The Lowell Courtney Travel Blog

The Nomenklatura

Today's post comes courtesy of a good friend in South Africa, Mr Mike Madin, secretary of the Cullinan Golf Club.  Mike and his pals have been very courteous in their appreciation of these politically incorrect and anarchic ramblings and, as always, have sent me off on an unexpected tangent.

Mike hails from St Helens in Lancashire, a county occasionally attached to the rest of England - but not as semi-detached as its neighbour Yorkshire - and for those of you who have not yet lived life to its fullest, it is one of the great spiritual homes of rugby league, the ancestor of what our transatlantic friends call "football" - minus the Kevlar.  The "nomenklatura" - the select "named ones" - was the underground press name for the top officials in the old Soviet Union.  You know the type: the sort of people who think that failure to deliver their weekly pound of best baluga is the end of civilisation as we know it.

And whilst thinking of names, an odd thought occurred to me.  Whilst we rugby union types know the South Africans as Springboks, the New Zealanders as the All Blacks and the Australians as Whingeing Bums (sorry chaps, that's your cricket team), it has lately become the fashion to apply ferocious sounding names to rugby league and union teams, both in GB and in South Africa, all modelled on the NFL teams.  So the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos and their ilk have produced the Sale Sharks (union), the Wigan Warriors (league) and their South African equivalents: Blue Bulls, Golden Lions and Free State Cheetahs.

Now -and you can see where this is going, can't you - let us translate this slavering gladiatorial ambition to the more gentlemanly Elysian fields which we call golf courses. And this being Ryder Cup year - ach, you're way ahead of me, dear readers, miles ahead - what shall we call our teams?  I can sense my invitiation to both the Open and the US PGA slipping away in the post at this stage, but let us adventure into this savage undergrowth.

Depending on the outcome, America could be Zinger's Winners and the Europeans could be Faldo's Folders. Conversely, we could produce the Yankee Yippers (shades of Baltusrol) and the Eurofighters. Any printable suggestions welcome, especially when we come to the World Cup, currently held by the Scottish Sabres.  However, gentlemen, perhaps you might want to think long and hard before you come to the Solheim Cup teams. I smell trouble on the horizon and I suspect that Morgan's Marauders versus Annika's Angels could land us all in DS faster than you can say "Rolex."

Whatever your thoughts, any humour would be most welcome in the bleak midwinter, when 80 mph winds are doing their best to remove my roof and my internet connection.  If you're based in the southern hemisphere - could you please send some sunshine? Express delivery.  Thanks.

Two way traffic

Greetings and HNY (nothing to do with the fine city of Noo Yawk) to all of you. Now that we have survived XMS - which sounds like a rude verson of Vista - we can get on with the business of 2008 which is, glory be, an election year in your fine domain.

Now I know that many of you will groan and weep at the thought of ten months' electioneering but it keeps the rest of us well diverted and entertained and takes our minds off the credit crunch, the sub prime crisis and the general "end of the world as we know it" rubbish which is being peddled daily.  As Tom Lehrer once said: What we need is not a revivalist hymn but a survivalist one.

But today's blog is not about the New Hampshire primary, which sounds as if urgent treatment is needed after such a fearful diagnosis.  No, it's about a letter allegedly written by one James Murray from his new place of residence in New York to a minister in County Tyrone in Ireland.  What is unique about this letter is that it is the best known one written in Ulster Scots, encouraging emigration from the north of Ireland to 'Amerikay'.

There are two versions: 1737 and 1767 and, truth told, no -one can say  whether it is bona fide or a pamphleteer's best effort to pay off a drink debt to a shipping agent. Who knows - who cares? Either way, it is a fascinating insight into the sort of propaganda which drew over 100,000 presbyterians to abandon life under the crown in Ireland for a chance to be rid of the crown in the Thirteen Colonies. (By the way, we have a delightful college group from Spring Arbor University, Michigan here on winter break at the moment and they challenged me to name the Thirteen. I reckon 12/13 wasn't bad - I blew it on Vermont.) Let me give you some examples:

"Reverend Baptist Boyd, Read this letter, and look, and tell aw the poor Folk of your Place, that God has open'd a door for their Deliverance; for here is ne scant of Breed here, and if your Sons Samuel and James Boyd wad but come here, they wad get mere money in ane Year for teechin a Letin Skulle, nor ye yer sell wad get for Three Years Preeching whar ye are.

There is a great wheen of the Native Folks of this Country turn'd Christians, and will sing the Psalms bonily, and appear to be religious, that gee Ministers plenty of Skins for his Steepend, and he gets Siller plenty for the Skins again......Ye may get Lan here for 10L a Hundred Acres for ever.

There is Servants come here out of Ereland, and have serv'd their Time here, wha are now Justices of the Piece.  Now I have geen you a true description of this York, luke the 8th chapter of Deueteronomy, and what it saith of the Lan there, this is far better."

Suffice to say that the writer paints the picture of a demi-paradise but your man is canny enough to ask his 'kinfolk' to bring all sorts of tools (iron must have been in short supply) wherewith to work the aforesaid land. As a travel ad, it bears comparison with some of National Geographic's more bucolic pieces; as a sales pitch it is a winner, holding out just enough detail and promise to be convincing to people who were fed up with being second class citizens.

Academics can debate its authenticity til' the kine come hame.  As a linguist - I do love the upper case for the substantives, as per modern German - and as a travel writer, I'll happily bet you a twenty that it's nothing but ad copy.  I hear Ulster Scots every day - and this letter is an adman's attempt to re-create the speech patterns of the north of Ireland.  Fake or no, it did its job - which is why 11 of the first 16 presidents  were of Ulster Scots stock. (You call them Scotch-Irish, but those, ladies and gentlemen, are actually two types of whiskey.)

Now then, any one for President O'Bama?

Cheers.