This week there was a little stooshie in the media and the blogs about the “banning” of the Saltire during the Beijing Olympics. Jamie Hepburn noticed that the Olympic authorities in Beijing will be enforcing an age-old IOC rule which says that “flags of non-members of the Olympics” should not be displayed during the Olympics.

I suppose the reason why this is a particular issue now, as opposed to previous Olympic meetings, is the fact that the Beijing games enables the nationalists to piggy-back on the Free Tibet campaign (as you can see in the penultimate paragraph of the SNP’s press release). Is it just me who thinks this is particularly low?

It is not even as though Scotland is in anything like the same situation as Tibet. The reason Tibet is an issue is because freedom of speech and freedom to choose your own political beliefs is not an option in Tibet. Without these rights, the people of Tibet are left without a voice. That is the issue. The issue in Scotland is that we do have these rights. The problem for the SNP is that despite this great freedom to express a preference for independence, there is precious little clamour for it in Scotland.

Anyway, I agree with most — e.g. Scottish Unionist, Jeff Breslin, Malc in the Burgh — in that the IOC’s rule on flags is absolutely ridiculous. Stephen Glenn points out why the IOC’s strange rules are inappropriate for someone from his kind of background.

But I still think it is pathetic that the SNP even brought the subject up. As has been noted in some of the posts above, it is not even as though the rule is policed that strictly anyway. But as Political Dissuasion notes, all of Britain’s Olympic athletes agreed to take part as a member of Great Britain’s Olympic team so I hardly think it’s beyond the pale to expect them to stick to that commitment.

After all, could you imagine, for instance, a Scottish international footballer scoring a goal then taking his shirt off during the celebration to proudly reveal, say, a Celtic top underneath? Of course, he could be proud of being both a Scotland player and a Celtic player — but it’s just wrong to confuse the two notions.

As Political Dissuasion points out, this is just the sort of guff we have come to expect from nationalists. I don’t mind people expressing their opinion about this sort of thing, but this is blatant political point-scoring and for what? SNP people always come up with this stuff about the Saltire, whether it’s what flutters above Edinburgh Castle or what athletes fly at the Olympics. It’s just pathetic. Aren’t there, you know, important things to worry about?

It’s worth pointing out, too, that even if Scotland were to become independent this would still be an issue. Because while Scotland would enter an Olympic team, flags like this and this would still fall foul of the regulations. For some reason (*cough*oil*cough*) the SNP are quieter about these flags.

My attitude towards this is affected somewhat by the fact that I just don’t “get” flags in general. What on earth are they for? I certainly don’t know what the appeal is. Maybe it is because I’m not so insecure about myself and my identity that I don’t need to attach myself to these symbols. I might be a Scot, but I don’t go around the place grinning about it. First and foremost I am Duncan Stephen, and that’s what concerns me. I would still be Duncan Stephen no matter what nationality I was, so I just don’t see what flags are all about.

This is also one of the many reasons why I can’t stand the Olympics. The emphasis on the nation just gets me down so much. I have written before about why the notion that sportsmen represent their countries is just absolutely ridiculous. A follow-up post at the height of the media-driven rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso subsequently became the most popular post on this blog (according to post ratings).

The Olympics is just the place that shows all the worst aspects of national sport teams. Gibbering, gormless housewives stare at the idiot-box for hours on end watching events such as “discus”, “ping pong”, “yngling” and all manner of other sports that they would otherwise not touch with a bargepole. Yes, it’s great that minority sports get coverage during the Olympics. But they should be getting coverage anyway. At least, if you genuinely did like minority sports you would think that. The fact that it takes the Olympics to get badminton on the television is nothing to be pleased about.

Then when a representative of their country wins a medal, the housewives declare themselves to be “so proud”. Proud of what? They didn’t win the medal — the athlete did! All they have done is sit on their fat arses watching people throwing sticks around. This kind of nationalism only promotes supreme mediocrity and laziness.

And don’t even get me started on the “non political” nature of the Olympics. My hairy arse hole! The fact is that the Olympic Games are the planet’s primary platform for pathetic political posturing. What is the Olympic Spirit? I think it has something to do with Cold War willy-waving.

Then there is all the drugs. I bet you if the Olympics never existed, we wouldn’t even think about drugs in sport. All those countries with dodgy Communist governments come along and drug their athletes to the brim so that they can go around the world feeling smug about themselves for being 13th in the medals table. Yes, the Olympic Games are so noble!

Ah, and don’t forget the great selling-out when they decided there was more money in dropping the requirement that Olympic athletes be amateur. Because of course the pros don’t have enough places to rake in the cash already!

Bleeargh. I’m with Mr Farty. The Olympics can take a running hop, skip and jump.

Aah, the reality check. How much is a pint of milk? Who’s murdered who in EastEnders? Who’s at number one in the singles chart? A politician’s career could hang on the balance of a question like this. If you get it wrong, you are deemed to be out of touch. BBC News Online reports on how the main party leaders in Scotland coped with this grilling.

But how many normal people could actually answer a question like this? I certainly could never tell you who had won the Grand National. That’s not because I’m out of touch. It’s just because I’m not a gambler and I’m not interested in horse racing.

Annabel Goldie might have been pleased to get Nicol Stephen’s question right. But, combined with the fact that she knew who is top of the SPL (a question that I probably would have got, although I don’t follow football that closely), it just looks as though she was just sitting in front of the television all Saturday.

I also would have probably correctly guessed who was at number one — but I wouldn’t have been certain and it would only have been because I blogged about it a couple of weeks ago. Most weeks I haven’t got the slightest clue who is at number one.

And then there is the price of a pint of milk. I am somewhat surprised that Jack McConnell didn’t get this correct. It is the classic ‘reality check’ question, and I would have thought that he would at least make sure he had a vague idea of the answer.

But it’s not as if I would know. Anyone who doesn’t do the shopping for their household (like me for instance) — or just doesn’t drink milk — would be scratching their heads at this one. But does that make me, or Jack McConnell or any politician who gets this question wrong, somehow less real than avid milk guzzlers?

I don’t know why some people get so upset about the fact that some Scottish people don’t like to support England. I find it funny how it has become such a big political issue. Some like to pretend that it shows that the United Kingdom is illegitimate and should be split up into separate nations. What a load of shite.

Here is what Shuggy thinks about it:

Think about it: they tell people from other countries what team they should cheer for and if anyone should disagree, they are accused of racism.

The England Project has a rather dramatic post:

This football kerfuffle is a sorry measure of the health of the Union

…The argument that Scotland is a different country from England and, therefore, there is no reason why Scots. should support an English team is a reasonable one taken in isolation of the British Union. Supporters of the British Union are, in my opinion, on less solid ground. I see it as the duty of British Unionists to support any British team in any sporting competition with their own country naturally taking preference.

That approach is just wrong, as David Farrer pointed out a couple of weeks ago. Scottish, Welsh and (increasingly) English nationalists seem to believe that the rivalry between Scotland and England on the football pitch is a sign that the United Kingdom could not possibly be a single country, and therefore should be scrapped.

So I take it that the rivalry between Rangers and Celtic is evidence that Glasgow is a failed experiment? And a Spurs fan’s resentment of Arsenal means that London should be split up? Nonsense. And if anybody called for the UK to pull out of the EU because of England’s rivalry with Germany, they ought to be laughed out of the planet. There may be legitimate reasons to call for the end of the British Union, but a football match is rather stretching it.

The London-based media probably has a lot to do with the rise of Scottish nationalism in the second half of the 20^th century. That maybe shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. This letter in The Economist illustrates the reason:

Before devolution, the impression was that the English did not really notice Scotland, regarding it at best as a kilted extension of the Lake District.

Last week I suggested that England is shoved down your throat in Scotland. Since then I have seen BBC News 24 (a news channel for crying out loud!) insert various ‘Come on En-ger-land’ messages in its countdown sequences. And now that the World Cup itself has come we have had to endure commentators shoehorning England into everything, every which way they can. For instance, here is what ITV’s commentator said during the Argentina–Ivory Coast game:

Well, Argentina have had 20 years of hurt — they’ve only had half of it.

WHAAAAT? Every single thing has to relate to England, doesn’t it?

I once even heard a commentator — I think it was John Motson — say, at the start of a World Cup final, “Of course, this is the final that England could have been in…” That was very perceptive of him. Of course, it was also the final that every single other team in the world could have been in.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the media likes to concentrate on England, given that at least 80% of the potential audience will be living in England. But by the same token I don’t think anybody should be too shocked if Scots decide to support whoever is playing England just as a reaction against smug commentators. And it is possible to have a strong Scottish identity and still be in favour of the UK — infact, I am sure that the majority of my friends are like this.

FIFA and whoever else ever proposes a British football team ought to remember this aswell. Football has nothing to do with the Union.

Update: Iain Dale asks, Will You Support a European Team Against the Americans?

[In the World Cup today] I will be supporting the Americans without any hesitation. Yet when the Ryder Cup is played later in the year I will be shouting for the Europeans, partly I suppose because there will be British golfers on the European team. But it’s still a total inconsistency on my part. But isn’t that the beauty of sport? There’s no logic to sporting affinity at all.