Och Awa' an' bile yer heed!

Why is 1994 a magic date here. Even if the police do round up anybody wearing a sporran, and force them to show provenance, or lose the thing, it's nto going to save any poor animal that died for it, is it.

If they'd said "as of 1st January 2008" all *new* sporrans need paper trail it'd make sense.

Gosh, the law being an ass - why hasn't it made bigger headlines ?

Surely the burden is upon the enforcing official to prove that the beast was killed after '94? But no, a guiding principle of the law has been ignored once again.

And isn't it a bit frickin' ridiculous to make a law like this backdate*thirteen* years. It wasn't illegal to have such a sporran in '95, but it is now? The law becomes more and more like a donkey.

Oh good grief. What next? Prove that the wool in the kilt is from an approved herd? What of the leather in the sporran, or the wool in the hose?

Does this mean that the fur police will be watching wedding parties carefully, stopping innocent guests on their way home and fingering their sporrans speculatively? What stupidity.

Hang on, I'm sure that there are other ways to screw up the night of someone attending a ceilidh. How many people can we arrest for being in possession of a knife? Those ceremonial, and very fake sgian dubh. You know the ones that are all hilt and no blade...

Perhaps the SNP can do something? Only pointless nationalism can save us from Europe!

Right... so how am I going to prove this one then? Couldn't even tell it was a real one or not, let along when (if) it died...

To rectify the situation I think I've found a solution. It only stipulates dead animals, so I'll just hang a live cat/bat/hedgehog around my waist instead. Problem solved.

Failing that, I've discovered that you're allowed to carry the wee dagger (skin'dhu) on your person as it's part of a traditional dress - so I can go and skin a fresh one if mine is confiscated. I'll use a bit of roadkill so I'm not charged with anything further.

Let me be the umpteenth person to point out that this story does not have an IT angle. Perhaps the EU will have to set up a database of sporran-wearers - sporraneers? - but the report doesn't say.

I know you guys love to make fun of American Tourists, but some are actually of Scottish descent and find it hard to find a suitable place to where a kilt here. So, leave them alone.

After all, we don't mind when you Brits come over here and where cowboy hats (and boots)

Provenances have been faked in the art and antique worlds for years. I wonder how soon it is before a website pops up selling them. Let's see, my host says it takes two days to get everything configured, so I figure by sometime Wednesday evening, CDT. I wonder just what they'll accept as a document of "proof".

Is PETA in the EU?

Unless this wannabe dictatorship of a nation has slid so far along the tracks that Tony Bliar's thought police have slipped into power with no-one noticing, I thought the burden of proof was on the PROSECUTION to prove the case. Thus, if any Euro-cretin wishes to give a sporran wearing Scot a hard time about where the raw material for his sporran came from, surely it is down to him/her to prove it. And survive. Having served an attachment with the Cameronians (1964) the two do not always go together,

Gary

That's simply child'ish no matter what. I have never liked the EU and such things prove it day after day. Meh, destroying all that is individual and unique. What for, fokkin' PETA or what? I hate globalization...from the right wing side.

heh.... I'm a distant member of clan Buchan, close enough to wear the kilt in the clan tartan, despite living and being born way down in the antipodean colonial lands. to help out all you fellow scots I could set up a business exporting sporrans from NZ, killed and tanned Post '94 but very legal as they'll be made from Possums :D a noxious pest that just happens to cheer for the wallibies :D

I'll take five if they're under a tenner.. and for sake of the environment, waste and all that, throw in five dolphin burgers too while you're at it.

Cheers.

'sassenach' means Lowlander, so anyone below about Inverness really, including many kilt wearers.

The correct spelling of the small sock dagger is 'Sgian Dubh'

And 1994 is the date from which certain animals became protected although Bagers, which sporrans are frequently made from were listed as protected in 1992.

Sorry to kill the humour (I have a licence though!) but thats the facts mam.

Is anyone supposed to "prove the providence" of their sporran??? Hey, can I claim persecution of a minority since this is clearly directed as a law specifically to punish Scots???

When will we see the law outlawing leiderhosen???

I'd ask if the EU had anything better to do but I'd be so depressed with the answer I'd have to go kill a badger and have a couple of those Dolphin burgers going free above...

Depressed of Glasgow

I'd like to see them try and confiscate a Sporran from it's owner!

Yet another reason to tell the Bureaucrats in Brussels to take a running leap and let us lead our own lives.

I hope this means that the English will have to get some licenses too?

How about those guards around Buckingham Palace with their enormous hats and animal skins?

I suppose this also means that women will have to carry a license in those tiny wee but expensive designer handbags? ;-)

Time to watch Braveheart again me thinks... :-)

Much predictable laughing and gnashing of teeth here (and the point about it not being an I/T story is well-taken). However, please remember that you are paying - literally - for these laws to be drawn up and enforced.

For a certain number of the hours you work every year, you are not paid. Instead, the money you earn is spent to pay some oik in Brussels, and another in Edinburgh, to come up with this nonsense (instead of applying themselves to public health issues, unemployment, poverty, law & order, etc., etc.)

Rather than splutter away here and on other boards, please do something more practical and effective. Each time you identify a bureaucrat or politician, please walk up to him/her smiling and deliver a kick where the sporran would be.

Perhaps it's just a way of softening the Scots up a bit, before this verse is reinstated into the National Anthem:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

May by thy mighty aid,

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush,

God save the King.

;-)

I absolutely love it when some smart @ss,(correct as he/she may be), corrects someones spelling and then they go and throw in "Bagers" I thought i had lost faith in The Universe.......

It just means that sellers of sporrans need to make sure that they're coming from a proper source. The sporran is the exceptional case, the legislation's trying to deal with illegal fur trade. Some animals are genuinely raised and killed under horrendous conditions for fur and endangered species are also shot for their pelts.

No one's going to be going around doing DNA sampling of sporrans on individuals wearing kilts, however, you can be sure that they'd be looking into the manufacturers and suppliers.

This is yet another example of British EUphobic journalism blowing a regulation out of all proportion.