Browse content similar to 30/01/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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leadership whether it is public or private as I would like to think I | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
have learnt that by spending 40 years with these characters from the | :00:00. | :00:15. | |
White House. Tonight, to the immensely from everyone we now have | :00:16. | :00:20. | |
a national tree. The Scots pain. And now there is a proposal to have a | :00:21. | :00:23. | |
national bird, the golden eagle. But is creating national symbols by | :00:24. | :00:26. | |
official diktat likely to be any more successful than changing the | :00:27. | :00:29. | |
weather by official diktat? Or does it just miss the whole point of | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
having traditions? Also tonight, you'd expect to find new plants, | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
national or not, in the fields and forests. We report on how they're | :00:37. | :00:39. | |
discovering new species to science in the filing cabinets here in | :00:40. | :00:45. | |
Edinburgh. Good evening. This week Scotland | :00:46. | :00:49. | |
became one of the nations of the world with its own National Tree. | :00:50. | :00:52. | |
And debate is raging on about what would be the most appropriate | :00:53. | :00:55. | |
National Bird. This is a country which has no shortage of symbols, | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
some may say Scotland's reputation in the furthest flung parts of the | :00:59. | :01:02. | |
world depends to a great extent on stereotypes, from thistles and | :01:03. | :01:05. | |
whisky to haggis and the Loch Ness Monster. So what's the requirement | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
for newer, more official symbols? Steven Godden reports. | :01:09. | :01:16. | |
It's no longer dominates the landscape as it once did, but in | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
pockets of the Highlands forests made up of native Scots pain offer a | :01:22. | :01:26. | |
picture postcard remainder of our ancient woodland heritage. It is one | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
that clearly strikes a chord with the nation 's tree lovers, following | :01:30. | :01:36. | |
a consultation run by the Forestry Commission Pinus sylvestris was the | :01:37. | :01:38. | |
overwhelming choice as the national tree. Cue a minister pushing a | :01:39. | :01:45. | |
wheelbarrow. It is the simple business, it is identified with | :01:46. | :01:51. | |
Scotland. It is something we can use to help towards the importance of | :01:52. | :01:55. | |
trees at the National environment to children but also to wider society | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
to get elected in domains between the importance of the environment | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
and the health of our trees. The formalities have still to be | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
completed but in a few months time the Scots pain will be officially | :02:10. | :02:14. | |
Scotland's national tree. Part of a growing trend it seems for new | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
national symbols. In one of the week 's more surreal movements, costumed | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
campaigners petitioned MS keys on the half of the golden eagle, making | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
of Scotland's national bird would, they argue, offer the persecuted | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
raptor greater protection. But the appeal also a at its core. It has | :02:33. | :02:38. | |
long been seen as a pack -- as a symbol of power. There is an almost | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
mystical fascination with them. The simple thing of human beings | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
coveting the attributes and characteristics of it will feature. | :02:48. | :02:54. | |
In committee a reminder of the dangers associated with choosing | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
symbols. The lack the golden eagle is the symbol of an empire that once | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
invaded parts of Scotland and more recently of another empire that | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
tried to. In the lifetime of many people in this country it is the | :03:06. | :03:08. | |
last thing the relatives saw as they were marched to their deaths. It has | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
been a symbol of imperial power of what Scotland is emphatically not. | :03:14. | :03:16. | |
Never has been and hopefully never will be. The debates and ending the | :03:17. | :03:24. | |
golden eagle will go on, but successfully campaigners would mean | :03:25. | :03:27. | |
another addition to the array of symbols that have long been used to | :03:28. | :03:29. | |
sell a vision of Scotland to the world. Pegs and drums, -- hikes and | :03:30. | :03:38. | |
drums... Pates and this was shortbread tin imagery guaranteed to | :03:39. | :03:46. | |
make modern admen wince. The ivy shaggy highland cattle Scotland. In | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
these days of brand Scotland the approach might be more nuanced but | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
the fundamentals have not changed. The great stories about symbols, to | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
identify attribute or components of the country and presenting them, it | :04:00. | :04:06. | |
offers the possibility of the week, discussion, it creates a focus for | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
people and create an opportunity for marketing, messaging to go out | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
globally. In 2014 Scotland's story is under the most intense scrutiny, | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
so what should we read into the emergence of new symbols and | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
referendum year? It is a positive thing, we should stay positive | :04:26. | :04:28. | |
messages out of that, people care about the environment, about these | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
species and want to see them protected or at least to recognise | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
them for the portals to Scotland rather than perhaps the other side | :04:37. | :04:39. | |
of things which people might focus on about having symbols and national | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
icons for Scotland that this particular time in the political | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
environment we all face. From those who would have these symbols that | :04:50. | :04:52. | |
are marketing armoury, a note of caution. Too many symbols could | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
become confusing and if you have competing symbols or two symbols | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
representing the same thing greeted by different groups of different | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
organisations then there will come a point when it is maybe piloting the | :05:07. | :05:10. | |
overall impact but I think there is a long way to go before a Scottish | :05:11. | :05:16. | |
symbols are things that represents the best of Scotland have reached | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
saturation point. Beyond the Scots pine what if anything comes next? | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
I'm joined now from London by the novelist and occasional standup | :05:29. | :05:30. | |
comedian AL Kennedy, and in Edinburgh by Magnus Linklater, | :05:31. | :05:33. | |
author of a Saltire Society pamphlet on the very question of national | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
symbols. Magnus, I see the point in England | :05:40. | :05:45. | |
where there is some tradition of English books, for good reasons, | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
what is the point of inventing a national tree? I can quite see the | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
point, particularly the Scots pine is a very traditional thing, as I | :05:57. | :06:03. | |
think... Nothing against the Scots pine it is a lovely tree. It is | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
lovely. Too much Scottish symbols and it seems to be tentatively | :06:08. | :06:13. | |
backward looking. We would be looking at Carton and whiskey and we | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
are all very tried, well tested, they don't do me say very much about | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
modern Scotland. And a lot of the things that we tend to associate | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
with Scotland are backward looking, traditional, rather stuck in the | :06:29. | :06:31. | |
mud. We need to try and look more at what modern Scotland is about and | :06:32. | :06:36. | |
where the country wants to go. What would you nominate? It is a tricky | :06:37. | :06:43. | |
one, because I think that a lot of what is good about Scotland today, | :06:44. | :06:50. | |
cultural things about its part, its rating are about the things that | :06:51. | :06:56. | |
this creates rather than the things that look back to the starter. I | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
will come out with something wishy-washy, but an amalgam of those | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
ideas and I will start working on it but once you start bringing up, I | :07:05. | :07:12. | |
don't no, eagles and Scots pine. You want to tell us what you wishy-washy | :07:13. | :07:19. | |
candidate is? Now. Isn't it great that Scottish artist at the cutting | :07:20. | :07:22. | |
edge of art and writers are doing great things and all those seem to | :07:23. | :07:28. | |
me to stand for Scotland of today rather than the Scotland of | :07:29. | :07:31. | |
yesterday. A picture of Irving Welsh. The picture of Alison | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
Kennedy! What do you make of the trees, Alison? They're lovely. Scots | :07:37. | :07:44. | |
pine does sort of simply a punch line. Yes, we all do, Carolyn is | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
terribly well because its flag is a leaf and you can take offence at the | :07:52. | :07:57. | |
leaf. Canadians are incredibly pleasant but their flag is lovely. | :07:58. | :08:00. | |
You can feel they would do you harm and I can see that environmentalists | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
would like to promote the welfare of the environment in general, we have | :08:07. | :08:14. | |
a wonderful environment, all of the raptors are threatened. The eagle | :08:15. | :08:16. | |
does not have a great history as a symbol. Having a huge predator as a | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
mascot is maybe not ideal. I can see the point. And become national | :08:24. | :08:32. | |
symbols, the Canadians, that is on the flag. It has been for ages. | :08:33. | :08:40. | |
Before that, people still say, maple syrup, with Canada. Not because of | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
the Canadian government passed a law! These things evolve over time. | :08:46. | :08:55. | |
All the things Magnus does not like, the problem is, just passing a law | :08:56. | :09:05. | |
of doing something by diktat will not make people in, I don't know, | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
Kazakhstan, associate Scotland with the Scots pine. On Saturday night I | :09:10. | :09:17. | |
was at a Burns supper. Literally make deep in symbolism. But also, | :09:18. | :09:23. | |
the abolition of the symbols, you can say they are cliched, or an | :09:24. | :09:30. | |
adventure in -- and invention, but all that is evolving. They are quite | :09:31. | :09:40. | |
cool, and it, you were a cute with Timberland boots, -- kilt, you don't | :09:41. | :09:48. | |
have to do the whole Bonnie Prince Charlie thing. It is great to | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
promote the Scottish environment with spending money on marketing | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
where we have a recognisable brands. We have discovered hitherto | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
unsuspected areas of agreement between Alison Kennedy and Jackson | :10:06. | :10:13. | |
Karloff. -- Carlaw. Do you have concern about the golden eagle? I do | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
not think people look at them and think, oh my God, there is aimed at | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
them and think, oh my God, there is a Nat C symbol flying through the | :10:23. | :10:32. | |
air. -- Nazi symbol. The rhododendron, maybe we should use | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
that as the symbol of the new Scotland. It gets everywhere and use | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
and click and hold back. I will go for that. -- you simply cannot hold | :10:40. | :10:55. | |
it back. Right, a sparrow? All right, the sparrow. What about | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
Robinson. Already a British national bird? And in America, all the states | :11:02. | :11:09. | |
have these things. They have a flower, a bird, a reptile, and | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
nobody knows what they are, really cares. Magnus, you have a thesis | :11:13. | :11:20. | |
that most nationalist traditions and symbols on examination turned out to | :11:21. | :11:33. | |
be called Zwolle. -- codswallop. Is not that, at least myths which do | :11:34. | :11:40. | |
not stand up to scrutiny. Our education is the finest in the | :11:41. | :11:47. | |
world, all these claims, on close examination, turn out to be thin. It | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
is a good thing to actually examine some of our cherished myths and ask | :11:54. | :12:00. | |
ourselves if they still stand up. And if they do not, how can they be | :12:01. | :12:07. | |
rectified? An awful lot of the things we pat ourselves on the back | :12:08. | :12:10. | |
about actually are no longer true. And indeed, have not been for some | :12:11. | :12:18. | |
time. The gap between rich and poor is getting greater and greater, so | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
what happened to that famous Scottish sense of fairness and | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
equality? These are the things that actually it is quite healthy to... | :12:29. | :12:36. | |
Sorry, we are out of time. But all of these problems will be sold under | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
the sign of the Rodeo Denver on! -- rhododendron. | :12:43. | :12:57. | |
Hugh Williams reports now is how we are at the forefront of the search | :12:58. | :12:59. | |
for new species that have never before been recorded described. It | :13:00. | :13:17. | |
is effectively a library of plants. Tried and preserved, leaves, pods, | :13:18. | :13:23. | |
petals, Twix. Collected over centuries. This was collected in | :13:24. | :13:35. | |
1897 by Alexander Brown. Some people claim taxonomy, the science of | :13:36. | :13:41. | |
making list and giving the names as the worlds oldest profession. This | :13:42. | :13:48. | |
was collected by Charles Darwin on his voyages in the Beagle. It does | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
not look like much. Yes, there were complaints about the specimens. They | :13:57. | :14:03. | |
came from theology but led to what we recognise today is signed. -- | :14:04. | :14:14. | |
since. -- science. They wanted to understand the world as God gave it | :14:15. | :14:20. | |
and classify the work. To do so, they had to create specimens to keep | :14:21. | :14:23. | |
a record of what they were finding and discovering. These are specimens | :14:24. | :14:35. | |
were and pressed, they acted as a record that people could then go | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
back to imagine an intrepid journey through | :14:40. | :14:51. | |
the jungles of Borneo. But it is also about giving a name to | :14:52. | :14:54. | |
something that has never been named before. There are around 3 million | :14:55. | :14:58. | |
plants here. They're adding to that collection at the rate of 30,000 new | :14:59. | :15:01. | |
specimens every year. Later studies suggest that half of | :15:02. | :15:13. | |
all flowering plants still being discovered have already been | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
collected. They are sitting in cabinets around the world waiting | :15:18. | :15:20. | |
for scientists to come and look at them and described them as new | :15:21. | :15:28. | |
species. What sort of numbers of never before recorded by since | :15:29. | :15:30. | |
plants have you gotten this collection? New species? Current | :15:31. | :15:37. | |
estimates suggest that maybe we have got about 3000. The Royal botanic | :15:38. | :15:45. | |
Garden is still sending expeditions around the world to research and | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
collect new plants. We need to organise them rigourously. If you | :15:51. | :15:52. | |
put something in the wrong cupboard you will never find it again. What | :15:53. | :16:01. | |
to plant collectors look for? Plants of a particular family that mean now | :16:02. | :16:05. | |
need lots of work. And a particular area. Like the Himalayas, where we | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
want to collect a collective thing we know to get a better record of | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
the plants in that area. We thought this had been extinct for 200 years. | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
It was originally described by a botanist from Aberdeen, William | :16:19. | :16:21. | |
Jack, in 1822. In the next edition discovered this. It is not a new | :16:22. | :16:32. | |
discovery. U2 since. -- new to science. So what happens if they | :16:33. | :16:42. | |
find a species new to science? We start investigating deeper. And also | :16:43. | :16:52. | |
looking at the rest of the collections, so we get a really good | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
idea of what were looking at in terms of diversity. Only then when | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
you dial a detective or can you figure out, yes, I think this is a | :17:02. | :17:16. | |
new species. Give me an idea. Here we describe a worldwide new species | :17:17. | :17:24. | |
per week. -- about one new species per week. The Royal botanic Garden | :17:25. | :17:31. | |
is about 10% of the way to a grant to make 10% of its images available | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
on line. We have lots of scientists working with the collections. We | :17:38. | :17:42. | |
want to make them available to people around the world who cannot | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
come. In addition, more and more we are trying to get specimens imaged | :17:48. | :17:51. | |
and database online. So that botanist around the world can work | :17:52. | :17:55. | |
with them. This plant was collected in Turkey in 1845. Making images | :17:56. | :18:00. | |
like this available on the Internet is transforming the work. The | :18:01. | :18:06. | |
quality that we produce for digitising is high enough so that | :18:07. | :18:12. | |
some taxonomic work can be done. From another country. Online. There | :18:13. | :18:20. | |
are perhaps 40,000 species of flour and plants still to be discovered | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
and described. But as well as those waiting in the wild there are | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
unrecognised treasures already in the archives. | :18:29. | :18:47. | |
Extraordinary. The front pages: We will be back on Monday. Good night. | :18:48. | :19:01. | |
Hello. A few showers around. Fog will form by morning. The weather | :19:02. | :19:11. | |
will get more lively tomorrow. 30 millimetres of rain, and amber | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
warning in force or Somerset. The range of clear Northern Ireland but | :19:18. | :19:20. | |
as it hits Scotland and northern England, since now. Higher roots in | :19:21. | :19:30. | |
the Grampian is not very pleasant at all. Not very pleasant if you are | :19:31. | :19:37. | |
travelling anywhere. Perhaps reaching the extreme east at 56 | :19:38. | :19:42. | |
o'clock. A wet afternoon for most. The rains accompanied by | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
strengthening wind. There are warnings in force. Not just | :19:48. | :19:54. | |
Somerset, that is where the amber warning is, yellow warnings | :19:55. | :20:02. | |
elsewhere. Saturday, heavy showers. The wind may start to cause | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
problems. Particularly if it coincides with high | :20:08. | :20:08. |