Here's tae us! wha's like us?

Damn few, and they're all dead.

According to a frankly bizarre piece by Alan Black up at Salon, a recently conducted study in Europe tapped the land of my forefathers as the "worst small country to live in." I don't know exactly what the original list looked like, but it can't possibly have been a worldwide survey; "Scotland: Worse To Live In Than Greenland" seems like a stretch no matter how much you dislike Irn-Bru.

The article does point up two of the great national characteristics of the Scottish people: maudlin sentimentality and historical pessimism. On the first point, it seems almost self-parodic to note that the study came out on National Tartan Day in the States; the notion that Scottish-Americans banded together to honour national symbols that were themselves made up by the colonizing English is alternately depressing, weirdly touching and hilarious.

The other prong, historical pessimism bordering on "self-loathing," as Black puts it, is probably the common lot of small nations the world over, and this survey, placing Scotland at the bottom of the (European?) table in life-expectancy, will provide further grist for that particular mill. Of course any nation whose national diet could accurately be descibed as a mixture of sugar (the aforementioned Irn-Bru) and fat (bacon butties, anyone?), along with a deserved reputation for heavy drinking, will never do terribly well in national health surveys to begin with. There's a whiff of Mark Renton in Black's statement that "the end of the Scottish race seems guaranteed," and I can't help but think of my favourite Billy Connolly bit as well:

This is Bannockburn, where we stuffed the English.

Yes, here is where in 1314 Robert the Bruce defeated "Proud Edward's army, and sent him homeward tae think again."

So they went home, and thought again, and then in 1746 they came back and kicked the shit out of us.

So on the whole, speaking as a 6'2" Scotsman (by descent and citizenship, anyhow) I found the thing more funny than anything else. I have every expectation that in 300 years, people living north of Hadrian's Wall will still be alternately maudlin about Scotland the Brave and despairing about its future.

After all, things can't be too bad. We won the Calcutta Cup this year.

Update: Apparently, Scotland is in fact the second-worst small country in which to live in Europe, beating out Austria. I'm sure that with a little work, though, we can pull through to the bottom by the next such survey.