Waverley

The tinsel and fairy lights are still hanging around, and the Hogmanay hangovers are just starting to abate. Now Scotland can turn its attention to the next big event – the referendum.

In September we get to vote on on whether Scotland should be an independent country. By then, the debate will have heated up to boiling point, and non-Scots will be sick of Irn Bru flavoured blips.

There will be photos of cakes decorated with blue and white icing flags, snaps of the Loch Ness Monster waving a placard proclaiming 'Scotland for the Scots', and it will be obligatory for all men to be wearing nothing but a kilt. Everything will be filtered through a tartan-tinted lens. It’s going to be worse than St Andrew’s day and Burn’s night rolled into one.

Walter Scott's Waverley novels dealt with the issues of Scotland's national identity and independence nearly two hundred years ago. The novels gave the name to Waverley station in Edinburgh.

Which is why there’s a train in the photo.