Salm Dunk  

There was something different about the Alex Salmond I watched on Friday, different even from the figure who walked out of Edinburgh’s High Court a free man nearly a year ago. He’d certainly lost weight, maybe because of the illness he’s clearly suffering from, but more likely because of the intolerable strain he’s been under while having to bite his lip for as long.

What was noticeably missing was the swagger. That smirk, knowing he was at least five steps ahead of his latest hapless opponent who was about to be chomped up as swiftly as an unsuspecting wildebeest oblivious to the waiting crocodile in the shallows. With about as much mercy as well.

However, right from his opening statement it was clear that the previous swagger was just part of the rough-and-tumble, knockabout politics as here was the finest political mind of his generation still functioning at the very top of his game. His powers of recall were incredible, his attention to detail simply razor sharp and his absolute command of his brief totally forensic.

Rather bizarrely, Alex Cole-Hamilton felt he should open his questioning by having a rerun of last year’s trial, possibly sensing the great beast opposite to be wounded. Unfortunately for him it was the designer of St Basil’s Cathedral being harangued by someone unable to figure out an IKEA flat-packed bookcase.

Ditto Maureen Watt. A Watt is a unit of electrical power so talk about a misnomer? Dunno what the unit of measurement for a damp squib is though.

Her voice too. She sounded like she was reading from a Janet and John book. When the camera went over I expected to see her using a ruler to help guide her down the lines of the page. “… people have said that it would have taken a… why did you use such a big word here, Nicola?…” If I go to hell when I shuffle off my mortal coil I’ll spend eternity having dissertations on post-Renaissance Italian architecture read out to me by Maureen Watt.

Alasdair Allan didn’t fare much better, looking like the sneaky wee guy who’s pitifully grateful to be ushered into the presence of the school bully, and asking pretty much the same thing over and over again like one of these wee Action Man models you used to get that said, “This is your Commander speaking” when you pulled a cord a certain length out of its navel. (Of course if the woke contingent have their way then future versions of Action Man will come with Sindy costumes.) 

I can’t remember the other SNP MSP which shows what a devastating impact he had. Collectively they’ve been described elsewhere as political pygmies which is a wee bit unfair on these particular inhabitants of Central Africa. Members of the Lilliput Parliament would probably be more apt. They’d be out of their depth if they stepped off the kerb into a puddle. Certainly no match for the colossus sitting in the same room who was head, shoulders, trunk, legs and feet above them.

How long until the “folk would vote for a monkey with a yellow rosette” jibes start? Are we in that territory already?

It’s something when the most efficient performers come from the Labour and Tory parties. Fair’s fair though. They were polite, detailed and efficient in their questioning. Of course it’s easy when you don’t have to go to the boss and say, “What would you like me to ask next, First Minister?”

Back to the main man and nobody watching could fail to draw comparisons between his calm, measured performance and the eye-popping fury of Nicola Sturgeon during a Covid briefing of all things. She sounded like a shrieking harridan whose man stopped off at the bookies before coming home late with an opened wage packet.

It must’ve been hard for Alex Salmond to keep calm yet keep calm he did. Sarah Smith took a bite of raw lemon before announcing on the BBC News that he’d called on the First Minister to quit. He did no such thing of course and she did her usual sneak an apology out on Twitter later.

The nearest he came to losing his composure was when talking about how he – the most investigated politician the UK has ever seen, the biggest thorn in the side of the UK establishment there has ever been – realised it was his own that had been trying to do him in.

All in all, a SIX-HOUR masterly performance: “I am speaking under oath, yes. That is the whole point of speaking under oath. You will not be getting a correcting letter several days hence to correct that statement!”

And with a flash of his old play-to-the-gallery persona he saved the best until last…

Not so much a grenade as a whole battery of nuclear warheads primed for detonation. Talk about an offer they can’t refuse?!

A Cybernat

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We All Live on the Bright Side of Fife 

A seat aboard the Mars Perseverance vehicle this week would’ve been great as the Red Planet would’ve allowed a welcome escape from the mad, mad world of Scottish politics. Instead I had to make do with a wee jolly along the East Neuk of Fife after going stir crazy in this house.

I’s always a pleasure to visit this part of the Kingdom though. From the smugglers’ caves of Elie to the picturesque harbour at Crail there’s always lots to see. Somebody once described the gorgeous wee fishing towns of Elie, St Monans, Pittenweem, Anstruther and Crail as a “string of natural pearls” and they were right. Although the main herring shoals have long gone, the fishing industry is still a vital part of the local economy and it’s no coincidence that this part of the world has more top-notch fish and chip shops per square mile than anywhere else.

Smuggling and piracy played a large role in the history of the area and even caused the Priory to be relocated from the nearby Isle of May to Pittenweem as it was deemed vulnerable to attacks. The Priory’s inhabitants made a good living for themselves selling monkfish to the main fish markets. As for the pirates, they’d regularly come ashore and make use of the area’s numerous hostelries. Each town had its own tattoo parlour where, amongst the normal body-painting services, they could also have their ears pierced. The owners of the shops used to charge them around a buccaneer for this.

What’s all this got to do with Scottish independence? Nothing, I just wanted a wee break from it since I’m totally scunnered. Here’s a tenuous link though… there is ample evidence of foreign influence throughout the area. That’s right – “furriners” as Mags Curran might charmingly put it.

“I don’t want my family to become furriners!” she spat out on Question Time one night and had it been someone from the Yes side the newswires would’ve gone into meltdown with the transmission of months of “Blood and Soil Nationalists Reveal Their True Agenda” headlines. I found her remark particularly offensive as my long-time bidey-in was such a furriner, an American lady. Or, as I used to think of her and her family – MY family. Not a cheep from the MSM of course. Remember when they got a week’s worth of news out of a non-existent death threat supposedly made on Twitter to alternative comedienne Susan Calman? (I think the definition of “alternative” in such cases is “different from the funny kind”.)

Oh aye… the furrin influence. Well, historians reckon that trade between Fife and the Low Countries, particularly the Flanders area, dates back as far as the 9th Century, way before Brexit in other words. A herring industry was established over there and many weavers were brought across here. In addition, the Flemish had a major influence on town planning and architecture throughout the East Neuk with many of the houses being strikingly similar to those you’d find back in the Low Countries.

“The phlegmatic Flemings were more concerned with commerce than with war; and the combination of shrewdness with imagination, or a power of concentration on the work in hand (however prosaic) with a love of beauty and of life in the open which is a characteristic of the folk of Fife, is largely due to the infusion of Flemish blood into the Celtic.”

This quote comes from this fascinating article here which is well worth a read if, like me, you’re always striving to be a wee bit less bleedin’ ignorant knoworrimean?

There’s also a Dutch influence in Crail where their engineers constructed the stunning 17th-Century harbour and I’ll sign off by telling you the folk tale of one of these engineers who came to live and work in this lovely part of Fife…

Josef van Kouteren was his name and he was the main architect and construction engineer on the harbour. However, for a long time it looked like the work wasn’t going to go ahead as planned as he had terrible problems at home which distracted him from his work. He’d bought a nearby cottage with his wife but the young lady suffered terribly from homesickness.

The story goes that he tried everything. They wore clogs around the house and pigged out on Edam cheese, yet still she couldn’t settle. He built a dyke round their property, set up a windmill and put flower pots full of crocus bulbs everywhere. Nothing worked.

Eventually she ventured that if she had a pet to look after that reminded her of home then that might help.

Josef excitedly went straight to the local pet shop on Crail High Street. The owner scratched his head. “Well, sir,” he said, “we have these French poodles. France is quite near Holland isn’t it?”

“No these won’t do,” moaned Josef in despair.

“Well how about a German shepherd or even one of these Great Danes?” pressed the owner enthusiastically.

Josef shook his head and he was starting to lose heart when he spotted a cat sunning itself at the front of the shop. “Tell me, Mr Owner,” he enquired, “how Dutch is that moggie in the window?”

A Cybernat

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Love Is All Around 

Aye, I hated that song too.  And the couple in the pic above?  Well no doubt she came home early from work within the year only to find him getting to know the babysitter better as a person in her own right.  Cynical, moi?  Still, I suppose it is Valentine’s Day once again and it’s days like today when I really miss my ex. However, I keep hoping my aim will get better with practice. Actually that’s a bit unkind as we get on not too badly. The one before though – she said she’d only contact me again through a seance. To be fair she was a bit annoyed at the time.

No cards for me today, but then I realised that it is of course Sunday so that must be the reason. Anyway, who needs cards when there’s just so much love floating around the Yes movement? Could you even call it a movement? If it is it’s a gey constipated one.

Pre-2014 I used to get irritated at the relentless positivity and all the “A positive campaign ALWAYS beats a negative one” guff. No need to remind me how THAT turned out. It was a major mistake as Yes failed to take account of basic psychology in that some folk want to gain pleasure while others want to avoid pain; some people need a carrot while others need a stick.

For example, old Mrs McGlumphie’s prime concern is that she doesn’t want to lose the UK pension she contributed to all her working life. Her neighbour, Mrs Easton, is employed in the financial sector and she’s heard that all the jobs will be going south. Do you seriously think either of these ladies would’ve been moved by the, “Come walk arm-in-arm with us on our journey to the sunlit uplands of Scottish independence where it’s all rainbows, spring flowers and cute little puppy dogs and there are unicorns made out of gingerbread” approach?

So while we were sitting round campfires shoogling tambourines and singing kumbaya, Bitter Together were busy unleashing hellfire and brimstone on this important demographic. All that was missing from Yes was a Woodstock festival with folk braiding each other’s hair.

Having said that, I always knew the Yes side would finally wise up, get a teensy bit angry and show their teeth. I just didn’t think they’d start ripping their own throats out!

In any organisation of that size there are bound to be differences of opinion. However, uniquely in this one it appears that should you disagree with anyone on anything then you’re a unionist infiltrator, a troll or a Westminster plant. It doesn’t matter how feverishly you worked for independence last time around as that just proves how deepcover an MI5 agent you are apparently.

Wings has done a 180-degree flip and is now controlled by his handlers, Iain Lawson is the Tory he’s always been, Barrhead Boy is working for London and Craig Murray is an obvious plant whose mission was to dupe Alex Salmond into believing that Nicola was plotting against him. And the fact that Craig Murray might be sent to jail after his recent trial? Well, seemingly that just shows you. If he keeps his freedom they wouldn’t send one of their own undercover operatives to prison; if he does go then obviously they needed to make it look convincing.

Everywhere you go online is infested with unionist infiltrators, MI5, MI6, the Men in Black, etc. Probably my favourite one was that Trump hated Salmond so he sent in the CIA to get revenge on him for something the latter had said. He worked in tandem with the British secret service for this as, if their plan was carried out successfully, he could discredit both Salmond and Sturgeon and take them both out the game. I forget the details but it was just the type of convoluted thing that someone with absolutely nothing else to do would launch themselves into with great gusto.

Who else? Oh aye… new organisation Now Scotland has been set up by Westminster as have the AFI and ISP specially to split the SNP list vote, none of which will be wasted at all if the SNP take all the constituencies. Actually the AFI/ISP is quite an interesting case since, as well as being set up by the unionists, they’re also an SNP trojan horse where the SNP want you to vote for them so that more pro-independence candidates get in. So they’re both a sort of Schrodinger’s political entity.

I can’t remember the rest but have to say it’s a bit tiresome being viciously denounced as working for the other side against something you’ve wanted all your life. Still, it is Valentine’s Day so let’s look back to happier times when our two nations were first manacled together…

And I’ll repost this one as I’ve gained a reader since it was first on here. It’s funny how quick the milk turns sour as another certain song might say…

A Cybernat

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Gimme Hope Joanna 

Apologies to either of my readers who might be old enough to have that Eddy Grant song stuck in their heads now. The “Joanna” does of course refer to Johannesburg in South Africa and the song deals with the long struggle against apartheid. While the Yes movement might not be as catastrophically divided as that yet, indications are that there are two firmly dug-in camps with no common ground.

Actually that last statement isn’t really true as each one is comprised of unionists who will do anything to derail the chances of independence. If you ask the other that is.

This week saw the sacking/reshuffling-so-no-idea-why-she-flounced-off-in-a-huff of Joanna Cherry, easily the most intelligent and competent/big-headed-thinks-she’s-better-than-she-is MP from the SNP’s front bench at Westminster which we all know is just brimming with exciting talent. I’ve already forgotten her replacement’s name and can’t be bothered Googling although there’s a fair chance she might not appear in the results anyway. Just imagine if Scotland were 1-0 down in the last minute of the World Cup final… I know, I know, but just indulge me here… and we’re desperate for a goal. Do you hook Denis Law and bring Ollie McBurnie on?

It was obviously an act of retribution/just a coincidence that Ms Cherry was booted out from her position just after all this woke nonsense exploded again. A few nonentities that the party could probably do well without go prancing off and Nicola Sturgeon makes a special video pleading for them to come back, seemingly oblivious to the harm they’re doing her chances with the 50%+ of the electorate who are real, genuine women? What’s glaringly obvious is that she couldn’t hate Ms Cherry any more than if Joanna turned up at the SNP Christmas do wearing the exact same dress, only two sizes smaller than hers.

Did Joanna Cherry, as a gay woman, say something outrageous like not being able to imagine being attracted to or dating one of these wannabe women? It looks like that’s enough to bring down their full hellfire and brimstone upon you. Anyone who doesn’t agree with their Through the Looking Glass way of seeing the world is denounced as transphobic and the real puzzle is why an obviously intelligent woman like Nicola Sturgeon is so completely and utterly bewitched by them.

It’s a pity Monty Python wasn’t still around as they could have a field day with all this woke nonsense…

I post vile tweets, I call folk c***s
I go to the lavatory
But always use the ladies’
When I need an SNPee

I’m an utter prat and I’m wokey
I squeal when I don’t get my way

I look real sweet, in my high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I was a girlie
Just like my dear mama.

And now for something completely different…

You know the daftest thing I’ve ever done? Back when I was a teenage electrical engineering student I was using a device called a Megger in the lab one day. The way this works is you attach the terminals to an item you want to measure the resistance of and then turn the handle which activates a high voltage generator that then forces current through the object. This gives a measure of resistance as, by Ohm’s Law, resistance is voltage divided by current. Anyway, I thought it’d be a good idea to measure the resistance of my arm and, looking back, I suppose I can console myself with the fact that I at least had an inquisitive mind. Attaching the crocodile clip to one of my fingers was easy enough, but I had to work to get a good contact between the other clip and my utter arm. I obviously had to keep one hand free as it was needed to turn the handle and drive the high voltage generator and even as I write this it’s truly incredible that at no stage did it dawn on me. So, once suitably wired up I gave the handle a good crank… although not for long!

Still, even at that age with a post-adolescent brain befuddled with teenage hormone thingies, I would’ve known that sending a threat of violence to a qualified lawyer probably wasn’t the best idea in the world! Let’s face it – the guy’s not going to be troubling the business end of Mastermind any time soon is he? If I was him I’d be pleading insanity when my case came up.

And what did Scotland’s First Minister have to say about it? Not a lot as it transpired. No specially made videos either. In fact I didn’t see all that much in the way of public outpourings of support from within the SNP. Why not? Too cravenly cowardly to risk sticking their head above the parapet and be seen by Joanna Cherry’s sworn enemy prowling outside looking for dissenters and deserters?

Take James Dornan MSP and his reply on Twitter to someone asking if he’d contacted Joanna Cherry.

Er… to show solidarity with a colleague who’s just received a credible threat to her personal safety that’s resulted in her having to be moved to a safe place. He’s obviously just the type of maverick you want in the trenches with you.

When it’s left to, of all people, a long streak of toffee-nosed ignorance like Jacob Rees Mogg – “No gruel for you, wench, until you’ve cleaned every chimney in the west wing – now move or I’ll take the riding crop to your buttocks…” to express sympathy and support to an SNP MP then you’re so far down the rabbit hole that you’re likely to come out at Sydney Opera House.

A Cybernat

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