On Brawling and Sport...

#2.5 As Scots are quite sociable and have steam to blow before they come to the brink of sobriety, brawling is a common occurrence. Down at a corner pub, it is typical for a limerick to become a full-throttled elegy that will become increasingly louder and thicker in locution-- rolling “R’s” et al. But lest he or she lose their privilege of re-entry to their fine corner pub establishment, they won’t escalate any further. In the event that they’re really pissed (emotionally and figuratively,) the anger will come in the form of a broken beer bottle, a quintessentially British threat. At this point, bystanders are man-under. The situation is going to be bloody. This doesn’t borrow from the ridiculous theater of Talk, where the man knows he can bark all he wants in front of his backup dancers without so much as his hair-part shifting. No, in Glasgow, brawling is not billed for an entertainment value, it repels people, thus to make the institution of Drink more pedestrian-friendly, the law has cracked down.

"Fraternity"

Brawling has resulted in the removal of bottled-beers sold in pubs, and in other towns, the limitation of how close men can rub elbows. Even more severe, the house where every man takes off his hat in, the football stadium, prohibits alcohol consumption altogether. The football stadium is a place of worship, but like any

zealot, heaven and hell are the only boundaries.

Football, like so many other parts non-North America, is the real all-purpose metaphor for nailing a culture. So, elaboration is unnecessary. Watching the World cup was great fun, like an athletic U.N. bar in which I could play ignorant while rooting on the mite of Ukraine. What euphoria!

Now, to participate in national or local football (as an audience member of course), you had to be a little more conscious for which team you were rooting on, not to mention minding the colors you blindly put on that day. Once in attendance of a live game, I was shocked just how surprisingly safe the whole excursion is.

To hear men in number sing to a chorus with lyrics like these, well it's quite touching:

Away up in Gorgie at Tynecastle Park,
There's a wee
football team that aye makes its mark,
They've won all the honours for
footballing arts,
And there's nae other team to compare with the Hearts

H-E-A-R-T-S !
If you cannae spell it then here's what it
says
Hearts glorious Hearts!
It's down at Tynecastle they
bide...

Well, you have swat police at the helm and horses from behind, plus the opposing team enters and exits the stadium on the opposite side. You can’t even bet with the visitors come halftime. I was really impressed by the worldliness too. I found that we were seated at the behest of every other foreigner, Japanese, French, Polish and the lot, all in our section in the far corner of the world! No lie, watching live football is pretty riveting.