Ramsay’s TV ‘s***hole’ slur ‘vilifies town’s poor’
Council hits back after celebrity chef slags off Falkirk during quiz show
CELEBRITY chef Gordon Ramsay has been accused of “vilifying the poor” by calling Falkirk a “s***hole”.
The local council used its Twitter page to hit back, pointing out that one in five young people in the area were living in poverty and 660 aged 16 to 24 were unemployed.
It added: “When someone with lots of money describes a place as a s***hole, what they’re really doing is vilifying the poor”.
The post was quickly deleted, though.
A separate tweet was then posted by Falkirk Council, saying: “Deleted that previous tweet. They were all facts but the point was sadly missed.”
Council bosses have also updated their Twitter bio to reflect the comment made by potty-mouthed Ramsay.
Ramsay made the jibe during his BBC1 quiz show
Bank Balance when a pair of contestants mistakenly named Falkirk as one of the five cities in Scotland.
The show’s host told them that he was born in Scotland and that, “Falkirk is not a city, it’s a s *** hole, I swear to God.”
A spokesperson for the council said: “When a celebrity knocks your area and its citizens it is hard to not feel affected.
“The word ‘s***hole’ has a really negative meaning and this tweet was sent to challenge this.
“Unfortunately, the tweet was taken the wrong way by a few and we have since deleted the post.”
The escapades of artist Ewen Bain’s cartoon Highlander became a favourite of Daily Record readers. Now his daughter is giving a whole new audience the chance to enjoy them BY ANNIE BROWN a.brown@dailyrecord.co.uk
IN THE misty Utter Hebrides, there lies the Isle of Drambeg and on it dwells the simple crofter – Angus Og. So began the cartoon capers of the madcap Angus, whose escapades gripped Scotland through the pages of the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail.
Accomplished artist and “Skyeman from Maryhill”, Ewen Bain, drew life into Angus and the residents of the fictitious Drambeg, for almost 30 years.
The strip ended with Ewen’s death in 1989 but now Angus will find a whole new audience after thousands of his cartoons were donated to a public archive.
Ewen’s daughter, Rhona, who inherited the collection, felt it should be shared, for its entertainment value but also its narrative of Scotland’s social history.
Rhona said: “I didn’t want them to end up sitting in someone’s attic. The cartoons are there to be enjoyed by as many people as possible.
“They are very witty and they have a significance as a social history of a particular part of the Scottish culture. It seemed worthwhile preserving them in a proper archive.”
The cartoons had a large and loyal following and were often the first thing a reader would turn to before they digested the news.
Ewen, a fluent Gaelic speaker, was born in Maryhill in Glasgow but his parents came from Skye where he spent his childhood holidays.
His studied at the Glasgow School of Art, where he met his artist wife Sheila, and they both became teachers.
He had created cartoons since he was a student and his first comic strip, based on extra-terrestrial creatures called “The Bleeps”, was published in the penny paper, the Glasgow Bulletin.
A features editor at the Bulletin suggested, given Ewen’s Skye connections, he should do a Highland-based strip and in 1960 Angus Og was created.
When the Bulletin folded in the same year, the strip moved to the Daily Record where it was published six days a week, with a single cartoon in the Sunday Mail.
The demand allowed Ewen to give up teaching and became a full-time cartoonist.
Ewen loved his work and Rhona’s enduring memory of her dad is at his desk, immersed in the adventures of Angus. She said: “Angus Og was just part of my childhood. I used to get to read them before they were taken to the print room at the Record.”
The drawings are beautifully executed and vibrant, bringing to life characters, such as Mrs Og, Angus’s mother in her headscarf and apron, or Lachie Mor, his hapless best friend, Mairileen, his blonde bombshell girlfriend and his Lairdship, the dim landowner. And there are intricate depictions of the windswept landscapes, the crofts and animals, such as the odd talking cat or Rosie the Highland coo.
As an active supporter of independence, he did satirise Westminster, often platforming rural issues of contention like British Summer Time and the closure of island schools.
There were references to major events such as the World Cup, the Winter of Discontent and cameos from prime ministers Jim Callaghan and Harold Wilson.
If there was a villain, it was the pernicious Margaret Thatcher, and he
It’s part of Skye’s history but also the local history of Scotland CATHERINE MacPHEE ON IMPACT OF EWEN’S WORK
made digs about her ruthlessness and right-wing agenda.
But mainly the cartoons were just fun, with Angus invariably off on a tangent in some money making scheme, that would inevitably backfire.
Former SNP politician Winnie Ewing, a close friend of Ewen and Sheila, said the cartoons “observed the essential qualities of the Scots’ failings and virtues”.
The workload was relentless and occasionally Ewen would get stuck on a plot but he was a keen observer and was inspired by the world around him.
Rhona said: “He would be listening to people’s conversations on a bus or in a queue, looking for the funny and absurd side of life. He was very good at capturing that.
“He would use things that happened to us, like we would get a new dog and the next thing Angus Og would have some daft dog or cat.”
Ewen was a modest, gentle and funny man, who would laugh off praise of his talent, with “och, it’s better than working”.
Rhona said: “He would approve of the archive centre having the collection but probably wonder why any of us would fuss. He was not a man for self promotion.”
Sadly, Ewen died at the age of 64, a victim of a the 1989 flu epidemic which claimed 26,000 lives in the UK.
He left unfinished his last cartoon, “The Devil to Pay”.
Rhona said: “He didn’t ever think about retiring and always said he would go on, until the pen fell from his hand and that’s pretty much what happened.”
After his death Sheila, preserved the collection and when she died, it was passed to Rhona who gave about 8000 cartoons to the Skye and Lochalsh archive centre in March last year.
Catherine MacPhee, an archivist with the centre, said they were delighted with the collection.
She said: “It is important it survives because it’s part of Skye’s history but also Scotland’s social history. I think people will love it.”
When Covid restrictions lift, the archive hopes to exhibit the collection, potentially taking it on tour and sharing it on its website.
Angus Og books and strips are still traded between collectors and Rhona is selling some of father’s original cartoons for charity. For details of how you can buy an original, see AngusOg.scot
WORKS OF HEART Ewen’s daughter Rhona Flin, right. Below, Ewen, who died in 1989
STEAMING ahead in this week’s Picture Scotland contest is this stunning photo of the Jacobite train in the shadow of Ben Nevis.
The image was taken by Frances Waite, who also sent in a pic of Lochan na
Fola in Glencoe. Other entries included Raymond Watson’s photo of a beautiful bay on Iona and a winter wonderland shot taken near his home on the banks of the River Irvine.
Ryan Baston’s tranquil image of trees reflected in the water at Kinlochard in Aberfoyle was another pic to catch the eye.
Do you think you have the photography skills to win our £100 prize? We want to see your pictures of our beautiful country.