Hannah Montana Rocks ....

Sometimes, as a parent you are asked to perform great sacrifices for your children.  Sometimes, parent / child bonding means sitting beside each other ... saying nothing.  Keres ... (its Fijian, don’t ask) ... is the scariest five year old girl on earth.  I really try to say no to her, but can’t.  Her interests include style, fashion, singing, fairies, princesses, getting her photo taken and telling her father what to do.  

To incorporate most of the aforementioned - she told me to watch her heroine in ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’ last night ... but to be quiet for its entire duration. I duly obliged.

Now this isn’t quite the sacrifice you might imagine.  The TV series has to be one of the best written children’s programmes I’ve seen (I’m being serious for a change!) and the absolute comic genius of Jackson (Miley/Hannah’s brother) is a wonder..... Have I just admitted I like Hannah Montana? .... let’s move on quickly.

I need to explain that the gist of the entire plot for every episode (and hence the film) is that Miley is a plain, normal girl but can put on a blond wig and become Hannah Montana - the most phenomenal teen music sensation in the world ... no one notices the facial similarities ... just the hair colour.  

The movie involves Miley/Hannah returning to her home town in Tennessee. She has become more Hannah than Miley and is a bit pretentious.  She meets a boy with lots of hair.  The boy is salt of the earth.  He has been given a chance to start farming by Miley’s grandma.  If he does up the chicken coup, he can sell the eggs (yes ... the farming ladder has reached mainstream ... I knew it would).  Miley doesn’t understand.  He says you have to start somewhere and that its all about “the climb”.  He stole this from me .... as in - its all in the struggle - but as he has more hair than me and the film was made before I thought of this - I’ll let him off ..... She is working on a song.  He says its OK, but his main criticism is that its not about anything.

In the end, she has let 'barnet boy' down by lying to him.  She does up the chicken coup to say sorry.  She plays a concert in her home town as Hannah but when she sees the boy with the hair style [who by now has grown a huge hat] ... she can’t continue.  She takes off the wig and sings the song she was working on, as her true “Miley self” ... this time its about something ... its about first generation farming ... its about life ... its about the process, not the result ...  its about “The Climb”. The coiffured egg seller boy smiles ... so does Miley ... [sigh].  

Please listen intently to the lyrics ... raise your arms ... sway them from side to side .... and enjoy (without smiling):

The End.  

Keres tells me to stop crying ... I try to do what I am told.  

Who would have thought Miley Cyrus would be the siren for the farming ladder and first generation farmers.  I think we've just found a new theme tune .... watch out, my next karaoke victims .... especially as its in completely the wrong key for a bass baritone!!!

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em ....

I see this job in the paper.  £25k p.a. ... 21 hours per week ... really positive and proactive role which could seriously move Scotland’s rural economy forward .... even with me involved.  SRDP applications (my consultancy bread and butter) look as if they will be the equivalent of urinating into a strong south westerly next year; I might have a lot less sheep aswell and then there is always the threat of caravan living again.  All in all, £25k for half a week looks a sensible strategic move.

I apply at the last minute, juggling a SRDP deadline on the same day. 

I get an interview.  We have to do a presentation on one of the many subjects I know nothing about (its a long list). I do some research and even talk to someone about it.

The interview goes well.  They are very nice.  I do however talk about the Rural Leadership course I did in 2009 and describe the moment when we had an American Rural Policy guru giving his opinion on our individual presentations ....  I blurt out that he “touched” me (I might explain this one day).  Fortunately, they obviously don’t assume it was in the physical sense .... phew.

They phone me again.  Lambing and Nuffield commitments are a concern but they seem keen.

Get a call today, offering me the job ...  Back of the Net!! .... We review the terms and conditions ... get to the pay.  “So if its £25,000 pro rata” .... [pause, my end] .... PRO RATA! .... that’s half what I was thinking ... I consider just accepting the job to avoid embarrassment but manage to substitute this by saying “sorry” 34 times in 2 minutes.

Note to self: read the damn advert properly before applying for a job.

It wasn’t THE most embarrassing moment I’ve had to endure in my life ... but its a brand new entry in my top forty.

FREEEEEDOOOMMM!

It was Saturday night. The conference had ended. A massive 14.285714% (every little helps) of 2010 scholars had stayed for the final night.  Though this number didn’t include “groupies”.  As the lonely Scot I felt some pressure to make suggestions .... what did I come up with?  Scottish folk music!  Albeit semi-acoustic. Being “cool” is so over-rated, you know.

The Scotsman Lounge is my favourite pub in Edinburgh. More a Spit Only pub as they think Sawdust is for girls.  We could have gone to the trendy bars or the student pubs with Irish names ... but the Scotsman is part of Scotland many visitors don’t see .... or at least see and live to tell the tale.

Bearing in mind the guests were Sassenachs, I’m sure they felt comfortable and welcome with the dominant display above the bar:

Its from the Declaration of Arbroath, that declared Scottish Independence from England in 1320 .... we take a while to let go, north of the border! The two piece band played their own songs about love lost and the solace of alcohol.  When I first started going it was all about the protest song ... about oppression, injustice, the struggle, the fight, the revolution and the socialist way.  William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, the Jacobites, the Highland Clearances, the love of this country .... our country.  The oppressors were usually the English or the landowners .... or worse still, the English landowners.  A high proportion of my good friends are English - and some even own land - but when I used to step into the Scotsman there was a fever that took hold.  The thought of truth being repressed, compassion being discarded and justice being suffocated, does that to a man and makes you sing louder.  

This is mere history ... it just happened to involve the English (sorry) but the bottom line is ... all this anger involves the lust of some for wealth and therefore the lust for land. It’s not just the Scots and the English, its a common theme throughout the world with a few notable variations.

This culture permeates rural society a millennium on. People used to fight and die for land in the UK, so at least there’s been some form of progress.  Yet land still brings out a certain avarice in folk.  There is a significant minority of farmers that would rather farm 1000 acres at a loss, than 100 acres at a profit.  Land is emotional, it can become a fever, having more land is often the most important priority in a farmer’s brain.

This culture resists any temperance on who can own land, it gives rich approval to taxation breaks for land ownership, and, most importantly, it prevents trust in new (and even existing) ways to lease land.  After a 1,000 years - despite all the singing - land is still guarded warily and possessively.  Some people really want it, some people really want to keep it ..... nothing has changed.

This is the culture that saturates our soil .... to change it, seems impossible.  But there is hope - I reckon there is a reason why the two piece sing no longer of protest and prefer the more important things in life - love and good times. 11 years ago the Scottish Parliament opened and I have sensed a shift in culture since.  Scotland had a voice again, its destiny was partly in its ownership, we as a people had a bit of hope and pride.  It gave us an opportunity to make our own decisions.  I feel we love the English a bit more as a nation now because they were, in many respects, unselfish by helping Holyrood happen.

If not a bit more love, then at least a bit more unselfishness, a bit less fever, a bit more trust - from both sides of the land question - would go a long way to letting go of the past .... forgiving and forgetting .... and - for first generation farmers - walking on with hope in our hearts.

We've Only Got 12 Minutes to Save the World ....

And so they came ... to a place known as Edinburgh, birth place of Michael the Strange, son to Doreen the Nag.  Guided by the almighty Stones, they arrived. 

This was the location of the Nuffield conference.  2009 scholars each do their 12 minute talk.  We drink beer, but only after dark. I talk to some very interesting individuals.  A few people laugh at my jokes (.... and my flies weren’t even undone). 

The talks are intriguing.  There are some really good ones.  I imagine doing mine next year. I nip out to purchase additional underpants.  Later, I picture getting asked an aggressive question.  I nip out to get more handkerchiefs.  Then, I worry about what to say and envisage myself getting all emotional.  I nip out to pick up extra valium.

What struck me were the good ones.  One chap was a natural orator, used no notes that I could see and was incredibly lucid.  One guy was clever, original, with a wit so sharp you had to say “ouch”.  Another though was probably the most entertaining.  He talked on a controversial subject but was very funny and unconventional.  I heard later that his talk split opinion - a few were disapproving.  Apparently it wasn’t serious enough!!  I guess this disappoints me but maybe this is my first brush with stuffiness and as such it is a navigation point.  I might bring my target of 24 jokes in 12 minutes down in slight compromise ... and even incorporate at least one fact.

I noticed many were really professional, they were very controlled emotionally ... this is obviously a sensible thing.  I panic about when its my turn ... I think of embarrassment and a weird hybrid of Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars and Kevin Keegan getting mad with Sir Alex ... expressed through a 12 minute talk format about first generation farmers .... I’m nipping out again - and this time, I’m buying in bulk.