A recent installment of Hibs' 'great adventure' in the Championship involved a journey across central Scotland to Dumbarton.
Since you ask, it was a pulsating game with nine goals, six of them, thankfully, scored by the Hibs.
However, it was the journey and the destination which set me thinking. In fact, the mood into which I was cast could best be described - at least by grammar aficionados, as 'pluperfect.' (def: "in the past and completed")
As I journeyed through to the west, I drove through areas which had been centres of shale and coal mining, which had featured in the iron and steel industry, and which once had had high hopes for success as 'Silicon Glen'.
Reaching Glasgow, I drove on eight lane motorways which covered land which had once been filled with sturdy inner city tenements and solid communities, crossed a river which had been a powerful commercial artery- and, on arrival at Dumbarton's Stadium, underneath the Rock, I found before me a scene which had represented the strength of Scottish industry through the centuries.
The football ground is built on reclaimed land which once was the site of Denny Shipbuilders; ahead of me on the banks of the Leven were the sites of the Woodyard Shipbuilders - who built the tea clipper, the Cutty Sark, and the remains of Ballantine's famous distillery. In addition, Hovercrafts and Flying Boats had been built here.
Even the teams before me, facing each other in the second tier of football, had a pluperfect tinge to them: Dumbarton had won the first two Scottish League Championships in the 1890s and Hibs had been European Cup semi finalists in the 1950s.
Almost coincidentally, looming up behind me on Dumbarton Rock, were the remains of several ancient forts, dating from the times when Dun Breatann had been the centre of tribal defence.
You wouldn't want to ignore the present though: housing and retail distribution centres flourish along that east-west corridor; Glasgow, in some areas, has done a remarkable job of partial regeneration, and even in the Dumbarton Docks area, housing is being built and further developments are planned.
Of course, no country stays the same, but progress should be positive. The loss of heavy industry, in many places, has extinguished unimaginably harsh working conditions. It has also removed a good deal of the pride available to craftsmen and time served engineers and shipbuilders. And we should not forget that the M8 is not the centre of the country - except in population; history has changed people's working lives in all parts of Scotland - in fishing, agriculture, manufacturing.
However, rather than concentrating on what is lost - the pluperfect - we should think of what is to come.
Unless we are satisfied to be a branch economy, the demise of heavy industry need not lead to loss of pride and craftsmanship; better conditions in the workplace should not equate with zero hours or part time contracts and limited agreements. Scots are still innovative, skilled and educated. What they lack are the opportunities to drive forward in a different, less passive, direction, to play a full part in redefining Europe and its relationships - internally and internationally.
Post Referendum, there appears to be a new involvement with the political process, an acceptance that politicians - or at least those people who are politically involved - can be a force for good that will bring change - irrespective of party or constitutional aspirations.
The pluperfect is a very limited tense, it refers to what is completed in the past. You can build a story on it. However, if it is aspiration and inspiration you are after, you would be better examining the future perfect.
Let's hope we can.
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