I will differ with you on that point, personally and from the aggregate statistical viewpoint. Scotland is the only place in the world where I have been randomly and violently attacked - multiple times, for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like the Spanish tourists, that "wrong place" is much of the high street of major cities and smaller towns. The way violence lurks just below the skin of the culture is nasty.

Scotland is worse than other parts of the UK:

http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/vio...ngland-and-wal

And, UN statistics show Scotland is among the worst for violent crime, in fact in 2005 it was defined as "the most violent country in the developed world:"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4257966.stm

The stat "almost three times more likely to be attacked than Americans" appears in that article, among other things.

I've lived in the US now for as long as I lived in Scotland - almost 20 years - and nothing of the kind has ever happened to me here. Or for the few years I lived in Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. I've been robbed in Brussels and had poop squirted on me in Quito recently but those crimes were not accompanied by attempts at GBH as happened in Scotland. The only reason I wasn't seriously injured on the third occasion in the lovely city of Aberdeen when attacked from behind by two such characters is because sharks are (were) speedy - I was a sub-50 second 400 meter performer at university - and when the thugs regaled each other behind my back about what they would do to the foreign c&&& and how they would shove the shards into my stomach, aye, gie' the shi%%% a right good glassin' in their best Irvin Welsh brogue, I knew it was time to move. They ran after me, but I was able to stretch away from them relatively quickly. They threw their bottles, still, but their aim was as compromised by their drunkenness as their choice of target.

Violent and pointless pub-thuggery is a particularly British - especially Scottish - predilection. Scots also have a disturbing habit of collectively excusing such acts under certain circumstances, particularly when it involves foreign victims. At least in the US, such criminals are widely regarded as pathological.

Now, as a female - perhaps even a Scot? - you are less likely to experience these events. The thugs like to prove their "masculinity" by doing things like swinging bottles at people's faces or over their heads. Better if it's Johnny Foreigner of course, because that also lends nationalist credibility to their actions.

The incident in Perth last week reminded me of those assaults. I'm glad I don't live there any more.