Hogmanay | Hacker News Reader

Hogmanay

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90 pointscf100clunk47 comments

It's funny seeing Hogmanay on HN. It's such a basic fact of life in Scotland, it's like seeing the wikipedia article for Christmas on the front page

Joking aside, the history of Christmas is genuinely quite fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#History

Particularly in Scotland, where celebrating Christmas was technically illegal until 1958

It was made a bank holiday in Scotland in 1871. So I imagine if it was "technically illegal" it would've been some antiquated law along the lines of those "you can kill a welshman within the city limits on a Sunday" ones that would not have been enforced for centuries.

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld has a christmas santa analogue called the “Hogfather” - essentially the anthropomorphic personification of the winter solstice. I’d never heard of Hogmanay before - but I can’t help but feel it must have fed into his narrative mythology.

Some day I hope we as a species can come together in unity to declare the solstice celebrations on their actual solar day instead of smeared messily around those dates, based on arbitrary religions. Metric holidays.

Hey, I know this holiday! It was one of the questions on the Life in the UK test. Finally I feel a little bit more British than the average HNer.

Another fun fact, which is in the linked Wikipedia article but also inescapably in my head: Hogmanay traditions include singing the folk song "Auld Lang Syne" by the Scottish poet Robert Burns aka "The Bard" who wrote poems in the Scots language.

Thanks to Anki I've retained this information and now I like to tell people trivial facts about British life every chance I get.

In general, the Scots would not appreciate being called British, or lumped in with the British. So if you find yourself making use of this retained information in mixed company (ie, with a Scotsman) be sure to remember that Scottish != British.

Not sure how true a scotsman you are but I never heard that. It's fine to be called British, because (at least for now) that's accurate. What annoys scots is to be called English.

Perhaps you're thinking of the issue with sports reporting? (Where a Scottish athlete who wins is called British by the English press but when they lose they're Scottish?)

I know you mean well - there are people who do believe that and they would take offence to being called “British”. They need to learn to handle it though. As a Scot who would describe themselves as “Scottish” when asked my nationality and who probably has similar feelings about Scottish independence as those people - I feel like this kind of nitpicking is unhelpful and allows opposition to dismiss us as naive, petty and tribal. People getting all puffed up needlessly is embarrassing and you’d think by now they’d be used to whatever triggers this response, roll their eyes instead and generally take the high road.

Yes I’m Scottish, my passport says “British” and I share a lot of things culturally with our friends south of the border to the point that I would weigh in on any topic about “British” issues as one of them. Whether I like it or not, I’m as British as any English or Welsh person.

This (Scots != British) is not true, and it also is not universally true that all Scots would dislike being called British. True Scottish folk are Scottish first, British second, English never :) But many Scottish people are proud British citizens. I have a Scottish father who can confirm this.

Maybe sample bias then, most scots I've met resent the association, and are keen to dissolve it if possible. I think there's even a referendum upcoming to test the notion? Not sure on that bit.

It's the Venn diagram from hell, you know, and perhaps something went amiss in translation.

There's been a referendum (and may yet be another, not to mention numerous wars of years gone by) on the matter of being joined with the English as part of the United Kingdom - but that's not the same as digging a channel and casting adrift from the island of Great Britain, shared with other British folk such as the Welsh, the Cornish, and even (hack, spit) the English.

Are you, perhaps, conflating Britain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? There’s a potential upcoming referendum about the latter, not the former.

I think it's still a thing some people wouldn't like. Like if you had a super-hardline Unionist in Northern Ireland, and you insisted they were Irish (because they are from the island of Ireland) they might get a little upset.

I made a comment elsewhere saying that people shouldn't get upset about getting called "British" if they consider themselves Scottish above all. But likewise I don't think it's smart or considerate to be all "well actually..." about something deeply personal and strongly felt like someone's national identity or gender or anything like that. That's sort of asking for conflict.

Many Scots I know, including some serving in the British Army, disagree. Many Scots do wish to remain British and it isn't wise to make "in general" statements on a divisive issue.

To be fair it's not like they can serve in the Scottish Army is it.

I don’t think that’s what was meant. Squaddies tend be way more pro-Britain and pro-Royalty than the rest of the public. I have some ideas on why that might be, but it’s probably true throughout the rest of the world (ie there aren’t likely many pro-Basque or Catalan separatists in the Spanish army, or Quebec nationalists in the Canadian army)

A fair enough point.

I'm Scottish and British. Without getting too far into the politics of it, Scotland is literally on the island of Great Britain. From a purely geographical standpoint, Scottish people are British.

What other term would you use to describe people from the constituent nations of Great Britain?

63% of residents of Scotland describe themselves as Scottish only - not British.

18% Scottish and British, 8% British only.

https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/tableView/tabl...

Results were similar in 2011 too.

Canadians aren't Americans in a sense of "citizens of USA", but in geographical sense they are. The same applies here.

Using a specific definition of a word to tell people they’re wrong about their own identity usually doesn’t go over very well.

“British” almost always means “identifies with the UK”.

What do they put on a form when asked their nationality? Last time I checked my passport says "British".

I always put Scottish. British would also be acceptable.

Your link is broken. Are you able to provide another one?

This reads like a No True Scotsman argument

A few people telling you that you’re wrong when you’re correct, a lot of Scots (myself included) do not like to identify as British.

Yes, Scotland is within the island of Britain but many of us (though not all) identify as Scottish, not British.

This seems to come up a lot online and I wonder what percentage of people making the corrections are actually Scottish…

Fairly meaningless. Some do, some don’t. Personal annecdotes are useless as there’s plenty of Scots that identify as British and plenty of Scots that identify as Not British. Hell there’s plenty of people living in Scotland that don’t identify as Scottish.

The census puts is about 2 in 3 as Scottish Only though, not British, which is usable data.

I get the impression the OP is an American. Plenty of people in America believe they are Scottish despite their entire experience of Scotland being a day trip to Edinburgh and some tourist shop selling them a kilt because their great-granddad was born in Aberdeen.

Scotland is part of Great Britain. The "British" adjective basically denotes anything under Britain.

The Scottish language isn't in the Brittonic family. It is Anglic. However, English is also Anglic and not Brittonic, yet the English don't mind calling themselves British.

Go figure.

Who exactly do you think “the British” are?

That's like Canadians/Mexicans objecting to be called American when they do live in North America.

I've not heard of Scots objecting to the use of Britain/British, but they (and the Welsh) would most definitely complain (and rightly so) if anyone referred to them as English.

So which people(s) do you think are British, then?

Yawn.

If anyone from HN is visiting Edinburgh for Hogmanay, a great view of the fireworks can be had from the top of Calton Hill in the centre of the city. The best way to get up is the set of steps next to Howies on Regent Road.

Hasn't that been blocked off for the last 5 years? Can't have any freeloaders getting a good view of the fireworks.

Along with putting up boards along Prince's street and now completely blocking off the entire city center with barricades unless you pay to get in, this period seems quite anti-citizen.

Maybe! I haven't been into town for Hogmanay for about that long :)

Another good spot used to be the Vennel steps beside Heriot's, but it has become a popular Instagram/TikTok spot recently so might be busy.

The view from Inverness Park is also pretty great.

Inverleith Park? Great view

The first time I heard about this a friend told me that they had been to an Edinburgh celebration and everyone was blind drunk. People would line up shot glasses of Scotch on the curb and you could buy them off them by the foot. This was about 25 years ago, I'm not sure if this still holds true.

I doubt it, Edinburgh Hogmanay is extremely commercialised now by events companies.

Given how seminal to life on our planet the winter solstice is, I'm surprised the moment and subsequent three days is not more celebrated.

https://www.britannica.com/science/winter-solstice

In dark northern places like Scotland (Hogmanay) Scandinavia (Santa Lucia) this turning point is a profound and important part of life. Christmas etc was overlaid on this ancient awareness.

The Roman calendar 'new years eve' has always felt fake and depressing to me (Let's celebrate the start of a new tax year!) but I always feel something emotional at the solstice moment when the planet stops its tilt and a literal new cycle begins.

Alternative link: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Hogmanay?lang=en

but why?

Some reasons for using WikiLess are suggested here. Chief among them is state-level censorship:

https://github.com/Nangjing/wikiless/blob/main/README.md

The idea that the NSA cares you’re reading the article for Hogmanay is a bit of a stretch.

(Also, this isn’t an effective defense against them because they would sniff network traffic, not “infiltrate the destination server” which is detectable and anyway is a CDN. I think a caching proxy shared with other people would be more effective.)

> The idea that the NSA cares you’re reading the article for Hogmanay is a bit of a stretch.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=I+Have+Nothing+To+Hide

> I think a caching proxy shared with other people would be more effective

Thank you, that's food for thought. Happy Hogmanay, if that's a correct use of the term.

Looks like it gets rid of the "ask for money" screen.

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