If I call John Smeaton British, will the Scots get angry?
If you haven’t seen or heard of John Smeaton, you’re missing an amazing cult hero being born. He’s the baggage handler who helped subdue one of the terrorists as he fought the policeman to get near the passengers and complete his mission. He’s already a YouTube hero because Glaswegians can understand him, but the rest of us have almost no idea what he’s saying. I tried to transcribe him, but couldn’t get it all, and then got bored and gave up. But there’s a very funny site up, with one person’s hunt for Smeaton, and the promise of 1,000 pints to the homegrown hero. It made me think of several things. First, my great-grandfather escaped from Latvia to Berlin after going underground for several years to avoid being impressed into the Czar’s army. When he got to Berlin, he took a look around and decided he didn’t like Germany. There was something about it. So he went to Scotland—Glasgow, in fact. My grandfather was born there. But when the U.K. entered WWI on the same side as Russia, my g
