When angry towns in Scotland attack

Poor, poor Ian Rankin. It seems anything he does, whether discovering crime scenes, getting accidentally recruited for police work or shopping for groceries gets written up in his hometown papers. Even throwaway comments he made on a book tour months earlier end up public and offending someone or another. Like the time he was in Hamilton, Ontario, and someone asked what he thought of the city:

In an interview for the local newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, he was asked for his impressions of the town.

He replied: "If it is anything like Hamilton in Scotland then I’m in for a real treat. Hamilton in Scotland is one of the roughest towns in the world."

Ooops. Because now those proud Hamiltonians are fighting back, and they aren’t very happy to see their lovely town besmirched:

"Hamilton is no longer a place where people play tig with hatchets," said Tommy Gilmour, independent councillor and former teacher from the town.

"I am quite staggered that someone should make such a sweeping statement like this. It is incredibly shocking and very ill-informed.

"I wouldn’t hold Hamilton up as some sort of utopia, but to say it is the roughest place in the world is over the top. Hamiltonians will be horrified to hear that from someone so eminent."

Aside from the whole mountain/molehill thing, um, why is it making news now? Rankin toured Canada last October, and besides, who the hell reads the Hamilton Spectator anyway?* Let alone in Scotland? Ah, viva le Worldwideinterweb. It brings people together–and makes them eternally crabby.

*I used to, but that was back when I paid attention to figure skating. Otherwise, nah.

UPDATE, 12:00 PM EDT: The Observer has a piece by another Scottish crime writer, Ruaridh Nicholl, about the whole brouhaha, although to be honest I read through the article three times and I still don’t quite get Nicholl’s point here.

And because I totally feel like breaking copyright this morning, the full text of the offending Spectator article appears after the jump.

RANKIN AND REBUS SHARE CYNICAL WIT

by Ken Kilpatrick, special to the Hamilton Spectator

October 8, 2004

“Are you happy now?” Scottish writer Ian Rankin asked after I’d taken a few pictures of him yesterday.

“As happy as I ever am,” I answered.

“I’m supposed to say that,” he said partially laughing.

Rankin,

a slim man with piercing grey-brown eyes, was referring to the writer

as a loner, working alone inside a private room, possibly wearing a

touch of melancholy like some sort of badge, putting down thoughts and

then going out and selling them — such as he is doing now with his

just-published new Rebus novel Fleshmarket Close (Orion, $24.95).

He

hasn’t visited Hamilton before but said “if it’s anything like Hamilton

in Scotland I’m in for a real treat. Hamilton in Scotland is one of the

roughest towns in the world.”

His laugh

was loud and somewhat wicked when he was told that Hamilton does have a

Canadian reputation as a tough steel city and that rough things happen

— even off the Tiger-Cat field.

His tour

is being promoted somewhat differently here — sort of as the writer as

rock star. Publicity stills show him glaring at the camera with a

bemused smirk on a face that hasn’t seen a razor for a few days and

longish hair creeping down over his forehead.

Yesterday,

the hair was short, the face was shaven and the look on his face was

anything but a glare and he seemed to disagree with the publicity plans.

“I

don’t think writers are rock stars,” he said.“Maybe more like

travelling salesmen. These days, you have to be in the public eye —

and you are performing. No one becomes a writer because they want to

get out there and perform in front of the public.

“They

become a writer because they are at their happiest and most content

when they are sitting in an empty room … just themselves and a paper

and a pen or a compute. Your book is sort of your way of announcing

yourself to the world.”

Rankin, 43, came

to the attention with the publication of his novels starring John

Rebus, a tough cop in a tough job. Rebus is the kind of police officer

who probably couldn’t hold a job these days. Everything he does is

overboard. Heavy smoker, heavier drinker, cynical, wary of authority

figures. But he is a man most of us can identify with and maybe even

like a little.

His latest novel deals with immigration in Scotland, racism and of course, murder.

“With

our new Scottish Parliament, we are asking ourselves ‘Who are the

Scots? Why do we deserve this new Parliament? What makes us different

from other people?

“There’s a central myth

in Scotland that we are welcoming to foreigners. But we’re not. There

used to be a joke that we were too busy with religious bigotry to have

any time for racism. In fact, we’ve got room in our hearts for both of

those.”

It’s becoming clearer and clearer

who John Rebus is modelled on. Rankin too is the master of the snide,

cynical one-liner that stops both other cops and criminals in their

tracks.