DON’T panic. News that Scotland is the most stressed out part of Large Britain led many kilt-wearing ratepayers to open their gobs and pour down vats of Valium. And when I say “kilt-wearing”, I attribute that to the stress caused by so many crap cartoons and commentaries deploying the sort of appalling national stereotypes that, in this day and age, only we Scots still have to suffer.
The YouGov poll, commissioned by The Physiological Society, found that Brexit might have something to do with Scots being stressed, though I think there must be more to it than that. Personally, I don’t give a damn about Brexit or Trump. It’ll all blow over and won’t amount to a hill of beans. My starched knickers are twist-proof and, if only more people would calm down and stop getting so excited, the world would be a better place, even if the facts purported to show otherwise.
I can understand other Scots with more flexible underwear being confused. Previous studies have shown that the worst stress is caused by a lack of control. And, at a political level, that is right discombobulating in Scotia Minor. For who is to control what? In Scotland, we don’t even control our televisions. At a political level, we control some things, such as road signs, but not others, such as nuclear weapons. I can’t tell you how irritated I get when, writing an authoritative and influential newspaper article, I have to look up Wikipedia to see if the area of policy under advisement is “devolved” to us weans or “reserved” to our political parents.
Then there’s the whole question of unions, European and British. Westminster wants to be in one union but not another, and Holyrood wants to be in the one that Westminster doesn’t want to be in but not the one that Westminster does want to be in. We don’t know whether we’re coming or going.
As alluded to earlier, a bewildering phenomenon for Scots is that we’re the only people in the world against whom it is OK to be, not racist but, you know, nation-ist or people-ist or something. We get pelters the whole time from all sides. We’re mocked on Continental television adverts for alleged meanness, and suffer appalling abuse from south of the border for daring to suggest we might be better off controlling our own affairs. Not only that, but we can’t say anything back. If even one person in Auchenshovitt dared to tweet about a badly cooked sausage he once received in England, the papers would call it racist, put it on the front page and call upon Sturgeon to answer.
Away from our weird, demi-devolved democracy, people in the south-east of England are the least stressed, possibly because they are far distant from Scotland, and good luck to them. More generally, young people the length and breadth of these benighted isles get most stressed by losing their portable telephones. Frankly, I’d like to bung mine in a pond. And I don’t even get any calls on it.
It’s my computer that really stresses me out, with its peculiar malfunctions, sudden downing of tools and, again, a feeling that I am not in control. It promises the world and delivers a rodent-gnawed peanut. It lets you down on deadlines and knows all the best times to wreak havoc.
Speaking of havoc, driving is the only other thing in life, not counting bank statements, that stresses me out. All stress is caused by other people, and nowhere more so than on the road, a public place that we are required to share with nincompoops, the worst of them wearing millinery.
Even thinking about them brings me out in a sweat, so I’m going to calm down now with a nice cuppa and an iced bun from Mr Gregg the baker. I’d advise you to do the same. Or, failing that, carry on panicking for Scotland.
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