Yet another new blog

My friend - I'll call him Hamish (because that's his name) - posted this yesterday and I see exactly where he's coming from: <<The BBC radio 4 weather forecast this morning was brief,...”rain will be confined to Scotland, some brighter periods in the South West”. South west of where exactly? This may seem like a trivial point but it’s not, it typifies an attitude of what Scot land is and this from a national broadcaster which should be geographically and politically neutral. I’ve been a reluctant nationalist more so because I don’t believe any one party has all the answers, but on the issue of separation I am now completely convinced it's the way to go on the most important point of all, ...principle. In principle we as a people should, could and can govern ourselves just fine. If shit happens we can deal with it and learn along the way. If the likes of Boris can do it, anyone can>>. I have great respect for how far along the road to independence the...

This is going to be a rant.  I'm reading and hearing all sorts of silly stuff about the next independence referendum: the SNP have lost heart (or interest or drive); the SNP is run by a clique, a hierarchy who are letting down their membership; the time to call for a 2nd independence referendum has passed and we've 'missed the bus'.  Let me point a few things out: Independence doesn't belong to the SNP.  There are many other groups (the Scottish Greens, the SSP, Women for Independence, Business for Independence, Labour Members for Independence, English People for Independence, etc) entitled to be considered when setting the date of the next referendum.  In any case, as a friend put it recently, if you don't like the SNP or Nicola Sturgeon, that's no reason to dump the idea of independence. Rejecting independence because you don't like Nicola Sturgeon is like not buying a house because you don't like the curtains. Get the house and you can do ...

Empires come and go. Very few go out in a blaze of glory. Sometimes revolution gets rid of them. A few have been wiped out after being on the losing side in a war. Some have just dwindled away. The British Empire seems to have carved out a place for itself as the empire that is dead but just will not lie down. 70-odd years after it began to fall apart, there are still people living in England (and I suspect it's only in England) who think they are still living in the Empire, whereas in reality the Empire is hanging on desperately to its last remnants: like the Falklands, Gibraltar and a few specks in distant oceans.  A few folk appear to think the heyday of the British Empire is still with them. I'm thinking of the man who said on TV Britain had managed before the EU and would fine after Brexit, adding 'After all, we still have the Empire.'  Some, sadly, mistake the Commonwealth for the Empire and think they can issue orders to what are independent nation states. A pr...

Empires come and go. Very few go out in a blaze of glory. Sometimes revolution gets rid of them. A few have been wiped out after being on the losing side in a war. Some have just dwindled away. The British Empire seems to have carved out a place for itself as the empire that is dead but just will not lie down. 70-odd years after it began to fall apart, there are still people living in England (and I suspect it's only in England) who think they are still living in the Empire, whereas in reality the Empire is hanging on desperately to its last remnants: like the Falklands, Gibraltar and a few specks in distant oceans.  A few folk appear to think the heyday of the British Empire is still with them. I'm thinking of the man who said on TV Britain had managed before the EU and would fine after Brexit, adding 'After all, we still have the Empire.'  Some, sadly, mistake the Commonwealth for the Empire and think they can issue orders to what are independent nation states. ...

The Irish Times has described the period the West is in now as 'pre-Fascist' and they're right. Look at what's happening in the USA. Children are dying in detention camps - 2 so far - separated from their parents. Their crime is that they have come from Central America looking for a better life. Now Trump is singling out female politicians with brown faces for abuse. These women are US citizens legally elected to represent voters. And yet again, women's rights are under attack, with individual states shutting down access not just to abortion but to any kind of advice on sexual health and contraception. Then there's the fiasco that calls itself the UK: Jeremy Rhyming-slang appears on the telly in his day job to talk about Iran and attacks on UK shipping in the Persian Gulf, and before we know it the moronic Boris Johnson is waving a kipper around, raving about the EU's crazy food regulations, when all the time the rules about the export of fish are purely...

I wrote this to someone earlier today but I want to repeat it: This is the Westminster government's new 'Queen Elizabeth' hub in Edinburgh. It will be occupied by the Secretary of State, his staff and 3,000 civil servants. This is, in effect, a new branch of the UK government being set up in Scotland. Do you remember being asked if you wanted this new branch of government? Do you think we need it? Will it bring jobs (apart from the 3,000 civil servant jobs) to Scotland? Will it add to the prestige or success of Scotland? Do we know what it's for? The QE hub is - yet again - something that has been done to us, for us, on our behalf but without our permission. It's not something that's been done with us.  Scots will have no say in how it's run or what it does. But we'll pay for it. That's a certainty. This is in my opinion the perfect definition of colonialism. But colonial days are over. The British Empire is no more. Sadly, West...

*sarcasm alert* Maybe it's time for us to fess up: Scotland is a basket case. If it's not failing hospitals, it's failing schools. Theresa May says (admittedly contrary to the views of economists) that the Scottish economy is doing worse than that of the UK. We're such a basket case, we have to be subsidised by the UK government. Aren't they good to us? We're obviously incapable of running our own affairs, so useless that Westminster has had to appoint an overseer with a brand spanking new building in Edinburgh to prop us up. We'll pay for the building, of course - and the 3,000 civil servants who are going to be working there. But we won't mind, because we need to be looked after by the nanny state. Don't we? Now it's drugs. We have known for 3 decades that drugs are making a mess of some of the poorest areas of Scotland. But we also know that drugs are a 'reserved' matter: Westminster decides drugs policy an...

Myself, I define it as what Donald Trump said yesterday about 4 US politicians:  <<"If you are not happy, if you are complaining all the time, you can leave," he told a heated news conference outside the White House. On Sunday Mr Trump called on the women, who are from ethnically diverse backgrounds, to "go back".  He was widely accused of racism and xenophobia, which he denied.  "These are people that in my opinion hate our country," President Trump told reporters. "As far as I'm concerned if you hate our country, if you're not happy here, you can leave. "Three of the women were born in the US and one came to the US as a child refugee.>> His attitude is not new: there are plenty of people around the world who feel like this about folk with brown faces - and especially those who wear headscarves . But not many of them are the President of the USA.  Robert Reich has rightly taken issue with his commen...

I was going to be flippant about UK politics, but I find I can't. It's too scary for that. There aren't enough Jeremy rhyming-slang jokes to make it possible to keep the fun going. Remember the good old days of politics in the UK? Like in 2010 when the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Tories, did their best to act as a brake on the more outrageous Tory ideas but still got the blame for everything that went wrong - and, as a result, have taken years to recover in the polls. We knew where we were with that brand of politics. You might not like it, but you knew what you were getting. But somewhere around the end of the coalition, politics changed. Trump had appeared in the USA and went from being the joke candidate for the presidency to the next president of the United States. It soon became clear what his campaign tactics were: appeal to the section of the population that thinks it's been left out (especially the most politically unaware), tell lies, b...

I read an article about the menopause in the Sunday National today. Well, I was glad it was at least written by a woman. That's not always the case. I'm probably one of many women who have turned up to see a consultant about menopausal problems and discovered the 'expert' was a man. The article is well written. The only part I took exception to was where the writer talked about the menopause being 'part of the ageing process.' And I wondered: is it only women who age? When I was enduring the menopause - about 25 years ago - I went to a show in the Royal Concert Hall by Chris Rea. I don't know who I expected to come out singing 'Driving Home for Christmas' but it wasn't an old man in dungarees. Bare arms are not a good look for a man after a certain age. He looked - well - pale and flabby. On the road to hell, in my opinion. But he was well received. A music star is always a star, even when he's ageing. Trying to think of a femal...

For years I thought her name was Widdlecombe and couldn't understand why she didn't just change it. (Mind you, for a while, I also thought Ed Balls had made his name up, because it was so unlikely anyone would have kept it if it was for real). I saw Widdecombe's speech at the EU parliament on TV and I can't say I was surprised. There's an element among the Brexit Party that feels they are martyrs, although I have to ask who the hell knows why. Brexit won - if that's what the mess that is now brexit can be called a win. But the Brexiteers are either so arrogant or so lacking in emotional intelligence, they will say anything to get attention. After all, Ann Widdicombe is the politician who went on a TV dancing programme despite the fact she can't dance. She's the female equivalent of the blustering fool in the Westminster Parliament who keeps on standing up to make points of order even after the Speaker tells her (nicely) to sit down and shut the f*...

This is going to be a trivial post.  The Silly Season is supposed to be August, when politicians go off on their holidays and journalists (I use the word loosely) have nothing else to talk about, so we get re-runs of stories about Princess Diana, shockeroony rumours about TV 'personalities' - and sport. But we're only just into July. The TV is awash with the Women's World Cup football. The English team is, as always, being over-hyped as the next world champions - despite the fact the US women are obviously miles ahead of them in experience and tactical knowledge. Heaven help the England women (Lionesses - for heavenssake, who came up with that one?) when they lose. As they surely will. I draw the line at watching Wimbledon. I've never understood why the BBC feels the need to show it all day and all evening on two terrestrial channels. How many channels can you watch at a time? Myself, I'm reduced to watching re-runs of NCIS and I'm just about at the...