Revolting fiesta in Stirling

MORE information following Ian Scott's letter (June 15) about therevolting fiesta planned by Stirling Council for what will be themost afflicted Hogmanay of the century.

The highlight of the proposed "celebration" is to consist in theburning of an image of Robert the Bruce, an idea patched together bythe pop-picking music impresario Mr Barry Wright of Edinburgh.Wright, when facing the outrage of naive people like me, has typicalrecourse to the idea that the anger is part of "the debate". Butit's not, it's anger, most sincerely.

I have spoken to Mr Andy Scott, the sculptor who is charged toprepare the likeness of Pilkington Jackson's brilliant statue ofBruce at Bannockburn to be cremated to make a Scottish holiday. Heis disappointed that a fellow sculptor cannot "write in" to supporthim.I, however, am disappointed that he cannot tell Wright, and KeithYates of Stirling Council, to dispose of their traitorous littlescheme in a way similar to that by which a certain poker wasdisposedof in the environment of one Edward Plantagenet (the shade of whompositively rejoices at this hour). Then Andy Scott would bringhonour upon the art of sculpture in his country.But fifty thousand pieces of silver keeps him servile, this signedand paid-up member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Whawould be a sculptor knave?You know, there is an Iberian precedent, so they whine at us, forthe cheery burning of images; ones of people you like, ones ofpeopleyou don't - all alike. They do it in some provincial place calledValencia. The Scots, it seems, are now to follow this peculiarity,and to neutralise a symbolic resource used by them during theirtravails. We are inclined, in this country, rather to burn images ofDundas.Andy Scott thinks this is the way we "celebrate" him. He is ingreat danger of seriously celebrating his fingers, I should say.Andy Scott, Keith Yates, and Barry Wrong should pause and think ofthe terrible gravity of this country's history; the deaths sufferedon account of its cause, and the fact that the Bruce statue is morethan a logo, or a sodding "icon", or any fun thing at all, and israther a cherished component in a War Memorial, placed on or nearsome blood-soaked ground. I despair of my truant nation.Alexander Stoddart, 73 Maxwellton Road, Paisley. June 16.PUTTING together Monday's Diary item concerning St Donnan and hisfate at the hands of the Big Woman of Eigg and today's news that StIsidore of Seville is in the running for the post of Patron Saint ofthe Internet I realised that the aforementioned Donnan would be agood candidate for the position of Patron Saint of Young Men in theNew Millennium.Given that other marginalised or stigmatised categories have theirpatron saints it seems only reasonable that this hapless andprobablyredundant human sub-group should have some special intercessor toplead their cause with the Big Superhuman Person in the Sky. FrancisFukuyama, for all his involvement in their plight, has the demeritofstill being "in the flesh".Rumours that a desperate protest against the inexorable drift ofhumanity towards a bee-like biology and hive-like society will bemade by the burning of gigantic twin wicker effigies of LesleyRiddoch and Germaine Greer on Stirling Castle Rock at the nextWinterSolstice are probably unfounded.Geo S Neil Mochrie,