What a wee shame for you Melanie - the nurse will be along shortly with yer medication - there, there !

Carstairs will look after ye now.

Miss J Brodie, Scotland, The Beautiful Land North o Greedsville!

Melanie Reid 2 words: Baa Humbug

You make Ebenezer Scrouge look like Santa Claus

PD McDougall, Aberfeldy, Scotland

There are three schools within a coupleof hundred yards of my home in Lanarkshire and I saw none of the excesses described in this overheated article. I saw perhaps a few hundred cars and at the most six displayed the Saltire; I thought at the time they were left-overs from the previous weeks football game. Let me assure your readers that Melanie Reid did indeed have a dream; it is a pity that she is unable to separate it from reality and felt the need to foist her opinions on us in this form of nonsense. I hope she is feeling better now.

Ally, Motherwell, Lanarkshire

Great.Scotland is wakening up at last

Alex MacArthur, Ballymena, N. Ireland

Wait until the Scots gain sufficient control of their own finances to lower corporation tax and watch the jobs flood north. Then tell us its stupid. If other, smaller nations can do it, Scotland can.

KR, exiled in Stockport,

Why do the Scots take themselves so seriously? The English don't take them seriously -- porridge, kilts, sporrans, cabers, whisky, bagpipes, ... they're just something for us to laugh at.

Clothilde Simon, Leeds,

Great,at long last(if the article is correct) Scotland is wakening up .Edwin Muir`s "Scotland`s Winter" will no longer be applicable."Common heels that do not know whence they come or where they go and are content with their poor frozen life and shallow banishment".

Alex MacArthur, Ballymena, N. Ireland

What a silly girl. Change is good. Scots are free independent people, with desires. St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. They can celebrate, ignore or have fun. Politics is a fact and the UK government has failed Scotland in so many ways. Cameron is a fine Scottish name, but ask a Scot if they can relate to David Cameron, a man so fabricated that it is almost as bad as Gordon Brown trying to be British. Scottish culture is not inferior to the world, is nothing to be ashamed of, and if this silly girl believes such and she is Scottish, then it is a shame that her upbringing would leave her with such an inferiority complex. I have raised my children to believe that they are neither better nor worse than anybody else, it is a pity her parents did not raise her the same way.

Jim mCCALLUM, Calgary, canada

Thank you for an excellent and humerous article, which will be a bit near the bone for some, but not many; however those individuals should contemplate their reaction to your analogy of "massed Morris dancing in Birmingham". The mental vision conjured up is too horrible to attempt to describe.

As a nation the Scots could be in danger of becoming a parochial joke if it were not for the fact that the majority , if not all, can laugh at how they "thrashed Brazil 0 - 0". I presume your article is written in the same vein.

Bayne, Edinburgh, Scotland

Don't they know that the tartan was invented by Sir Walter Scott, among others, for the first visit to Scotland of George IV? Or that the ceilidh is an Irish evening of amusement? Or that the bagpipes are derived from the uileann pipes? Don't they even know that "Scotland" actually means "the land of the Irish abroad" from the Roman word Scottii. It's St Patrick's Day they should be celebrating, sure, it is indeed!

Bill McCann, Suzhou, China

I think that compared with America on Independence Day, or indeed Paris on the 14 July, it was all quite restrained. It was also good fun for many people.

What Ms Reid has against teaching Scottish children about Scotland's patron saint, I can't imagine. On the other had, it has been the history of many smaller nations absorbed into their larger neighbours to have their culture destroyed as an act of state (Wales, Basques, Scots etc). A small amount of celebration of our survival seems very little in comparisson.

John, Edinburgh,

So Collin, did you wear your Saltire and Ginger wig with pride?

Things may be as they are, but they do not have to be that way if the public made it clear that Scotland is a vibrant nation with a historic past and a positive future. The fact that this is being pointed out by a supposed Unionist is more shame to the nationalist community.

Celebrating a national day was a superb idea, but dumbing it down simply destroys its true meaning and value.

Jonathan Mills, Brighton,

This article is the usual condescending Unionist propaganda. Ms Reid chose to see these things because it's what she wanted to see. It was convenient for her because it fits her view of Scotland, and in particular the SNP, as hopelessly romanticized parochial dafties. To equate Scotland's 'tartan tat' problem, which evidently exists, with the SNP's policies is an insult and an absurdity. These low cultural ephiphenomena have been around for decades under tired-old Labour, in fact the whole thing probably comes from W Scott and HRH Victoria. I might also point out that the cringe-worthy 'Tartan Day' in New York was an abomination spawned by New Labour. But is Scotland really any different in having this industry of tat? Scotland shares in the reality that tourism is now the world's biggest industry so is Scottish tat really any worse than English, Irish or French?

Lastsocialist, Paris, France

St Patrick's day - good; St Andrew's day - bad.

This is a stylised version of a modern unionist credo:
Irish independence - good; Scottish independence - bad.

Calls for passion and enthusiasm must be scorned, obviously . Who knows where they might lead?

GML, Aberdeen,

Melanie Reid's idea of "tat" seems to cover a very wide range of items. Ginger "see-you-Jimmy" wigs maybe, but whisky and shortbread? Come on! Since the turn-out was so poor, let's hope that it won't be repeated, but let's also give some credit to Alex Salmond's administration for trying. The fact that pupils had to ask who St Andrew was suggests that some sort of education was needed. The whole day could easily have been "themed" to cover Scottish history as well as literature and geography, not to mention scientists and inventors. But perhaps Melanie Reid would find that "tatty" as well.

Sheona Hutcheson, Chesham,

Well, maybe it's me who's dreaming: I clearly don't live in the same Scotland as Melanie Reid but inhabit a whole other dimension. Somehow a break in the time-space continuum has allowed both of us to inhabit different Scotlands at the same time.

St. Andrew's Day this year was the same as any other year, as far as I could see. Some Saltires on display, some fireworks over Edinburgh Castle and a few shindigs around the town - nothing out of the ordinary really. Where on earth did Melanie Reid see the mountains of kitsch and tat she reports in this article? She really must have been in Brigadoon as it's business as usual where I am in central Edinburgh.

This article's just a gibe at the SNP to make the party seem parochial and petty - typical Unionist agenda to try and curry favour with London.

MB, Edinburgh,

A leaf has definitely been taken from the New Labour book of rebranding here in Scotland. Anyone who has seen the changes wrought in British Council offices around the world after 1997, in terms of the 'new' image of Britain being forcefully promoted, will recognize the SNP's efforts around Scotland. That's not all bad - Scotland, like Britain ten years ago - was probably in need of cheering up a bit anyway. And this isn't quite 'Alex's PR Gulag' just yet. But if the SNP's long-range push for an Independence vote gets more desperate, there is a risk of a turn away from the ebullient multi-cultural vision currently on offer, towards a more narrowly defined xenophobia. A grim, backwards step that would be...

Chris Harding, Edinburgh, UK

No sympathy for the Scots from down here. Either you participated in the election of this crew or you stood by and let it happen. I know that Blair got in with 26 per cent of the vote in 2005 - I wonder what Salmond's tally was? These people get in thanks to the fanatical, the apathetic and the don't-voters. If labour in Scotlad implodeed like it has down here that'll leave only the Conservatives as a viable opposition in Scotald - oh, the irony!

bobby tran, enfield,

Colin is missing a key the point that Melanie was trying to make - that this tasteless waste of time was paid for by the tax payer.
Many English people are all for Scottish independence - it's what Brussels wants. As for the apparently legalised racism that goes with it, it would enable the repatriation of all Scots, starting with those at Westminster. The remaining MPs could then cut English taxes by several pence in the pound.

Once done, the idea could be extended to other groups - the government's many databases would make this fairly straightforward, especially now that they seem to be so readily accessible.

Ray, Dartmouth,

It's a pity you were asleep, Melanie. If you'd been awake you'd have seen the St Andrews Day adverts by OneScotland.

"St Andrews Day is a time to celebrate our diversity. As we approach our national day, it's an opportunity for everyone to reflect on the nature of our country's increasing diversity and to celebrate the benefits it brings to Scotland.
We should be proud that Scotland is a place where people from various countries have for centuries wanted to settle, visit and study.... "

And so on., went the ads.

I had the impression that this years theme was "One Scxotrland, Many Cultures" I had completely the opposite waking experience of St Andrews Day as your nightmare.

Wake Up Melanie!!

Scottish Lass, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

With the SNP's energy policy certain to guarantee blackouts in the next decade, people in Scotland should be happy while they can.

Paul , northwich, england

The whole St. Andrews day holiday bandwagon was started by that former Labour stalwart, Dennis Canavan, and voted through by the then Labour administration. So why the impression now that it is something whipped up by the SNP? I along with many others have proudly carried the Saltire as a statement of our national pride and identity and if this is to be another occasion then bring it on!

Phil, Edinburgh,

Fantastic Melanie - thanks for sending up this terrible display of tat we had to endure. I'm fed up of living under an administration where kitsch seems to triumph over common sense. There's much better reason to be proud of being Scottish (and British) than bloody tartan walks and ginger wigs - it insults our culture by reducing it to something manufactured and phony.

This isn't a dig at us Scots, but at the insipid theatre of the SNP, who seem to think that reducing our nation to cheesy parochial gimmickry is more important than good healthcare and public services. My daughter wants to work for the British Civil Service, as her grandparents did, not have at the limit of her aspiration a third rate administration in which achievement is measured by the organising of ceilidhs in swimming pools.

George Couthon, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

All right Melanie dear, we know you're a Unionist - you came from that bastion of no change The Herald, after all.

But things are as they are, and this sarcastic, not to mention highly exaggerated dig at Nationalists and Scots does you no credit at all.

If the sight of the Saltire causes you so much grief, why not try for a post with the Baghdad Evening Express?

Colin Campbell, Fort William, Scotland