Why Scotland is Great: no.2 - Melancholy

Start with any Scottish song. It will involve a man, a girl, possibly a boat and death and/or banishment.

There is a chord struck. A melancholy chord.

Scotland does good melancholy.

We have the wind in your face. The open spaces. The countryside that doesn't care if you are alive or not. A football team that, at it's best, only annoys the greats before we are overwhelmed. We have heart attack and government confusion.

But we do good melancholy.

It humbles you, places you at the bottom and gives you great soulful music. it reminds you you need others and that laughter is precious.

Then finally, it gives rise to a delicious stubbornness, a two fingered salute to the universe that saw tyres being invented to get home faster and penicillin discovered to keep you upright and moaning longer.

And that is why melancholy is great.