening of the Scottish Parliament.

Andrew McIntosh was found hanging in his cell at Aberdeen’s Craiginches prison, shortly before was scheduled to appear at the city’s sheriff court on firearms charges.

He was one of three men arrested ten days ago - the day the Queen performed the opening ceremony at the Scottish Parliament - after a massive police operation involving officers from the Grampian and Lothian and Borders forces.

McIntosh, 49, was jailed for 12 years at the High Court in Aberdeen in December 1993, after being convicted of being the tartan terrorist commander behind a ruthless letter-bomb and bomb-hoax campaign in Scotland and England.

A xenophobic nationalist extremist who hated the English, he was part of an SNLA conspiracy aimed at coercing ministers at Westminster to establish a separate government in Scotland.

McIntosh, a former army reservist, was working as an oil- company courier when he was arrested ten years ago and charged with being part of a terrorist campaign to try to secure Scotland’s freedom from Westminster rule.

During a series of interviews with detectives in 1993, he boasted: "I am a volunteer soldier with the SNLA. I am a cell commander. The actions we have taken are directed at those people who are actively working against the interests of Scotland. Whatever I did, I did in the line of duty."

He was convicted of sending letter bombs to the Scottish Office in Edinburgh, the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness and the headquarters of Anglian Water in Huntingdon, and of targeting improvised mortar devices at the offices of four oil companies in Aberdeen.

McIntosh was further convicted of illegally possessing a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a sawn-off shotgun and a pistol as part of a lethal arsenal of weapons and ammunition - including CS riot gas cartridges - that was recovered at his home in George Street, Aberdeen.

The trial was told that the three-month campaign of terror he helped plan and execute brought chaos to Scotland’s four major cities and endangered the lives of men and women whose offices had been targeted by the extremist cell he led.

Lord Morison, the trial judge, told McIntosh: "I take into account that your activities have not resulted in deaths or severe injury to anyone, and, had that been the case, the sentence which I propose to impose would have been considerably longer.

"But these activities have caused very serious disruption in Scotland and very serious alarm. The crimes of which you have been convicted are extremely grave ones."

McIntosh was released in 1999 after serving six years of his sentence.

He was living in a high-rise flat in Aulton Court, in the Seaton area of Aberdeen, when he was arrested on firearms charges on 9 October, shortly before the Queen officially opened the Holyrood building. He was remanded in custody last Monday and was due to make a second court appearance yesterday. But he was found dead early yesterday morning when prison officers checked his cell.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said: "A prisoner on remand was found dead in his cell this morning at HM Prison Aberdeen, Craiginches. Andrew McIntosh, 49, from Aberdeen, was remanded on 11 October at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. Police and next of kin have been informed."

The spokesman, who refused to say whether or not McIntosh had been on suicide watch, added: "A fatal accident inquiry will be held in due course."

A Grampian Police spokeswoman said: "We attended at Craiginches prison after the report of the sudden death of Andrew McIntosh. Next of kin have been informed and a post- mortem will be carried out.

"Police investigations are continuing but it appears there are no suspicious circumstances. A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal."

McIntosh was recently named as organiser of a group called "The Scottish Patriots" which has applied to stage a march through the centre of Aberdeen on 28 November - on the same day and along the same route as a proposed march by the far-right National Front.

One of the men arrested with him ten days ago made a second appearance in private at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday afternoon. Alan McIntosh, 50, appeared in connection with alleged contraventions of the Firearms Act, 1968, and the Explosive Substances Act, 1883. He was fully committed for trial and released on bail.

The Crown Office said the other man, Graeme Robert Otterson, 32, from Aberdeen, who is known as MacOtter, had been released from custody.

This article: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1213632004

Seed the Fifth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_McGuinness


Seed the Sixth

http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.com/muir.htm

Seed the Seventh

Make of this what you will.

God and Man

This is partly to pay homage to a work in progress.

I lurk on a forum called first foot (which I lurk on because typing in Scottish jist rips ma knittin) but it contains possibly the most pointless thread on a Scottish Forum. To get a long long thread, usually you have to call it "my favourite music" of "images of Sarah Michelle Geller." The acronym of this practice, I think, is NAMBLA.

Anyway, tis here:

Never, has a thread (or NAMBLA) had so many pages with so little point.

I love stuff like this. It's pointless, but it's charming and they do it anyway.

So, what else has happened? I made a burny thing for a test photo. Test completed and Firefox learnt a few important lessons. Like wood doesn't like to burn. Not even when accompanied with some lighter fuel. I used half a tin and the bloody thing merely sat there looking charred.

Ah wis fair affrontit.

Fortunately I was in the middle of nowhere so my tantrum went unnoticed.

And this is the second point of my post: Why do all the interesting bits of Scottishrana seem to involve ritual sacrifice?

I mean honestly... As a people we could've chosen to specialise a wee bit. The English, for example, their main feature - the thing you think most about them - is that what they do (and do well) is conquer places. We chose to invent a lot (and I mean A LOT) of stuff, be conquered, invent some more, dabble in art, politics, music, culture blah blah blah and SACRIFICE A FEW GOATS ALONG THE WAY.

Take my burny thing. Historians who know about this kind of thing mention in various versions of my burny thing (post here) that the burnyness gets put out with the use of specially sacrificed goat. That's our Whiskey heritage, right there in action. Several drunk clansmen, burning stuff, decide "Fuck it, where's the goat?"

Anyway, to another interesting snippet of Scottishrana: the Taghairm Ceremony. Basically involving stuff like carpets, waterfulls, and oh... surprise suh-fucking-prise more ritual sacrifice (this time for divination purposes).

I wouldn't be pissed off, but I still intend to make a real, accurate Crann Tara and I'm really not sure why. And (and out of all of the sentences that there are on this blog, I really, truly, honestly, never expected to end a blog post with the following sentence... If I had a poll of things I wasn't likely to end a post with, this'd be number one).

Where the hell am I going to get some goat's blood from?

Aberdeen and Stonehaven

Click on the picture to enlarge it. You will NEVER forgive yourself if you believe in Independence and do not attend at least ONE of these events (preferably both).

Aberdeen, the granite city isn't worth missing, and Stonehaven is unforgettable.

Just go.

Honestly.

GO.

November Rain

In Anthony Burgesses seminal novel, A Clockwork Orange, he asked whether it was better for a man to choose to be bad, or forced to be good. For me, this is the dilemma facing the Scottish Socialist Party.

Tommy Sheridan is the most charismatic and enigmatic socialist of the modern era. Tommy remains the most successful. He is also, most probably, guilty of the charges laid against him. That being the case, however, the "United Left" are likely to be on a fools errand to stand against him, despite being right.

Welcome to the SSP's Culloden. In the October Conference, the ones put to the sword will be right. The will have upheld the truth in the most pointless manner possible outside of the First World War.

As a member of the working class, I want to believe Tommy, I honestly do, but I can't. To have so many people lie against you who have never been suspected of treason before is irreconcialable with the truth.

Now, I'm in the SRSM, previously accused of being involved with the SNLA and Irish terrorists. In my time of being involved, I don't think I've heard the term "grass" used so much.
.
My lack of posts on this has been because of the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. I didn't want to believe Tommy was guilty, but when I heard the verdict, I failed grasp he was. Next, a whole shitload of ambivalence. I wanted Tommy to be innocent when he wasn't. This is the working class dilemma.

Their answer, oh so simple, was genius: "Don't grass on you own." It never mattered if Tommy was guilty or innocent. You JUST DON'T GRASS. But truth and justice will out, and why should WE be exempt?

Can you look eleven SSP members in the eye and call them liars? I can't. Can I look Tommy in the eye and tell HIM he's a liar?

I don't know. All I know is that the working class has lost now. There isn't a party to speak of. If we all knew he was guilty but united behind one cause and one leader I could easily cope with it. It was in the cause of a free Scotland and a Socialist Scotland. Now the only option is to unite behind traitors or liars.

Colin Fox, Tommy Sheridan's Sock-puppet cannot continue. The election is left to those who would be the architects of the future. Whatever that means.

What is left is philanderers, drug addicts, idiots, culture, alienation, boredom and despair. There's nothing left except the soft pitter-patter of the cold november rain following the suicide and funeral of the October Conference.

Carpentry

(N.B. it has been pointed out that some people I actually know read this blog. It came as much of a surprise to me... It is my duty - therefore - to point out to those people who know what a "Crann Tara" is, that the one I constructed only bears a passing resemblance to a real one. I am, after all, better with cameras that I am with hammers and saws.) KS

For a while I've had an idea for a photo in my head, one that required a bit of work beforehand. This, I realised. Somehow... I never actually bothered with all that preparation business... Until today.

The photo I had was of Crann Tara (in focus and in black and white) with some kind of representation of old Scotland behind it (slightly out of focus) - preferrably from the period a Crann Tara is from. I didn't fancy a monument, I want something "real" something completely unposed.

My first attempt to make one involved taking my camera to a brackeny area of kilsyth, finding some grass and some sticks and attempting to light them with some lighter fluid. You can guess the sheer scale of disaster that my mini-inferno caused.

Don't take my prediliction for fire-raising as being anything other than a symbolic realisation of an inherent Scottish primal spirit. It's a manifestation of the sun and the earth. I'm sure the poor farmer in Kilsyth saw it that way. Still, it's not like he was using the land anyway...

So, cut to Crann Tara version two. Cue Mr. Kenny outside his local B & Q with some rope (for another project) and a three meter wooden thingy out of which I would contruct at the very least a couple of Crann Tara.

"Kenny," quoth one of my acquaintences as she noticed me outside the Cumbernauld B&Q "are you planning on building a gallows with that?"

"Nah," I laughed "The ropes for... stuff and the Wood is for a Crann Tara."

This is when it struck me that normal people won't entirely get the whole "Crann Tara" concept, or my photographic ambitions for this piece of Scottishrana.

"What's a Crann Tara?"

"It's like a torch?"

"Is that just a Gaelic word for torch then?"

"Not quite."

"So what is it?"

My apologies, this is when I realised that telling the delectable passer by that I was, in fact, intending to build a wooden replica of a Scottish Fiery Cross and burn it somewhere symbolic. All in the name of photography.

I therefore explained this to her as eloquently as I could bring myself to do so. Unfortunely this was on a Saturday when I was still slightly hungover. Her reply was:

"You mean like KKK?"

"I'm not a Nazi."

"I just figured you'd gone past the left wing and straight on right round..."

"It's not a bad thing."

"Okaaay..."

"No... no... really. It's a burning emblem Scottish clansmen used to take from village to village to stir the clans. It's a tradition. I thought it would make a good photo. They've done in uprisings."

"Are you planning an uprising... Again?"

"It's purely photographical."

"Mmm-hm..."

Well, really... barbarians. Anyway, I continued home, did some stuff any between then and now and it's basically made. Just have to find a location. It looks... kind of like a cross. I did use nails, cos frankly I couldn't work out how you did one of those slot things. I'm pretty sure I've used the wrong type of wood and my accelerent is going to be some rags and some lighter fluid.

This... therefore... may well be my last post without all my skin burnt to a crisp, but I'm damn sure I'm getting a photo.

(this is why I avoid barbeques).

Anyway, for history and junk to read up, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiery_cross

Stuff

Coupla distractions from: http://monster.namedecoder.com

Full Text of Tommy Sheridan's Victory Speech

KS note: Obviously text doesn't do Tommy any justice, so just try and imagine a smidge of passion in it.

"On behalf of my wife and I, can I first of all thank my two sisters
and John Aberdeen, from Orkney, for being the best amateur legal team
in the world.

"We have over the last five weeks taken on one of the biggest
organisations on the planet, with the biggest amount of resources to
pay for the most expensive legal team, to throw nothing but muck
against me, my wife and my family.

"Well, brothers and sisters, what today's verdict proves is that
working-class people, when they listen to the arguments, can
differentiate the truth from the muck.

"The working-class people on the jury who have found in our favour
have done a service to the people of Scotland and have delivered a
message to the standard of journalism that the News of the World
represents.

"They are liars and we have proved that they are liars.

"I could never have conducted this case without the loyalty and
support of my wife, my mother, my father, my sisters, my family and
thousands upon thousands of working-class people in Scotland who want
me to get out of this court and start fighting for the things that
matter most.

"Against poverty and inequality in Scotland, and against war and
against nuclear weapons.

"Those are the things that matter most, brothers and sisters, and I
assure you we will retire for a few days to spend some quality time
with our 14-month-old daughter, whom we have had to be apart from for
most of the last five weeks, and that's been the largest and most
difficult thing to countenance.

"We'll spend some time, quality time, with our daughter Gabrielle over
the next few days but then I guarantee you, the people of Scotland who
believe in their hearts in justice, who believe in their hearts in
fighting poverty and inequality and who believe in their hearts in the
need to fight against war, I'll be back on the streets calling for the
Israeli troops to stop killing innocent people in Lebanon, calling for
the scrapping of nuclear weapons and to call for an independent
socialist Scotland

"I want to finish, brothers and sisters, by saying one thing. Gretna
have made it into Europe for the first time in their lives, but what
we have done in the last five weeks is the equivalent of Gretna taking
on Real Madrid in the Bernabeu and beating them on penalties, that's
what we've done."

EXCLUSIVE! - Interview with the Daily Record Editor

It's with some pleasure that the Firefox Chronicles unveils an exclusive of it's own, an interview the Daily Record General Editor Lord Bunty McUnionist.

We found ourselves at a delapidated wee table in Molly Malone's pub off Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. He didn't seem a stranger to his strange cocktail of Midori, Vodka and Orange.

Hello Bunty, how are you?

Who the hell are you?

I'm Kenny, you agreed to an interview... remember?

Ah, the Republican. Well, what? Siddown.

Er,,, thanks... Okay, to business then...

OI! [Bunty, leaning over his left shoulder has become slightly distracted and is bawling something at the barmaid. Soon he loses interest, and since the barmaid didn't work out what he was trying to bawl, it didn't really matter anyway] Yesh?

You're drunk!

You're one to talk, there you are shaking all over the place!

I think you'll find you just fell off your chair... Anyway. I wanted to get an interview with you to put to you some points about why your paper is so anti Nationalist, since a great majority of your readership must vote SNP...

Pah! [he waves, interrupting] Easy answer boy, they drove a fishing boat full of cash up the Clyde, parked it outside out local and what can I say, I'm not made of stone, I've got at least three families to support.

But sure that's...

Unethical [he leans over, conspiratorially] Let me tell you what unethical is, getting dumped out of a newspaper for some big mouthed arsewipe with a crap degree who slept with the Owner.

You mean like Paul Hutcheon from the Sunday Herald?

Zigzactly! It's about Tits and arses Sheerin, nuthing else. The truth doesn't sell newspapers. The public enjoy being spoon fed. Whether or not Sheridan spit-roasted that Latrina ... Holeface... whatever - [at this point he's pointing enthusiastically] an be honest you would have too had he fucking invited you - the spitroast stories sold more newspapers than Gail Sheridan's weeping denials and counterclaims. Why? Because they enjoy being slaves. They pretend they don't.

Surely that underestimates the more literate members of society?

What are you, Plato? Fuck off. Literate people are bright enough to read the Herald on the Internet and pay 10p to get some tits and arses!

This seems as good a time as any to bring up the SSP.

It's great isn't it?

Do your sources support whether or not it's true?

Who gives a fuck! Two years of that trot shite, campaigning for this, trying to free that, civil liberties... blah blah blah and FINALLY [at which Bunty stands up and proclaims to the entire public house] they finally sell one of my bloody newspapers! I knew it would happen one day!

But don't you consider that maybe you are having a deretrimental effect on a political party which has, in the past, been principled and stood up for...

The same people who want to see Sarah O's cleavage?

In fairness that's not just the underclass, but I'll grant you a point, continue:

You see, all political parties do for newspapers is sell them. And preferably with sex.

Woodward and Bernstein in the 1970s made a name for themselves by their commitment to Investigative Journalism, and exposed grand-scale corruption in Government ranks. We all know this goes on in Labour heartlands, but none of the newspapers expose it because they're in the payroll! Is that not an abuse of journalistic ethics?

No. There AREN'T any journalistic ethics. There never have been. Not even for Woodward and Bernstein. Their "expose" is written like a cheap thriller and Woodward sold out a long, long time ago. We adopt the eleventh commandment: THOU SHALT NOT GET CAUGHT!