Blur into images of State Coercion

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I know I prefer to leave it a few paragraphs before I deviate from the topic @ hand but the most requested search which brings people to this blog is Freddie Windsor. If you are one of those people, please fuck off. Thank you. (yes… in this blog there’s swearing).

A few months ago I was at Bonnymuir for a Rally, and afterwards I nearly quit what I’ll lazily title ‘the movement’ for one simple reason: I was one of the youngest there. I’m nearly thirty five fucking years old and I was feeling too young. Fortunately Bannockburn, Falkirk and yesterday, Robroyston refreshed my memory that it’s not the case. It’s just SNP historical groups that tend to verge slightly from the general demographic of the country. Oh look, I was deliberately obtuse…

But first, what prompted this blog. Yesterday, George from the Tartan Army spoke at Robroyston, and his theme was Scottish History and how to raise its profile and all manner of cool things. Donald of the SRSM quite liked an idea I had about a “History Night” where we’d discuss two or three history topics. It’s standard, it’s a decent idea… but it’s a bit conventional. I’ll get it done, and I DID come up with it, but I had a couple of other things that I would’ve preferred to do. Email me if you wanna know more about the history night. (I feel the need to say that… but all I get email-wise is Viagra adverts.)

I’ve had two ideas for making history (in particular hidden history) more interesting and edgy to get new blood involved. I’m going to break the 4^th wall of the first of my ideas (which thus means it can’t work as a simple Google search kills the idea stone dead). The first thing you need to do is to read this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_Toaster

During August and September we have a litany of Wallace-related events, and they all follow the same format: March, speeches, drinks, camping (for some: not me, god no…) then home. So I read that Wikipedia reference to ‘The Poe Toaster’ and started thinking about a visit that Jolly took about ten of us on to Cambuskenneth Abbey, where he (I think…) told us about the Wallace Stone and how, possibly, William Wallace’s arm was buried under it. That story was so damned good I didn’t care whether it was true or not. Not after I read the Poe Toaster reference, anyway.

For me, people love a mystery. Give them something unexplained, and people want to explain it. So, I came up with the idea of having a hooded ‘Wallace Watcher’ figure visit the Wallace Stone in Cambuskenneth Abbey once a year and inventing a backstory going back about two or three years and possibly further… Factor in some really grainy camera phone footage of him placing a thistle and half-drunk bottle of Whisky on the Wallace Stone and you have an internet hoax.

The principle is using the power of the Internet and Viral marketing in such a way as to give Scottish History a fresh edge. Sky did this for Season 6 of 24 where if you texted a certain number, you’d have to log onto an internet site and negotiate a series of vague clues to help Jack Bauer otherwise he’d die…

So, for example, with my Wallace Watcher idea, when it’s initially sprung onto an unsuspecting public, you have two or three blogs set up which have a story arc people can follow. If you’re cynical, I don’t blame you. But it works if done right. It can even work when you have no basic plan to work to… For proof of this read “Join Me” by Danny Wallace or go here: http://www.join-me.co.uk

This story arc does two things: the lead people to particular sites of interest and organisations of interest. It promotes the Wallace Stone, it promotes Cambuskenneth Abbey, it promotes the execution of the Wallace and what subsequently happened to him and in the backstory behind it, those curious enough to follow the trail of the story and the blogs find themselves at, say, the Walk for Wallace website, on the Siol nan Gaidheal website, or on the Wallace Society website or whomever gets promoted by it.

It promotes history to its targets, an unsuspecting public, and it draws them into a story they can be a part of. During it you’re seeding them with relevant historical knowledge, but in an interesting way and it hasn’t been done before. And all you girls DO love the thrill of a chase, don’t you?

But it can’t be done now, can it? I broke the first law of hoaxing and talked about it. But the point is thinking about things differently. This is about utilising different ideas.

The other idea I had, I already tried and didn’t give it the commitment it deserved because I was finishing off my Rock X novel (which you can still buy, by the way…) and it lost momentum due to a couple of things. That idea was the Nine of Diamonds Project.

I’ve written about this before, but the Nine of Diamonds Projects was, if I had played it right, a rip-off of the Australia-based Neurocam Project. I wrote about it here: http://kennysheerin.blogspot.com/2007/08/neurocam-and-scotland.html But the intention was to use it as a machine gun for Scottish History so that various subversive histories could be manoeuvred into the mainstream by various high-jinks. One idea I had was to get a shop dummy, dress it up in a Guantanamo Bay orange jumpsuit (complete with black stencilling on it just in case those seeing the resulting photo weren’t too sure), put it outside the Scottish Parliament Front Doors with a large sign around it’s neck which read “1820 – 19 of the first residents” on it. The hooded figures who dumped it there wouldn’t be caught on CCTV cos they’d be hooded and someone would drive them off into the early morning and the resulting photo would be circulated everywhere as an enigmatic gesture, complete with a nine of diamonds card jutting out the top pocket.

At one point I drafted (using legislation I knew of) Eviction notices to be tied to the gates of Holyrood Palace (where the Queen lives in Scotland). I can’t mind what I did with that…

Or one idea that comes up time and time again, but which ends up falling through because of money and resources: the Digital Projector Hijack. Basically this involves getting a digital projector and some high profile night-time location and the press. What you do is arrange a series of images to be transferred from a laptop (have) and digital projector (don’t have and can’t afford) and project it onto the walls of said building which the press then photographs, your anonymity preserved. FHM magazine got worldwide press from Projecting an image of Gail Porter, nekkid, onto the walls of the Scottish Parliament. Imagine a reporter from the press being invited, on the anniversary of the Battle of Stirling Bridge with an image of Andrew de Moray will captions like: “I was here as well” “What the hell is a Union Jack doing on a Scottish Castle?” as well as the odd soundbite here and there projected onto the walls of Stirling Castle on the night of Sept 11? I reckon the press would LOVE that image. Personally I’d like to project the image of a penis onto the house of Matt O’Connor from fathers 4 justice with the words: “Anti-Scottish Dick”… (but we’ll call that a work-in-progress).

I tend to think about things a bit differently, and those were a couple of ideas I thought I’d throw out there for your perusal. Basically if we want to promote Scottish History, we don’t have to just rely upon established methods which tend to preach to the converted. With enough effort we can take these out to the public.

By the way: does anyone know where I can get a shop dummy?