IN the world of entertainment, Glasgow audiences are known for their knack of sensing fakery.
This stems from the days of the old Glasgow Empire when visiting English acts knew that an ordeal awaited them if they weren’t on their game.
The story of what once befell the famous English 1960s comedy duo, Mike and Bernie Winters in Glasgow, served as a warning to other emerging English comedians.
Mike Winters, the straight man of the duo, had been on stage for a few minutes trying to warm up the audience before his goofy brother emerged from behind a curtain. In the rest of the UK, Bernie’s appearance would be accompanied by laughter and delight.
In Glasgow, he was greeted with silence before one punter shouted: “Aw naw, there’s two of them.”
Yet, performers always knew better than to castigate Glasgow’s chilly audiences. The city has a global reputation for being fair and generous with its appreciation when they see the real thing.
Perhaps the prominent and verbose trans activist India Willoughby might pause and consider this before continuing to denigrate my home city. Ms Willoughby appeared on Question Time from Glasgow on Thursday and was poorly received by an audience who were unconvinced by her inarticulate and inchoate arguments that men can somehow become women.
She has not taken this at all well.
The audience’s response reflected general Scottish public opinion on this issue, almost all of it reasonably expressed and rooted in scientific and biological reality.
Throughout the duration of this debate ordinary Scots, who have no particular issue with men who choose to dress and identify as women, have been dismissed as transphobes for insisting that while you
can change gender, it’s genetically impossible to change sex.
This practice of gaslighting an entire nation for refusing to bow to a fantasy is favoured by a very small but very vocal mob who hate the idea of the public having a mind of their own.
I sense, though, that many who had previously been unaware of the implications stemming from this sophistry are now getting quickly up to speed with it.
And I sense that they are becoming deeply resentful of the false accusations being hurled at them.
Question Time pile-on
ONE female member of Question Time’s Glasgow audience seems particularly to have irked trans activists.
She spoke eloquently and judiciously about her belief that sex is immutable when outlining her despair at how a rapist had been placed among very vulnerable women in Cornton Vale prison.
For expressing concerns shared by the overwhelming majority of the Scottish public, she has since been targeted in a sinister and orchestrated social media pile-on.
It mirrors the treatment of other members of the public – usually women – who have dared publicly to defend their sex-based rights.
I’m sure the BBC feels it has a duty of care towards women who appear on Question Time and are singled out in this way. And I hope they exercise this by – at the very least – contacting this female audience participant to reassure her of their support.
Actor’s arrogance
A SOMEWHAT more prominent Scot has also received a mixed reception recently. Alan Cumming, one of our finest actors, in January chose to reveal publicly that he had handed back the OBE he received in 2009. His reasons for doing this, he said, were because of “the toxicity of Empire”.
Mr Cumming failed to explain in what ways the British Empire has become more toxic in the years since he received his gong.
Not for one moment, though, do I doubt the sincerity of his decision.
I wish only that he’d done this without fanfare like many others in his trade who have refused honours.
Mr Cumming should be aware, too, that thousands of ordinary people throughout the UK – including many supporters of Scottish independence – feel proud on behalf of their families and communities to be recognised in this way for serving others. Their acceptance doesn’t necessarily signal support for the monarchy.
Unlike Mr Cumming, their achievements proceed quietly and without fanfare. They’re entitled to be insulted by his act of narcissistic arrogance.
Got a pounding
AND now, having vented my spleen at others for acting like spanners, it’s only right that I call a foul on myself for being a flighty roaster.
On a few occasions, I’ve chosen to take the good name of Poundland in vain by using it as a descriptor conveying the sense of being substandard.
The good people of this stalwart high street shopping emporium gently chided me for my pomposity. They would have been entitled to go in a lot harder on me. And in any case, such is my rate of squandering money on fripperies like slow horses, refulgent suits and cheap champagne that I’ll soon be visiting Poundland for some of its rather more robust investments.
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