The Proclaimers, a Shared Future, and some mountains

I read an article in the paper last week on the new musical "Sunshine on Leith" featuring the music of the Proclaimers, which is taking Scotland by storm. Their album of the same name sold 25,000 copies in the UK LAST YEAR!!

Coincidently later that dayI went for a walk with the dog and "Letter from America" was the first song that started playing on shuffle on my ipod. It was one of the songs that always seemed to be around when I was a boy, and dad liked it too so anytime we were in the car he would turn it up if it came on the radio. I love their music - funny, honest, delightfully out-of-kilter with musical trends, and unashamedly sentimental.

There's something very comforting about their music - their greatest hits should be in everyone's collection. No they're definitely not cool but there's a unifying, generation-spanning attraction to their music. Lisa used to tell me of going clubbing in Glasgow during her student days when, at the end of each night the DJ would put on "5oo miles" and the crowd would split into two, singing the song to each other. I've worked with Scots about my age who love their music as well. I remember very vividly a conversation with a drunken Glaswegian woman in a chip shop off Sauchiehall Street one night a few years back- she was coming out of a (sold-out) concert of theirs across the road and told me they were the greatest band on the earth.

Maybe I've been over-exposed to NI recently, but sometimes (just sometimes) I long to be Scottish. My family are of Ulster-Scots stock, and a recent expedition to the summit of Ben Nevis last Winter showed me how stunning the country is, and brought a lump to my throat. The BBC's "Mountain" programme focussed on the Cairngorms this week and it was absoutely breathtaking.

I love it that, despite sectarian divisions - there is a common music that the Scottish people can laugh, dance and sing to together. In the north everything is still so polarised - our culture - music, sport, leisure activities - not too mention many streets in Belfast still divided by "peace" walls. A government strategy called "A Shared future" has set out to try and tackle this but has shown little sign of being implemented. Our politicians are happy to get on with "bread and butter" issues in the new devolved government but have forgotten about the daily bread of our people just getting on with each other.

That's a mountain to climb.