Official tartan register

[Mr. MacDougall]

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't like the idea of a government -- any government -- getting their hands on the authority to be the arbiter of whether a tartan is acceptable or not. Before you know it, there will be all kinds of rules, and some of them will probably hurt the tartan designer in the street.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I see in the article that the STA gets prime mention. I always thought it would be a bit silly if the government were to attempt to create a completely new register, when the International Tartan Index (maintained by the STA) already exists and is available. Why reinvent the wheel? I think the smartest thing would be to simply give a preexisting database (such as the ITI) the government's blessing.

The only thing I hate about reading tartan-related articles in The Scotsman is all the ill-informed comments people feel the need to add beneath!

M

[MACKAY]

...The only thing I hate about reading tartan-related articles in The Scotsman is all the ill-informed comments people feel the need to add beneath!...

I did like this one though Matt -

"Apparently, Scrooge McDuck is looking forward to registering the Ancient McDuck tartan but is having second thoughts about the Hunting McDuck!"

[gilmore]

What designers in the street? Most of them are well indoors, hunched over computer keyboards, and working for the 4-6 big tartan mills in Scotland and Pakistan.

[Kiltman]

I see in the article that the STA gets prime mention. I always thought it would be a bit silly if the government were to attempt to create a completely new register, when the International Tartan Index (maintained by the STA) already exists and is available. Why reinvent the wheel? I think the smartest thing would be to simply give a preexisting database (such as the ITI) the government's blessing.

The only thing I hate about reading tartan-related articles in The Scotsman is all the ill-informed comments people feel the need to add beneath!

M

I'm with you Matt. I don't see a need to reinvent this thing. As you point out there is a good deal of misinformation out there already—why create more opportunity for it?