Yet another new blog

The only time Theresa May is animated is when she's talking about immigration. She's usually talking bollocks, of course, but immigration is clearly her project. She has already screwed up the Windrush generation: people who were invited from the 'Empire' to the UK to help out the motherland in its time of need have now died without ever having their status sorted out. Their children, who also came here legitimately, have been deported to places they don't know and some of them have also died with no resolution to the 'problem' created by May. Now we have the 'problem' of the EU nationals and their position in brexit. The UK government wants these people to pay £65 to register as foreign nationals. It's just that these people are not 'foreign'. Some came here to work in the NHS or in education. They drive taxis, run shops, manage banks, work in libraries. Some have married Scots. A lot have children born and educated here. Neither t...

We had a family Christmas dinner today. And delicious it was - thanks to my sister and brother in law. During the soup course, Andrew said he wanted bread. - Con mantequilla? - Sin mantequilla. If you're not a language person, this wee exchange may mean nothing to you. He and his big brother are growing up in a bilingual household. Actually, a trilingual household: their Daddy and their Uncle Craig speak English and Spanish (Craig also speaks French), their Mamma speaks English and Spanish and their grandparents and I speak Scots and English with a wee bit of Spanish. I also speak French and Russian. So let me explain for non-language people: Andrew first of all had to understand that this conversation was in Spanish. Then he had to know the Spanish word for butter (mantequilla) and that the word for with is 'con'. Then he had to know that if you don't want butter, you need to use the word 'sin' meaning without. And he had to be able to copy the language ...

My name is Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you for listening to me. We are now a few days on from the unexpected general election that gave Labour a very small minority in parliament. Yesterday, Her Majesty invited me to form a government. Before I agree to do so, I want to explain to you the situation in the United Kingdom as I see it. It's been almost 3 years since the UK voted on leaving the EU. The arguments for leaving were never clear. It now looks as if the official Leave Campaign will face prosecution for misuse of public funds and some of its leaders will face prosecution for corruption in public office. There's no doubt people were lied to about the consequences of leaving the EU. My party - my government - is going to have to face a decision about what to do next. We will have more to say about this very soon. However, there are other issues I want to bring to your attention. We have examined the 'books' and it seems my party has inherited a national debt of 1 trill...

I got the tree out tonight. Missy the cat gave it about five minutes before she wrastled one of the wee decorations to the ground and chased it out into the hall. So we know where we're going from here, don't we? It's not much of a tree and I don't know why I even bother since I'm an atheist, except that it's a great symbol of paganism and a bit of an 'up yours' to Christians who have taken over pagan burial grounds to build churches on, pagan symbols to make their own (like the ankh being made into the crucifix) and pagan traditions being taken over, like - well, Christmas. One of many reasons I liked living in Islay in the 70s and 80s was that some pagan traditions survived. So Hallowe'en was for grown-ups, not for children. The adults got dressed up and only on the 31st of October (All Hallows' Eve - Samhain) and when there were bonfires, they had nothing to do with Guy Fawkes and lots to do with keeping the darkness at bay in Celtic t...

This is a temporary place for my health blog, now that Wordpress no longer works with Facebook. If you don't want to know, feel free to move away! It's a scunner right enough. I had about 10 weeks when I felt really well and was able to get out and about. You know: do things like a normal person does. Then three weeks ago, I got a 'bug', a virus - ach, who knows what it was? I had a high temperature, followed by shivering with the cold, runny nose, a cough. The gut was acting up too for a few days. Most of the symptoms have gone now but I'm still pretty wiped out. Can't abide noise, have no concentration (so no TV and reading at a snail's pace), either sleeping for 14 hours at a time or not sleeping at all (like now). Sore joints. Not hungry. The practice nurse is thrilled: 'Another 4kgs off!' she crows. 'But,' I say, 'that's because I'm no well, CarolAnn!' As long as I'm hitting one of her targets, she's not ...

...or does it? I always think of Scotland when I think about charity. The Scots are well known to be very generous to charities, with the people who can least afford to giving a fair bit. Charities like SCIAF, Mary's Meals, the Trussell Trust Food Banks, Combat Stress - they are all well-supported. This year, I've decided not to send Christmas cards. I've also told the grown-ups in my family they're not getting presents - just the children. And I don't want presents either. As my sister said this week: There's nothing I need. So a bit of my fuel allowance and a wee donation from my family will mean about £150 going to the Food Bank in Ibrox Parish Church in Glasgow. They can decide what to buy - they know their clients. I'm not making myself out to be special. Like many people, I try to give money to charity all year round. Last year at this time I gave to Mary's Meals, which feeds and educates children in Africa. I used to give to Oxfam, but ...

A few weeks back, as Theresa May appointed and then sacked her Brexit ministers, a joke went round the internet:  I hear we're all going to get a turn at being Brexit minister. My turn is supposed to be during the second week in January. I just hope it's not the Thursday. I can't do Thursdays. I'm now wondering if, when we wake up on Wednesday morning, we're going to be facing the same nonsense over the prime minister's job.  I've been trying to look at this week's shenanigans in Westminster in a fairly detached way, asking myself what makes a leader. And who is likely to be able to do the job. Not a boss and definitely not - for heavenssake - a manager. I suspect leadership is one of those attributes you recognise when you see it, although it's tough to define.  Harry S Truman made a good point: "In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skilful leaders seize the opportunity to change ...

...and why I could never join either of them. Apart from the fact that I can't swallow the beliefs of either party, there's this: I'm a member of the Scottish Green Party. I follow their Facebook pages once in a while. I can't actually manage more than a couple of views a month, not because I don't believe in their aims and policies. I absolutely do: The Scottish Greens favour environmental, social and economic justice. That means local control - independence is included in that - and radical participatory democracy. "We are committed to international co-operation and peaceful means to achieve our objectives." I want independence so we can decide for ourselves how our country should develop. I want to see us use fuel sources that don't contribute to the destruction of our planet. I want fairness in the use of land in Scotland. I want all the people who live here to be treated fairly. I want, on a practical level, a citizen's basic income for ...

Strictly speaking, we all are.  There's plenty of evidence now that humanity walked out of Africa, maybe 200,000 years ago, spread through the Arabian Gulf and moved east and west till we had populated most of the globe. Even the bits that seem uninhabitable at first glance.  What were our ancestors looking for? Land to occupy. A place to settle. They didn't work the land then, although they learned how to as time went on. They were very adaptable. They survived a mini ice age and huge changes in the landscape of the places they settled. They met other species of hominids and intermingled with them.  In the case of the British Isles, people may have walked across a land bridge from the European continent. They may have sailed from many parts of the mainland to settle here. The 'occupation' of Britain started about 13,000 years ago but it went on for a long time.  In Scotland we're only now finding out about our genetic history. Now that we have access to DNA...

In fact, teachers and headteachers - we've all been trying to tell you for about 40 years now. And by you, I mean parents, politicians, lazy-assed b$ast$rds that think all they have to do to deal with any kind of social problem is to pass it on to the schools. You know what I mean: kids sent to nursery - and to primary 1 - still in nappies, unable to chew their food (oh yes, I've met them), their behaviour totally out of control. I'm not talking about 2 year olds throwing a tantrum or kids with special needs. Teachers know how to deal with them. I'm talking about children with no idea about socialisation, who will arrive in your class behaving badly and will go on behaving badly unless someone takes action. Not the teachers. That's not what they do. Nor should they. In case anyone's forgotten, teachers do education: reading, writing, maths, social subjects, technology, science, art, drama, music, a foreign language. They also manage to squeeze in anti-bullying...