HUGHEAVEN
It’s a wonderfully perverse Scottish thing to do: wait until the coldest time of year to have a huge get together. But that’s what we do, and over the next eight pages we bring you a guide to the best things on offer in Glasgow and Edinburgh over the New Year holidays. Kicking things off, Paul Whitelaw roots out the origins of the festival, back before the fireworks, revelry and crowds chanting Proclaimers songs.
14 THE LIST 1?, [)t." MM"; 2 in},
llugmunuy: (noun) In SUN/(Hid. I/It’ lust (lay of
the yew: The parties to rely/irate it slur! in the evening and continue until {/H' marl (lay. From the (tun/Midge xit/l'tlllt't’t/ Ix'iu'ner's Dit'liomuy.
es. it’s that special time of year again when we all unite in mourning the fact that (‘hristmas is definitely oyer and that soon it w ill be time to embark upon another year by soaking our bodies in more alcohol in one night than (ieorge Best managed in a lifetime. Many of us prefer to leaye our homes to join similarly desperate sotils. braving the elements in
the name of that wonderful triumyirate of
indulgences: dancing. cheering and snogging random strangers. ()thers prefer to sit at home in the dark. slumped in a whisky-sodden beanbag. entertaining thoughts of a gory demise for Jackie Bird. Both equally yalid approaches. of course. and all part of the magic of l Iogmanay.
The Scots could organise a piss-tip in a mortuary. so it‘s hardly surprising that New Year is such a huge deal here. The street celebrations in lidinburgh and (ilasgow attract around 200.000 people worldwide each year. and haye become renowned as the greatest in the world. Although they have become a seasonal staple. the first official gathering was actually in l‘)‘)2. when lidinburgh hosted the liuropean l'nion Heads of State conference. An unlikely dawning
perhaps btit it was so successful that it spawned the huge hootenannies that we know today.
:\s for the term Hogmanay itself. it is thonght to haye derived from either the (iaelic age mun/m (‘.\'ew .\'lorning’ ). the Anglo-Saxon liu/i'g mount/i ('l loly Month ) or perhaps the lirench /IUHIHI(‘ m! m" l'great loye day”). although no one really has any idea. The celebration began as a Pagan ritual of sun and lire worship. (‘hristmas was banned by the Protestant church from the late l7th century until as recently as the l‘)5()s. since the Reformation portrayed it as a purely (‘atholic celebration. Instead they chose New Year as their winter holiday. organising patties which became known as Hogmanays.
()ne of the great Hogmanay traditions. of course. is first footing. which derives from the notion that your year will be prosperous if a tall dark stranger arriyes at your door bearing a lump of coal. It's thought that the ayersion to blonde strangers derives from the ancient fear of ase— wielding Vikings turning up to pillage your potatoes. 'l‘oday people are more concerned that it might be Boris Johnson.
()ther traditions persist. such as the burning of the chute (a barrel fill of tar) in Burghead. the [p llelly ;\a on the isle of l.erwick. in which locals dressed as Vikings burn a galley in the streets. and. most mystifyineg of all. repeats of Search and H'ry on BBCI.