Best of The Jaggy Thistle in 2024

I've removed the paywall on the five posts I most enjoyed writing

Rikki Fulton as The Rev I.M. Jolly. Credit: BBC Scotland

I was tempted to write this post in the style of The Rev I. M. Jolly, the glum Church of Scotland minister created by comedy genius Rikki Fulton. His dour misanthropy was the highlight of many a Hogmanay evening sat in front of the television in our house. And his outlook on life is pretty close to my own at the moment.

This was the Rev I. M. Jolly’s TV debut in 1978:

Unlike the reverend I generally try to be upbeat. Pessimism is for losers. To see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty seems to me a prerequisite to getting anything done in life.

Right now, generosity of spirit seems a tall order. How fucked up is the world? Let me count the ways.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is among a rash of anti-immigrant populist parties gaining strength across Europe. Donald J. Trump, the nearest we have to a Scottish president of the United States, will be inaugurated for a second time within weeks. Tens of thousands of young men are dying every month in Ukraine, many from artillery shrapnel on a front line reminiscent of the Somme. Hardest of all, a daily horror, the death toll of children in Palestine at the hands of Israel’s IDF is too much for any heart to bear.

I almost wrote “innocent children”. Tautology.

Optimism of any kind seems futile. And yet these are exactly the times when a sense of possibility is essential.

This year I discovered that Gramsci didn't actually invent the slogan I have been attributing to him for half a century. That doesn’t mean it isn’t still true: “Pessimism of the intellect. Optimism of the will.” Both are essential, but without the latter nothing of lasting worth can be built.

If you get the feeling I am trying to convince myself then you would be correct. I need this pep talk. Nevertheless, my new year resolution is not to be beaten down by events at home and abroad.

My resolution is simple. Never surrender to a counsel of despair. Always seek ways through the gloom.

Sometimes this will necessitate standing firm on principle. Sometimes it will require intellectual compromise. Figuring out which is required is trickier than it looks. The latter often requires more courage than the former.

All this is to come. What of the year about to end? What of 2024?

Here are five Jaggy Thistle posts from the past 12 months that gave me particular pleasure to write.

Recent subscribers may have missed them so I am lifting the paywall on these posts temporarily to give them a wider audience.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

And I don’t mean that in a Rev I. M. Jolly sense.

1. An essay on Scottish panto:

2. A Sunday morning visit to the Rev Al Green’s church in Memphis, Tennessee:

3. A personal look back at the referendum of 2014:

4. A slice of memoir about my father:

5. A deep dive into my favourite magazine:

That’s all for now. Can I take this opportunity to wish you and yours a happy and healthy 2025.

See you on the other side.

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“A chield’s amang you takin notes, And faith he’ll prent it.” Robert Burns

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