{"id":46814,"date":"2019-02-06T05:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=46814"},"modified":"2019-02-05T10:25:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T15:25:21","slug":"the-haggis-croquette-is-the-most-london-thing-ever-done-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/02\/06\/the-haggis-croquette-is-the-most-london-thing-ever-done-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"“The haggis croquette is the most London-thing ever done in London”"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the IEA<\/em>, Andy Mayer<\/a> reports on the first attempted Burns Night Supper in the City of London:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made with sheep’s heart, liver and lungs, and stomach (or sausage casing); onion, oatmeal, suet, and spices. It’s either a local delicacy or an elaborate joke played on the English (take your pick).
Photo by “Lordvolom1” via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week the City of London held their first attempt at a Burns night supper, with the First Minister and representatives of the Scottish Government as guests of honour.<\/p>\n

It is a difficult tradition to get wrong. Largely it requires steaming piles of Scotland\u2019s revenge on the sausage, poetry that the English politely pretend to understand while feeling vaguely threatened, and bonhomie to overcome it, enabled through litres of distillate infused with the flavour of an entire peat bog.<\/p>\n

The City served haggis croquettes, with wine.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s possibly a Glaswegian satirist somewhere who\u2019s just given up. \u201cAch I canne compete. The sassenach dough-monkeys just served wee Nicola a haggis croquette, on Rabbie Burns night! I\u2019m breaking-me pen<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in Shoreditch two Millenials have just set up the Haggis Croquette Cafe, serving Organic Iron-Bru made from recycled plastic girders. The haggis croquette is the most London-thing ever done in London.<\/p>\n

I spent much of the evening talking to trade officials. Their job is to sell Scottish opportunity around the world and open up its markets.<\/p>\n

This was interesting \u2013 how would descendants of Adam Smith visiting the birthplace of trade economist David Ricardo define their comparative advantage? What can Scotland do better than anyone else? What might they do well enough that they can carve out positions, despite larger rivals, better off leaving such things to Scotland? Fundamentally, how are they going to compete?<\/p>\n

There was an uneasy pause after these questions. And then to paraphrase, \u201cOh no, we don\u2019t want to compete, we want to cooperate! With everyone! Not being threatening, that\u2019s our advantage!\u201d<\/p>\n

I feel very sure that Smith, on hearing this, would have reached out, to extend the invisible hand of history across time, to give this official a mild slap. \u201cEncouraging competition, with and from other places, and then getting out of the way, is the whole point\u201d, he might say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the IEA, Andy Mayer reports on the first attempted Burns Night Supper in the City of London: Last week the City of London held their first attempt at a Burns night supper, with the First Minister and representatives of the Scottish Government as guests of honour. It is a difficult tradition to get wrong. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25,57],"tags":[484,262,156,350,338],"class_list":["post-46814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-economics","category-humour","tag-competition","tag-culture","tag-fail","tag-london","tag-scotland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cb4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46818,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46814\/revisions\/46818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}