Roots, mon
Let me tell you something. I am a Scotsman. When I wear a kilt, I wear one in a Black Watch tartan. Despite my name being historically as Scottish as lederhosen, this is a tartan that I am allowed to wear. The odd ex-Black Watch squaddie may feel differently, sometimes vociferously, but they are wrong. I am. Anybody is. These are the rules.
Pay attention. The variations of clan tartans, as we know them, were formalised by the Highland Society of London in 1815. Tradition dictates that anybody not of a clan can wear the Black Watch (black, green, sombre) or the Hunting Stewart (similar, but with strands of yellow and red). They can’t wear anything else.
Recently, though, standards have gone out the window. New “tartans” all over the place. Wander into an Edinburgh kiltmaker with a name like DeLoran Maxemheimer III, and they will create one, just for you. There are now thousands. Hundreds emerge each year. Now the Scottish Parliament wants to register them all.
“Tartans” my arse. There is already a register of real tartans. It may be nonsense, too, but at least it is nonsense with pedigree. I won’t have it. Otherwise I’ll have spent decades boring on about all this for nothing.