IF YOU’VE a hand basket about your person, prepare to get into it. Your destination? Why, hell, of course – the only place anyone ever went in a hand basket.
My travel advice is aimed at the one in seven of you in Scotia Minor who believe eternal damnation awaits when you hand in your final betting slip.
I was shocked to read this news, garnered from a YouGov poll. What had these people done to believe they deserved prodding with tridents in fiery pits? The figure was only one in ten in Britainshire as a whole, making us – as usual – the worst in the United Kingdom.
Defensive voices said it was just that we took a dimmer, harder view of our moral worth. A kind of “black humour” was adduced, particularly from those who’d had a good time on Earth and now believed, in the Scottish spiritual tradition, that they should be punished for it.
While reeling from this news, the poll kicked me again: offered the chance to live forever, 50 per cent of Scots would turn it down. Hell’s bells!
Only 27 per cent wanted to stagger on endlessly. These happy, desperate, perhaps frightened few were vastly outnumbered by those who, presumably, saw immortality as a trifle tedious and repetitive, like the satellite TV schedules.
These latter folk were certainly not afraid of death. Indeed, only 16 per cent of Scots said death scared them “a lot”. Nearly 30 per cent said they weren’t scared “at all”. They beheld the Grim Reaper and said: “Come ahead, big man.”
The poll found that, overall, only 36 per cent of the citizenry believe in any kind of afterlife, which is odd, since more than this usually describe themselves as Christians, perhaps in the belief that it gets you tax relief.
Who knows? And who knew? Hell, eh? My own belief – that life on Earth is hell – is held by only a minority of indigent philosophers.
True, there is for most people an absence of tridents and sauna-like heat, particularly in Scotland. But when you think of all the times you lose your reading glasses, just miss the bus, or trip on a pavement crack as a beautiful lady is approaching, you know this is a malevolent place.
The question is: what did we do to be put here? Something bad, presumably. And in a previous life at that. My own presence here is, I believe, the result of an administrative cock-up. Somewhere in eternal paradise there is a Ronald McNeil, who should have been down here in my place.
He’s the one who should face daily torture, alleviated only by old episodes of Star Trek and selected products from Mr Gregg the baker.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here