Act of Union
I went to Scotland with questions about national identity and life answered them by putting Tobias Menzies on my commute to work.
A Week in the Life is where I share snippets into what my life in London is like over the course of a week. Expect thoughts and reflections on everything under the sun. Or grey skies, this is London after all. Let’s keep it real.
Friday 16th January
Yes, I admit it. I have mid-January birthday privilege and I’m here to exploit it. That’s why, on this cold and sunless London morning I’m getting on a train to embark on what has become a tradition: celebrating my birthday with a trip.
My destination is none other than Edinburgh, a city that invented the term glow up when it went from being known as Auld Reekie to becoming the Athens of the North. To say that I have been looking forward to this journey with sky high levels of excitement would be quite the understatement. Right now I could defeat an army of dementors in my sleep.
While I may be in what you could call a marriage of convenience with London, Edinburgh is actually the first place I lived in the UK and you never forget a first love, nor stop idealising the life you could have had with it.
Back in 2008 I spent a month living with a really nice and welcoming young family during a summer job. Two things were obvious to me as soon as I arrived. The first one was that I couldn’t understand a word of what anyone said. The second was the incredible similarity between Scottish and Spanish character and how friendly and chatty everyone was. I felt right at home, except for the understanding what people said to me part.
During that month I also experienced every weather condition known to man (a good summer according to locals), I attended the hen party of the lady who was hosting me (it was an absolute blast!), and miraculously survived eating my first (and hope last because I doubt I’ll survive that ordeal again) haggis, which my work supervisor had taken great care in preparing when she invited me to her house for a farewell dinner.
By the time I took the plane back home I could still not understand much of what was being said to me but I realised I had fallen in love with Edinburgh, Scottish people, and their incomprehensible and wonderful accent. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t haggis after all what I ate! Anyway, I am happy to live with that doubt and in no rush to repeat the experience.
I returned to Edinburgh in 2018, for a glorious May bank holiday, where the city looked its absolute best, like an old flame that is excited to know you’re in town for a few days and makes a display of charm without reserve. While everyone kept reminding me it was rather unusual to have sunny dry skies for three days in a row -which I already knew- I couldn’t help but fell a bit deeper in love with the city and the way its people are and sound.
This time there is another reason I have been looking forward to this trip beyond taking back to London more good memories.
This third visit comes at a crucial time in which I’ve been forced to think about national identity and what it means to become a British citizen, something I had never been particularly interested in but which I may need to unwillingly embrace to enjoy the privilege of paying taxes here in peace.
My issue is not so much becoming a citizen of another country -I don’t think I’ll have so many reservations were a Scottish passport available, although I doubt Scottish people would have put me in this situation in first place- as much as becoming British, which is nothing but an extension and imposition of Englishness, the default and only acceptable setting for a certain group of people who as of late happen to be intent on kicking out of the country those who don’t adhere to this narrow definition and even narrower representation.
My predicament is actually not very different to the options Scotland faced when the Act of Union of 1707 was put on the table and the country had to choose between the pragmatism of becoming one with England and being part of a bigger commercial and trade union to recover from the Darien disaster in exchange of its independence, or the pride of keeping its own identity and governing bodies although with an uncertain economic future ahead of it. Eventually the union, while it removed autonomy and didn’t prevent a few attempts to restore the exiled Catholic branch of the Stuart monarchy, catapulted Scotland to the global arena, transforming the country into an economic, cultural and intellectual powerhouse in record time, while successfully keeping a distinct national identity.
Perhaps this trip can shed some light on how I could pull off an equally successful Act of Union without regretting it later or losing my sanity in the process.
Arrived at Waverley station, I head to my hotel and I discover with great joy that my room overlooks the Scott monument. Here is a monument built in homage to a man that put Scotland in the map again for the wide English public. The Scott monument is perhaps the world’s biggest monument ever erected to a writer, a concrete symbol and tangible reminder of the power of writers and the written word to shape reality and change perceptions for the better to bring people together.
While I’d love to sit in my room and do nothing but stare out of the window as the sun sets over the city, I need to unpack and change because as part of the birthday festivities, I’ve booked a whisky tasting this evening. Two hours later, I am seated next to a man from Brazil who is traveling across Scotland with his wife. She doesn’t like whisky, so he’s come on his own but they’re meeting later for dinner. He is also telling me they’ve just spent two weeks touring the Highlands.
“You’re very brave to go up there in January,” I say as I take a sip of my dram while he tells me about their trip and how much they’ve loved the quietness and the winter landscape.
“It was ok. We’ve been to Alaska before and spent 45 days there, so I guess we’re used to extreme cold by now.”
“What does one do 45 days in Alaska???”
“Ah, well, we’re YouTubers and our work is to create travel content,” he says with a smile as he proceeds to show me a picture on his phone of him and his wife in an all-white landscape in front of a tattered van. “We built this van ourselves, back in Brazil, and drove all the way up across America to Alaska. It was a dream come true,” he says with a twinkle in his eye and I can tell he’ll be reminiscing about that trip with his wife when they meet later for dinner.
We raise our drams and toast to the freedom of live on your own terms.
Didn’t Burns write something about whisky and freedom?
It’ll come back to me later.
Saturday 17th January
The celebratory exploits of yesterday (three whiskys and a bottle of hot sake over dinner) have miraculously not caused any serious damage.
For good measure I decide to order a substantial breakfast that can fight off any delayed hungover symptoms. Not having to prepare your own food, especially after a night of drinking, is one of the greatest luxuries in life. Having the newspaper delivered to your door is probably the other and thanks to mid-January birthday privilege I am able to enjoy both.
Although Edinburgh castle remains one of the few cultural sights still on my bucket list, today the weather is marvelous (this city enjoys teasing me) and it would be a waste of sun to spend the morning locked inside a walled up place designed to prevent attacks from the outside world. I can always enjoy that experience at my flat in London for free.
Instead, I decide to explore places I didn’t get to see properly in previous visits, such as The Writers’ Museum. One doesn’t come to a city that was appointed Unesco’s first City of Literature, which has a train station, a bridge, steps, and a market named after a novel, and the biggest monument ever dedicated to the writer who wrote said novel, without at least paying your respects to the Holy Trinity of Scottish letters: Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Out of the three, I am more familiar with Stevenson, having read Treasure Island and The Black Arrow in my late teens, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde right before Christmas, which I found fascinating. I’ve brought with me in this trip a beautiful edition of a collection of his writings on Edinburgh because a bit of method reading never did anyone any harm.
As for national bard Robert Burns -a fellow January baby as per the unmissable reminders of the upcoming Burns’ Night celebrations on 25th January- I first learned about him and his significance for Scottish literature through the excellent Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, although I felt a bit intimidated until now to explore his work. I’m determined to acquire a collection of his poems in this trip because I love buying books in a place that has a connection to them. Last time I was here I bought The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, another famous Scottish writer, and it’s one of the best memories I have from that trip. So what better place than Edinburgh, whose literary salons made Burns a XVIII century pop idol, to finally get a copy of his famous verses? If a poet has an annual event dedicated to him that has carried on for 200 years there must be a good reason.
As for Scott, I must confess that I considered him a dated author and have read more about him than by him. Blame this on the fact that I didn’t get to study him properly (nor Burns or Stevenson for that matter), while doing my English degree1. I have now educated myself enough to appreciate Scott’s literary output had a tremendous impact not only on other European writers (would War & Peace exist as we know it without Waverley?) but also on shaping Scotland’s national and cultural identity.
With permission of Diana Gabaldon and her best-selling historical time-traveling romance Outlander set in the Highlands at the height of the Jacobite rising of 1745, few other people have done more than Walter Scott to engineer a successful marketing campaign to sell the world a highly romanticised version of Scotland that not even Queen Victoria could resist to fall for. If Scott lived today, he’d be an Instagram influencer pestering our algorithms with reels on “How to choose your clan tartan for summer” and “Best inns in Prestonpans for a victory dram.”
I’m not leaving this city without Waverly in my suitcase.
After a massive fish and chips that I fear may have single-handedly infringed fishing quotas, I make my way to the National Museum of Scotland where I go straight to the area with the Jacobite rising exhibits2. I head then to the sixth floor dedicated to contemporary Scotland from post-WWII to our days.
It’s here that I learn about the multi-award winning play Black Watch by Gregory Burke, the first work commissioned by the National Theatre of Scotland and which premiered at the Fringe in 2006 to rave reviews as it explored the question of national identity through a group of soldiers deployed in Iraq belonging to the elite infantry regiment of the Black Watch before it was incorporated into the Royal Scottish Regiment.
I make a mental note of the title to search for it at my next stop, which is another institution both in England and Scotland: Blackwell’s, Edinburgh’s oldest library. As luck has it, there’s a few copies of the play, which includes pictures of the original production as well as the revival of 2010 which features, low and behold, a babyfaced Jack Lowden and Richard Rankin before they became household names.
I also make sure to get a collection of Robert Burns’ poems. Surely Scots can’t be more incomprehensible than reading Shakespeare. Besides, now that Scotts and Gaelic have been recognised as official languages of Scotland, it’s seems the perfect time to tackle Burns’s work.
Talking about Shakespeare, time to head back to the hotel as I’m going to see Hamnet at the hotel’s cinema.
Being in bed within 15 minutes of watching a film on a cinema and not having to leave the building you are in has unlocked a level of privilege I didn’t know existed. And all because the powers that be decided I should be born at a time when everyone is too broke or too miserable to go anywhere other than bed (which I assume is nowhere near a home cinema), so I am the unexpected beneficiary of the deals hotels throw out in desperation to catch someone in their net during dead season.
Sunday 18th January
After another delicious breakfast that I don’t have to cook and reading a newspaper I don’t have to buy, today I’m off to a laywoman’s place of worship: the National Galleries of Scotland.
The last time I was here I remained mesmerised by John Signet Sargent’s portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. For some strange reason, a few months after returning to London, perhaps as a result of all the sudden changes that took place in my life, my mind decided that this painting had magically relocated overnight to Tate Britain and created an alternative reality in which I had seen it there for the first time. It took a few visits to finally shake off that misconception and put Lady Agnes back at her rightful place of residence.
This time I’ve come to see a very specific painting. Blame it on The Crown season 3 and its Balmoral Industrial complex for my presence in front of it but there is no turning back now. If Outlander and The Crown have taught me anything is that if there is a propaganda I am more than willing to fall for it’s an idealised Highlands lifestyle, with its Baronial style castles, dashing Jacobite rebels, and elusive red deers roaming free against dramatic landscapes. Not to mention Tobias Menzies serving stellar performances as both a sadist English Captain Jack Randall in XVIII Scotland3 and the best Prince Philip ever. Actually, seasons 3 and 4 have the strongest overall cast and storylines it shows.
All this to explain why I am admiring a majestic royal stag that has been used in anything from biscuits to whisky with the same fervor others reserve for religious images. The Monarch of the Glen, no less, by Sir Edwin Landseer, a painting that the National Galleries of Scotland could finally acquired in 2016 thanks to the support of the public. An unmistakable symbol of this country that I am certain even my fickle memory would resist to place anywhere else than here, where it belongs.
After a dose of art, the girl about town is in desperate need of treats, which is my cue to hit Stockbridge’s market first and the many charity shops in the area next. I am already salivating at the potential book findings.
As I take in the atmosphere and vibe of this side of the city I remark that it looks very similar to Kentish Town if Kentish Town were cleaner, people dressed better and the high street were less run down overall. Which probably means that Stockbridge is actually more like Hampstead if Hampstead were a bit edgier, the people were less posh, and the high street wasn’t full of overpriced French fashion brands and overpriced everything in general. While this may not be very useful unless you’re familiar with those areas already, the important thing is that Stockbridge is the bricks and mortar manifestation of my heart’s desires and in the same way Lady Agnes and the Monarch of the Glen at belong to the National Gallery of Scotland, I belong here.
I venture inside the Oxfam bookshop and in the self to the left of the door a pristine copy of The Outrun by Amy Liptrot catches my attention. I watched the film adaptation with Saoirse Ronan (produced by Jack Lowden) when it came out last year and it was beautiful. I take the book, open it and I find a receipt inside. Bought in July 2024 in Orkney. Someone else shares my method reading/book buying approach.
I interpret this as a sign and head to the counter. I ask for a receipt so I can put it inside when I’m finished reading it. That way, when I take it to the charity shop in London, someone will have an extra piece to imagine the journey this book and the people who have read it may have embarked on.
Monday 19th January
No hint of blue Monday this side of the border, quite the opposite in fact. It’s a glorious crisp and sunny day, perfect to head all the way up to Calton Hill and observe Edinburgh from the top.
An extraordinary effort considering the early hour and the frosty temperature that I reward with a visit to a place that I’ve been dreaming of visiting since I knew I’d be coming back to this city: Topping & Company.
Is this bookshop my idea of a dream home? You can say that. Rooms after rooms filled to brim with books, with a few scattered tables near the windows for cosy reading. And those ladders are pure class. I leave with a nice edition of Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson and to my delight with another volume by Conan Doyle featuring more adventures of Professor Challenger. While I am a massive Sherlock Holmes fan, after reading The Lost World I became quite fond of the obnoxious know-it-all Challenger and I wish Conan Doyle had written at least one story in which him and Holmes met. The explosive character of Professor Challenger would have put Sherlock Holmes’ composure to the test and that would have been quite fun to read.
En route to the National Portrait Gallery to admire a few portraits of Bonnie Prince Charlie (a man born and raised in Italy who had barely set foot in Scotland and yet somewhow managed to raise a small army to reclaim the crown of England is the epitome of the British imperial mindset and for that alone he deserved victory), I walk past a statue of Sherlock Holmes. Very fitting, dear Watson.
Actually, it is a statue in honour of Arthur Conan Doyle representing his most famous and enduring creation. I’m not sure how he would’ve taken this homage considering Conand Doyle had to reluctantly bring back to life Holmes after killing him in order to be free to explore other genres, such as sci-fiction.
For me, on the other hand, Sherlock Holmes is a beloved character who will be forever associated with my earliest and fondest memories of reading and being completely absorbed in and enthralled by a story. I first encountered him at the age of 8, maybe 9, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, a book I’ve read five times in three different languages and which is probably responsible for planting in my infant mind the idea that one could embark in very exciting adventures when living elsewhere, even if in this particular case that meant narrowly escaping being fatally mauled by a massive hound while running across Dartmoor.
Could perhaps the dog phobia I developed around that time be tracked back to this book? Elementary, my dear Watson.
Tuesday 20th January
For my last day I order pancakes with streaky bacon and maple syrup, which are pure scrumptious perfection. I do not think I am mentally ready to go back to having avocado on toast after this.
The newspaper informs me that King Charles was at Holyrood Palace yesterday, hosting a roundtable with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and a group of Scottish businesses to celebrate innovation. More interestingly, attendees discussed their concerns about the impact of further US tariffs on Scottish goods such as salmon, textiles and of course whisky, which would force many distilleries to scale back production even more -and putting jobs at risk- following the existing 10% tariff already in place for one of Scotland’s leading exports.
The minister for business and employment, Richard Lochhead, is quoted calling for alternatives that work for everyone. “I urge the US to focus on dialogue not tariffs and all countries need to send that message to the US administration.”
The encounter was followed by a whisky tasting, the article concludes.
Freedom and whisky gang thigether, tak’ off your dram!, that’s what Burns wrote. He got it right from the beginning.
After breakfast I visit the Scottish National Library, where I spend the morning admiring the highlights of its collection. Among other things, these include a first edition of Pride & Prejudice, a first edition of Burn’s poems, and the handwritten letter that ordered Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon to kill any member of the clan MacDonald under 70 in punishment for having failed to sign an oath of allegiance to William III within the set deadline. The massacre of Glencoe, as it would be referred to, was made the more tragic as the perpetrators’ army had benefited from the hospitality of the MacDonalds, which was considered by a later Scottish Parliament Commission inquiry “murder under trust.”
My last moments in Edinburgh are dedicated to visiting the John Knox statue at New College. It is very quiet except for two girls who are taking pictures of each other. As I look at the statue, I can’t help but think of David Tennant, who played Knox in Mary Queen of Scots where Saoirse Ronan interprets the leading role while Jack Lowden (post Black Watch but pre The Outrun production credit) is the treacherous Lord Darnley. This is also the film where Ronan and Lowden met and fell in love and now they have a baby and live in London happy together.
Who would have expected such a happy ending from a film about high treason where both their characters are murdered in the name of the intrigues and power struggles for the fight for the crown of England while religious turmoil boils in the background?
When I’m brought back from my recollection of useless trivia, the girls have switched to selfies. I may be missing something here but how someone can take 150 pictures of their face in the angle and against the same background and still not be satisfied is a mystery to me. As I too would like to capture the courtyard and the ongoing photographic session seems to have no end in sight, I do the unthinkable and ask if they can please move to the side for a moment.
Barely 30 seconds after managing to deploy the girls out of the frame for a picture, a heavily accented American voice startles me, “Can you move? I’m only here for a few minutes.” The exasperation in the tone is not commensurate with the few seconds that must have separated the arrival of its owner from my taking of position.
As I make my way to the stone portico to leave, the man wastes no time and I hear his voice, loud and clear, echoed once again against the walls.
“Ladies, this ain’t no Vogue special, so can you please get out of the way? I’m on a bit of a rush here. Thank you for your cooperation.”
All things considered, there are definitely worse things in life than becoming British.
Wednesday 21s January
After the initial shock of having to make my own breakfast and not having any newspaper delivered at my door this morning, the Scotland withdrawal symptoms are hitting hard.
I may be wrong but perhaps my ultimate Act of Union is to finally visit the places that have lived rent free in my mind for the past two months and become one with them.
Willing to put this theory to the test, I've booked a trip to the Highlands.
Meanwhile, I’m aghast with the lack of Burns’ Night treats in any supermarket in my neighborhood. We’re being robbed.
Thursday 20th January
I decide against reading on the train because at almost 1,000 pages Dragonfly in Amber, the second volume of Outlander, is not precisely convenient to handle on one hand while trying to not trip over other people in a packed train.
As I look around in vain to double check for any available seats, I catch a glimpse of a familiar face and my heart skips a beat. I look again with all the nonchalance and poise of someone who until very recently has had her breakfast made and the newspaper delivered to her door and a clear visual confirms my initial assessment.
Tobias Menzies (alias Prince Philip, alias Jack Randall) is standing in front of me in all his glorious, dashing and impeccably dressed self. Very nice suede shoes I notice.
While I am dying to tell him I have been watching a lot of him since Christmas and how an amazing actor he is, a packed train which offers zero privacy is neither the time nor the place for this type of unsolicited fangirling.
We get off at the same stop so I assume he must be going to the rehearsing space next to my office, which means he may be soon on stage. Because I’m slightly ahead of him, I could easily catch him off guard at the turnstiles, the most strategic point for a surprise attack as he surely doesn’t expect to be approached in the open after having made the train journey without being recognised. I decide to put this terrible idea aside because my motto when fate puts a famous person in my path is “Be the fan you’d like to have one day,” which means I make my way to the office as if I hadn’t spent my commute with Captain Randall himself.
I can’t help but wonder what this encounter means at a time when I need clarity and answers about my future.
Of all the people I could have bumped into today it had to be an actor who has played two roles that represent the dichotomy of my current predicament. A man who has tasted the impositions England places on you and the freedom Scotland bestows.
Should I stay in a place I feel it will never accept me fully and which demands I become something I am not to survive, like Prince Philip in The Crown, or is it time to go somewhere else where I am allowed to be who I am without reserve, like the sadist Randall acting in total impunity in Outlander?
An image of the layout of the rehearsing space next door appears in my mind. There is a cafe open to the public and, to the best of my knowledge, it is the only entrance from the street to the building.
It seems I may need to spend the lunch break stalking after all. Like Prince Philip did with deers and Jack Randall with the Jacobites.
So much for inconspicuous and unsolicited fangirling.
Abroad is an independent publication about London, living in between cultures, creativity, and being human in the age of artificial intelligence.
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Short story of a long story is that in the years I was meant to cover British literature of the XVIII and XIX century I was studying abroad something different. International academic exchanges can be funny like that.
Outlander has done more damage than I ever thought it capable of.
Tobias Menzies actually plays two different characters in Outlander who live in different timelines: Frank Randall, a historian from the XX century who is trying to gather information about his ancestor Captain Jack Randall, an English officer in Jacobite Scotland knicknamed Black Randall for his brutality. Needless to say the juicy one is Jack Randall and Menzies is chillingly terrifying in this role.
Amazing article. I was so swept up in your description of Edinburgh and its amazing culture that I was halfway out the door before I realized that I don't have any money, tickets, or availability to actually get to Scotland. Bah, details to be sorted out later. In literary terms I absolutely have to get there at some point. Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson are two of my all-time favorite authors. I just read Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae recently. Earlier this week I scored perhaps my greatest achievement in trying to build my physical library by getting the entire collection of Scott's Waverly novels. I can't leave sir Arthur Conan Doyle out either. I've read every single Sherlock Holmes story he ever wrote and have multiple editions of the works. My dream is to one day visit Abbotsford and see Scott's incredible home.
Love Edinburgh… one of my favourite cities to visit. Great article and photos…thank you for sharing!