I have lived through a few wars. The first one I am really aware of was the Russians in Afghanistan, tanks in the sand. Then there was the Falklands, all that shipbuilding union jack razzle dazzle. Lots of return voyages to the middle east of course, GW1 and GW2 and whatever we're on to now. Then there was the Balkans, something no-one really talked about, uncomfortable to have such unpleasantness so close to our own country. the whole Northern Ireland thing was never even a war, just a conflict or troubles - we certainly weren't allowed to have wars so close to home. So undignified.

Throughout all of this, there was one enduring conflict that trumped any of these in terms of passion and intensity. Scotland had one enemy, and that was England. There was football of course, but that was only a part of it. It was an ever-present feeling, a suspicion, an understanding, that while everyone else in the world viewed Scotland as pals, the English hated us. They were out to get us, and would do their best to cripple us by fair means or foul, using any implement at their disposal, be it the poll tax, stealing our precious, precious oil, or the tearful peroxide booze machine they called Gazza. It wasn't our fault - we were entirely blameless. For some reason, the bastard English just had it in for us.

Yes it's a joke, but no it's not a joke.

When I think of Englishness now, having lived away from Scotland for nearly half my life, there is still a primordial resentment there, albeit tempered by the cool people I have met over the years and the sure and certain knowledge that there are wankers in every country. There's something there though, that sense of comfortable semis, village pubs, cricket and Radio 4, that just never translated to Scotland. It was an alien world, but we were expected to recognise it as our daily life. We were meant to be happy squinting at the weather forecast, trying to catch the blink or you'll miss it references to whatever the rain was doing north of Manchester. We were meant to be happy watching the classified pools results, wading through Beazer Homes leagues and Vauxhall Premierships before eventually getting to the Hibs score. We were meant to be happy with the inevitable, invisible asterisk that appeared in any kind of public discourse - *Scotland, YMMV.

My attitude has mellowed over time, helped in part by the sense that really everyone is sick of England now, never mind a bunch of chippy jocks. And more and more I find myself fascinated by that sense of Englishness, a form which takes in Blur and the Kinks but also Joy Division and the Smiths, Sleeper's inbetweeners and Elastica's connections. So much of life seems to revolve around tribalism, and nowhere more so than in music. But that ultimate tribal totem, the three lions or the roar of the Tartan Army, endures.