About

On the 11th of August 2006, Alex Salmond said:

Scotland can change to a better future and be part of northern Europe’s arc of prosperity. We have three countries ­ Ireland to our west, Iceland to our north and Norway to our east – all in the top six wealthiest countries in the world. In contrast devolved Scotland is in 18th place. We can join that arc of prosperity.

I spent the first 30 years of my life in Denmark, but in March 2002 I moved to Scotland.

I’d been blogging for years at The Widmann Blog, but when Alex Salmond announced that the Independence referendum would take place in the autumn of 2014, I decided to create a new blog dedicated to Scottish Independence, and when I was looking for a name, I decided on the Arc of Prosperity to show that I’m approaching Scottish Independence from a Danish/Scandinavian perspective.

About me

My name is Thomas Widmann. I was born in 1972 in Denmark as a German citizen, I stayed in Scotland as a Danish citizen from 2002 till 2019, and I’m now back in Denmark as an exiled New Scot.

I’m married to a beautiful Scottish woman called Phyllis Buchanan, and we stay in Stillebæk on the island of Funen in Denmark.

I have an MA degree from Aarhus University in linguistics with Japanese and computer science with maths, and I also studied Georgian for a year at Tbilisi University.

In 2002 I got a job at Collins Dictionaries in Glasgow, which is where I met Phyllis.

In 2009 Phyllis and I set up a company together. It’s called Complexli and it offered consultancy services in computational linguistics and lexicography.

I’m now a senior consultant at the Danish Language Council in Bogense.