I admit it, I get hit with that Scottish-particular type of cringe. Try as I might, the internal shudder hopelessly starts to go off whenever I’m faced with a tartan-clad culture presented in any two-dimensional or silly way.

Am I embarrassed by my country? Am I self-hating? I don’t think so.

Watching Scotland get continuously flattened and packaged as whisky distilleries and romanticised historical mythology is horrifically reductive outside of the idealising tourist that wants to buy and experience a fantasy.

It’s a narrative created to sell to others; a caricature that’s difficult to see yourself in. It's hard to be a citizen with independent thought while also contending with a blanket national identity being bestowed on you. Even more difficult when that identity is so far removed from the everyday reality of Scots and their lives.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has been making the press rounds recently (er, again) and has begun dipping her toes into some of the big topics surrounding Scottish culture, including the idea that this type of cringing is a hindrance to us.

When she spoke at the Scottish Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh last month, she claimed several setbacks facing culture, namely the “weight of bureaucracy” being placed on artists and organisations in public funding, a lack of risk in the decision-making, and most interestingly, the cringe factor that affects Scottish people and discourages them from engaging with their own.

Sturgeon: Scottish culture held........

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