St Andrews Day- not long until the festive fiesta.

 St Andrews Day- not long until the festive fiesta.

In the glens and highlands of Scotland they'll be wearing their tam o'shanter to all those magnificent parties that the Scots seem to carry off so well. Today of course is St. Andrews Day in Scotland, a day for recognising the Patron Saint of Andrew, a significant date on the calendar for everybody who loves to wear the tartan kilt and enjoying the festivities that will almost certainly accompany the day. They'll be dancing around their swords, swigging back the whisky in abundant quantities and reminding the English that 54 years ago the Scots reclaimed the World Cup at Wembley a year after England had won it the year before. 

This may have been regarded as a moral victory for the Scots back in 1967 but it was just a Home International end of season friendly tournament and that probably won't be remembered for too long. Still here we are on St Andrews Day, a day when the battles of Culloden and Bannockburn are marked again, a day when Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, will rightly declare that Scotland's claim to independence still has a ring of truth to it. 

In recent years Scotland have yearned insistently for greater freedoms, greater autonomy from the English stranglehold and a desire for a personal identity that some in the Scottish parliament has made patently clear. But there can be no denying the sheer beauty of the Scottish mountains, the wondrous scenery, the breathtaking crofters, the enduring thistle and shortly the imminent arrival of Hogmany at the beginning of the New Year. The Scots have always been our friendly rivals at a time when nationalism threatened to swallow up both the English and Scottish. 

Of course Hadrian's Wall remains that traditional dividing line that continues to antagonise both sets of football supporters when the English meet the Scots. During the summer England metaphorically ran into a brick wall when the Scots stood tall and immovable in the face of a slovenly England side who simply ran out of both ideas and ideologies in their attacking armoury. The 0-0 Euro 2020 group stage draw was neither here nor there and by the time the referee blew the final whistle, England had exhausted themselves in a terribly under cooked performance. 

But tonight they'll be jigging between the ancient swords, devouring plates of haggis by the hundreds and thousands, a nation united by its admirable desire to retain its stubborn individuality, its historical adherence to its folksy ballads and that delicious skirl of the bagpipes. Scotland may think that the English hate them and the feeling of course may be mutual but any country that gives us the comic genius of Billy Connolly, a former Prime Minister in Gordon Brown who once declared his allegiance to Raith Rovers and who once produced the inimitable figure of James Bond as depicted by Sean Connery must have something to commend it.

So Ladies and Gentlemen. Today is St Andrews Day and the Scots will be in appropriately alcoholic mood. Here is a nation whose favourite son gave us the life changing TV. When John Logie Baird connected some loose wires to a very primitive transmitter the age of the cathode ray gave way to a technological revolution that would change our lives for ever. Baird told us that the future would be the humble TV or television, the revolutionary medium that now spews up record breaking numbers of channels from all over the world. Now Sky compete frantically against the likes of BT Sport, MTV, CBS, Eurosport and thousands of other alternatives. It is the franchise that keeps giving. So if you've a spare kilt at your disposal think of our Scottish friends and three cheers for the Sassenachs.