Giggety giggety goo

As much as I dislike blowing my own trumpet...like Bill Hick's said, it's that last vertebrae, I released a small snarf today when perusing the Sunday Times, Scotland Atticus column and found the following article.

Now I know Labour MSP's can be terminally slow on the uptake, but I've been using Giggety to describe poor old Ian since he first hit upon the idea of cadging £500 off senior prefect Baker.

In fact a perusal through this here blog, finds me referring to him as 'Giggety' as early last March, when the blogger stork neatly delivered this screaming ball of criticism into my eager mitts. Keen observers may have even noticed the name being used by a variety of ne'er-do-wells on the pages of The Hootsman.

I can only ponder whether the poor Labour MSP's have also ripped off my soubriquet for she of the mellifluous tones,  'Jackie the Hutt'... 

But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity.' The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Renowned Wickerhead Allan Brown of the Sunday Times has an interesting article in this morning's paper about the travails faced by poor Hugh McLeod, the 30th chief of the Clan McLeod and the cursed inheritance of maintaining Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye.

This latter day Monarch of the Glen is in the process of restoring what could graciously be described as the best example of Stalinist castle architecture outside of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Clan chief McLeod is in the process of spending £1.1 million on patching up the castle's copper roof. The vast majority of the funding has come from the public purse, the estate have had to take on significant debts to pay for the remainder. The roof is just the first part of work done to keep this crumbling pile from collapsing underneath the weight of its place in our understanding of what heritage really is.

McLeod sums up the problem facing our latest generation of the aristocracy, who through no fault of their own inherited massive obligations to maintain these monstrous carbuncles... the poor souls.

“I’m just a link in a chain that goes back 800 years — and my job is not to be the weak link,” he says.

To me this is the very core of what's wrong with Scotland's relationship with our landed gentry, the obligation to maintain the natural order with toffs on top holding grimly on to huge swathes of Scotland. Take for example, the Duke of Buccleuch, whom I've met a couple of times, he's a lovely chap, very approachable, good to his workforce and elderly tenants, keen to encourage community involvement, a great supporter of the arts, interested in developing sustainable housing, district heating schemes, biodiversity, green issues etcetera, a really lovely bloke. However, he is not just the largest private landowner in Scotland, he's the largest private landowner on the continent of Europe. He owns 279,000 acres of Scotland. Local folklore has it that you could walk from Portpatrick on the west coast to St Abbs on the east coast and never set foot off Buccleuch land.

Now short of challenging our collective lairds to a bout of fisticuffs to get the land back to the people, we're left in this ludicrous situation where a few folk, most of whom are not resident here or speak with the same tongue, keep a stranglehold on the growth of Scotland. What to do?

Look at our population densely crammed into the central belt. There is no need for it. Why can't we have those communities who were cleared to the cities and conurbations in the 19th century return to the vast tracts of land both north and south of the Central Belt? Previously people needed to be near their source of food and employment. Today with the globalisation of the food industry and the growth in small to medium scale enterprises, there is no need for companies to have a massive workforce on their doorstep. 

We need to sit back and compare our use of land and the spread of our population with similar sized countries, who manage to have an even coverage. We need major investment in our road and sea infrastructure. Why for example, has the main arterial route up the west coast of Scotland had a set of temporary lights on the Loch Lomond, Tarbet to Crianlarich A82 road for nearly forty chuffing years?

Sustainable communities where housing is owned and maintained collectively by communities is not some utopian wishy washy dream. There are people like the Hartwood Community who are actively pursuing the reality of finding people tired of the grind of working to live, to pay mortgages on the hugely inflated cost of housing. A recent exercise saw them build a comfortable, liveable, safe, low cost, warm straw bale house for less than £5000, using reclaimable materials and readily available low carbon methods of energy. Naturally, they did this without planning permission in a hidden away location. This so incensed the likes of the Daily Mail, that they trawled through various images in an effort to track down these vile sandal wearing, didgeridoo playing affordable house building zealots to report them to the Authorities...

I digress, back to the young McLeod of McLeod. I have a solution for him that needn't hump him with debt or burden the public purse. Let Dunvegan die a natural death, I'm not advocating architectural euthanasia, merely suggesting he let it slowly go back to being a ruin. In the meantime if he wishes to maintain a castle in Dunvegan, amidst his own 25,000 acres, why not save your pennies and build a contemporary castle, that you can live in and still bring cash paying visitors to? You could hold an open competition for Scotland's many fine architects to design you a castle fit for the future. Build it from locally sourced materials, make it environmentally sound, jings a straw bale castle might keep the wolf from the door. Alternatively you could go for something like this.

It's a beauty isn't it? Monte Silo is perhaps not to every aristocrats taste, I can't imagine hanging a stags head above the fireplace would be a good look, and the servants silo might be a tad cramped. However, the facts remain, spending your life avoiding being the weak link in an 800 year old chain is redundant in this new age of austerity and environmentalism. Get with it, free your mind and let go of your acreage to the people.  

When we the people become, 'these people'.

"We took steps some months ago to remove the right of these people to stand as candidates for the Labour Party."  

Gordon Brown PM Scotsman Feb 6th 2009 

Here's something you won't find me doing very often - expressing sympathy for a Scottish Labour MP.

The not so suitably yclept Jim Devine MP for Livingstone, I believe has been badly let down by his party and colleagues. He has been scapegoated and become the focus of corruption amongst our MP's. 

Gordon Brown's description of those who have stepped out of his control as 'these people' is quite telling, how quick the fall from grace is. To go from 'honourable member' to 'these people' in such a short space of time is infused with hypocrisy. How can yesterday's colleague or friend, become a non-person overnight? The light speed with which politicians distance themselves from any controversy which might tarnish their precious reputations and electability, is still beyond the ken of most physicists. 

His alleged misdemeanour's in falsely claiming parliamentary expenses compare favourably with many of his fellow Labour MP's, some who have pocketed tens of thousands with judicious manipulation of the expenses system. To compound the misery for Devine and his family is the ludicrous suggestion in The Guardian, that Devine could spend up to seven years in jail.

What has miffed me most is the somewhat lurid reporting and pursuit of Devine, the doorstepping, long lens shots and flash-mob interviews that have been reminiscent of the impoverished MC Hammer's discomfort when he was offered a DJ gig at a Klan meeting. Today's photograph in the Hootsman is the perfect example of making Devine look like he's escaped from an institution. I include it below purely for illustrative purposes.

Having seen a few interviews with Jim Devine, including the excruciating one where a poorly dressed, overweight, shambling. sweating, dithering, probably hung over Devine took the STV cameras through his less than salubrious London flat, the thought struck me that he portrayed all the hallmarks of a man who has too comfortable a relationship with alcohol. I mention this not to judge, but to empathise. 

Like most Scots I have experience of how alcoholism affects and ruins families and professional life. In the past, those with a drink dependency were tut tutted to the door and kicked out. Today employment legislation affords those afflicted by addiction protection and all manners of counselling, help and advice. I fear that Devine's employers, be that the Labour government, the house of Commons or the Labour Party have not recognised that he might have a problem and have failed him at his greatest time of need. He has in effect been cut loose and left to scrabble around trying to keep his arse out of the pokey and preserve what remains of his reputation.

I hope that somewhere in amongst our media's feigned moral outrage that some of them might pause for a while and reflect on their own relationship with alcohol and perhaps go a little easier on Mr Devine.

Get your fresh Haitian orphans here.

So there we have it, reports in today's Telegraph that orphaned Haitian babies are available for as low as £30. No doubt some enterprising chappy will undercut this with a BOGOF deal. 'Buy one earthquake orphaned baby, get another one free.' Every bit helps.

We've already had the extremely generous and highly contentious suggestion from the President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade offering Haitians free land to relocate to Senegal, this sparked off a rush of other African and Latin American rulers offering free land to the displaced and damaged victims. However president Wade's offer was first and best, not just repatriation but free, fertile land and if many come, a region...

Senegal, despite widespread poverty and unemployment, is one of West Africa’s more stable economies... and regards many Haitians as long lost brothers and sisters lost via the slave trade. If poverty stricken African countries are lending such a generous hand, what exactly are we doing? Look at the wealth throughout the UK, the ostentatious buildings in our major cities financed by the toil of the slave trade. Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and London how different they would look if we hadn't been in the business of slavery.

I'm intrigued by Africa's offer of assistance, is it Africa's responsibility to look after Haiti and make offers that Europeans and North Americans would blanche at? Look how many Haitians die every year trying to sneak into the United States. Stories abound of Haitian-Americans trying to pay to fly injured or dying relatives into American hospitals and being denied access.  If there is a responsibility to Haiti, to ensure that those who don't head off to West Africa, have a proper attempt at reconstruction, then surely that lies with the Americans and Europeans who have shafted them since the birth of their nation? I was horrified to discover that Haiti only stopped paying compensation to the French whose companies lost out after the slave revolt in 1946.  Imagine, paying an indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade, or making those who paid with their blood pay twice.

Look a little closer to Haiti to see how reconstruction and regeneration can somehow benefit a people in the oddest of ways. The venerable Scottish poet and my old friend, Alastair Reid, writes in his collection of poems and prose 'Oases', of his life in Haiti's neighbour, the Dominican Republic. In his wonderful languid style he describes how in the run up to the Quincentenary of Columbus arriving in the Americas, the then repressive dictatorial President Balageur was keen to capitalise on the Dom Rep as the place where Colombus first set foot on the Americas. Balageur despite being nearly blind ploughed untold tens of millions of dollars into a gigantic lighthouse, in the shape of a cross, lying flat on it's back. 120 feet high and half a mile high, beams of light would illuminate the skies, visible as far away as Puerto Rico some 200 miles distant. Balageur was undeterred, modern navigation doesn't need lights, the infrastucture of health, education, transport was far more important. All criticism was dismissed. 1992 finally came around, the massive edifice was complete, evening fell, the lights were switched on beams of light illuminated the sky for 60 seconds, then the entire electricity system collapsed. In his haste to build a monument to his own vanity, Balaguer missed the opportunity to work on the really important parts of reconstruction.

We have to ensure that Haiti is not dismissed as a vanity project by the NGO's and our ever so concerned western governments. We have to ensure that the USA have simply not colonised this island with the business end of an assault rifle, that democracy is respected and the people of Haiti have the right to live in the relatively similar prosperity of their neighbour's in the Dominican Republic. As it currently stands, I have my doubts.

 Update 8.52pm

Rather ironically, I've just noticed on the BBC that Brown government has purchased all the UK's available corrugated iron sheeting. So these 5,700 sheets will fit in quite nicely with the illustration above.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8489308.stm

Mainshill no more. Thanks politicans...No really.

I drove by Mainshill climate camp, a mere mile or so from the M74 yesterday. As a posturing mountebank of the highest order, I'm as likely as the next fellow to mock the rag tag band of trustafarians who generally don the eco warriors facepaint. 

However, given the excessive forces of the state, police, police 'tree climbers', big coal, landed gentry and the seriously worrying private 'eviction specialists' National Eviction Team being used against them, I have to say my tweed cap is solidly tipped in their much maligned under-dog direction today.

The ever helpful Strathclyde Plod have put a set of temporary lights on A70 which allow jaded commuters a view of the proceedings, as hard faced, yellow jacketed security teams lour at kids chained to trees, JCB's rip trees from the earth and dump them in a giant pile where the original camp was sited. The eagle eyed driver and their passengers looking past the plethora of polis vans complete with flashing lights a-go-go, can just make out 'Ewok village', where the vile planet saving eco bods, have built a series of tree dens and tunnels, wherein many have secreted themselves from the longish arm of the law.Naturally, the wildlife are terrified.

So why have these crusty scamps chosen to protest and protect Mainshill Woods from what is after only another open cast coal mine? Well, this will be the fifth opencast in South Lanarkshire. Over the border into deepest Ayrshire a mere ten miles away, Europe's largest opencast runs from the back of Muirkirk to a kick-in-the-pants away from Kirkconnell in Dumfries and Galloway. The campaigners are against using coal of any description and they lost a lot of my support when they hiked ten miles across Cairn Table and knackered the conveyor belt that was carrying coal. This petty vandalism, was merely shrugged off by teh operators who simply put a massive amount of trucks on the road to shift the coal. Oops. Think of the environmental damage done....

Anyhoo, where I agree with our hardy chums is in the belief that this part of southern Scotland is rapidly becoming a few small green islands of towns and villages surrounded by a sea of black opencasts. Where rapacious open cast operators scrape away the top soil and dig out the poor quality coal to supply our coal fuelled power stations. Conditions for those lucky enough to be employed in the opencast, is really a life and death situation. There have been a number of plant deaths and injuries. As always Health and Safety are called in and the companies send round a photocopied sheet telling operators not to get out of their vehicles and try to avoid getting run over by 100 tonne loaded machines. No union, woeful health and safety, utter disregard for the lives of employees or those poor bastards unfortunate to live in blasting area...

Naturally if Thatch and her cohorts hadn’t shut the mines, and shafted working communities throughout the land, these fly-by-night private coal companies wouldn’t be so ardently raping the Scottish landscape. Now of course, we don’t do deep seam coal mining, despite most of Scotland floating on enough of the stuff to keep the home fires burning for millennia to come. I’m not advocating a return to the labour intensive pit heads of the past, however, in the 25 years since the blessed Margaret went to war, technology has rather improved and the need for men hacking their guts up whilst they rip out fresh seams has long gone. 

What interests me most about Mainshill, is why the local politicians lobby so fervently to allow a deeply unpopular application to go through and then when referred upstairs to Holyrood, we find an increasingly compliant government, that may mildly remonstrate against penetration, but still willingly bends over to receive the mineral companies largesse.

Locally, Labour dominate the area, ‘it’s aye been that way, son, nae point in changin’ noo.’ First up we have the Councillor for Miami South Danny Meikle, the Labour councillor who allegedly only comes home from surgeries when there’s enough folk to fill up his surgery diary. Mr Meikle of course was found guilty of ….ach tell you what, watch this video in the link below to get a flavour of how Mr Meikle’s family and friends operate in their own personal fiefdom. Suffice it to say the other fans of opencast are the weightwatcher friendly Jimmy Kelly MP, Karen Gillon MSP and aristocrat Lord Home, who stands to make a killing from the coal scraped out. Lovely people.


http://www.politube.org/show/2378
Ohh before I go, the latest news is 43 protesters are now in police custody... wouldn't it be nice if the Scottish media took an interest in it. Whaddya say Caledonian Mercury?

"Is it alright if I have a look around? "

I am completely overwhelmed that the man who is the nearest Scotland has to a Nelson Mandela figure has noticed my case and blogged on the legal aspects of the closeness of the government and the judiciary. 

Many thanks Mr Hamilton, Nationalist, Patriot and Harley rider.


Click on his name to take you direct to his blog.

Ian Hamilton QC

Caledonian Mercury a-go-go.

Huzzah, let celebration bells ring out throughout the land, at last a brave new dawn has arisen in the Scottish media, for today we witness the launch of a brave new hope in being able to say the words 'Scottish' and 'Journalism' without thinking of them together as an oxymoron. Ladies and Gents behold the Caledonian Mercury.

Rather fittingly they have chosen to launch  this free to read on-line newspaper on the 251st birthday of Rabbie Burns. The Burnsamentalist's among us will know that Burns, as well as being our National Bard, was a political pamphleteer in rhyme, given to venting his spleen and railing against his critics in the then dead tree press. "Thou eunuch of language....thou pimp of gender...murderous accoucheur of infant learning...thou pickle herring in the puppet show of nonsense."

After decades of a piss poor, wishy-washy, advertiser led, subservient media, content to take perfumed press releases from the establishment, than do any actual pukka reporting, is this finally a chance for that rare thing, an independent voice in Scotland  unbiased, unprejudiced, equitable and impartial?


Obviously there are as many expectations on the Mercury's founder and editor, Stewart Kirkpatrick as there are on poor Barack Obama's shoulders. No pressure there then Stewart. Thinking Scots of all flavours have been keen to see a Scottish media that doesn't treat readers as an afterthought easily swayed by insulting propaganda, as peddled by most of our main stream media.  Those of us of an Independence bent are not asking for a pro-independence media, merely a level playing field, where journalists do the work free from the pressures of owners and editors with a political agenda.


Of course, the Mercury isn't the first free on-line newspaper in the country. I don't know if it was the first, but certainly the best example, is the estimable For Argyll which as it name suggests focuses on news and events in Argyllshire. Refreshingly, it's not afraid to take a common-sense approach to both local and International news. Their campaign against the international shipping magnates using Loch Striven as a nautical free boat park is a splendid example of their proactive stance.



The For Argyll model I am convinced is the way our local news should be presented, opposed to the advertising laden blatts which constitute this nations local press. Do any of our local press contain more than the usual 'pages of shame', wherein we can find out who is in and out of court, followed by a letters page of green ink using moaning mentalists?


So in an age where our TV news looks as if it has used 'The Day Today' as a training manual, here's good luck and best wishes to Stewart Kirkpatrick and his team of 'fantasy football' journalists. 

Leak all about it.

Odd isn't it that the two charming CID officers I spoke to in Dumfries yesterday said they wouldn't be talking to anyone about them charging me with Breach of the Peace? Yes, that's Breach of the Peace, not the pukka incredibly serious charges of blackmail or extortion.

But hey, another day, another 'exclusive' for Paul Hutcheon of the Sunday Herald writing again in the Herald........

black·mail

Pronunciation: \ˈblak-ˌmā(ə)l\

Function: noun

Etymology: black + ¹mail

Date: 1552

1 : a tribute anciently exacted on the Scottish border by plundering chiefs in exchange for immunity from pillage
 

2 a : extortion or coercion by threats especially of public exposure or criminal prosecution b : the payment that is extorted

blackmail transitive verb

black·mail·er noun

ex·tor·tion

Pronunciation: \ik-ˈstȯr-shən\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 : the act or practice of extorting especially money or other property; especially : the offense committed by an official engaging in such practice
 

2 : something extorted; especially : a gross overcharge

ex·tor·tion·er \-sh(ə-)nər\ noun

ex·tor·tion·ist \-sh(ə-)nist\ noun

Breach of the Peace

Offence: When one or more persons conduct themselves in a riotous, or disorderly manner, anywhere, which alarms, annoys or disturbs the lieges (other people).

Arrest: Common law powers of arrest.

Notes:
This offence can take place anywhere i.e. a house, a public street or a private office.

Riotous: There is normally an element of noise, or 'rowdiness' or 'brawling' which is clearly causing concern to other members of the public e.g. swearing, challenging people to fight.

Disorderly: There is a more subtle element. The behaviour doesn't have to be noisy but still of a nature that would cause concern to other people. Examples include: 'Peeping Tom' type behaviour, persistently following someone, delivering 'threatening' letters and 'streaking' or 'mooning'.
To prove a Breach of the Peace the most important things to prove is that someone was Alarmed, Annoyed or Disturbed by the incident.


Thank chuff I didn't email in the buff!

Tie up the knocker and say I'm dead.

Dear all, apologies for the lack of posting this week, I have been suffering from ill health. At times I've been wavering between a bright light at the end of a long tunnel and the manly need to call for a priest, minister, mullah, rabbi or mother. Yes, I've succumbed to the dreaded MAN FLU!!!

Ladies of my acquaint have been sympathetic, nodding gently when I've complained about the weight of my eyelids or whenever a local cow stares at me in a strange manner. Some have gently mopped my fevered brown with their scented hankies....hang on a sec, I'm delusional, I'm dreaming, I've been pilloried, castigated and humiliated for daring to whimper whenever beset by a bout of sneezes. They can be quite inhumane the so called fairer sex.

Obviously male chums commented how I didn't have long for this planet and that it was nice knowing me, others made the obligatory swine flu jokes...

Which got me thinking.

What happened to the great Winter Swine Flu pandemic that was going to see dead bodies being piled high in the streets? 

Where were the citizens wandering through shopping centres jingling warning bells in front of them? What became of the huge X's daubed on the double glazed doors of victims throughout the length and breadth of auld Scotia?

Naturally, when Swine Flu raised its ugly head last Spring, our invincible Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, took all criticism on the chin, and michty me what a chin, without fully identifying the financial implications for NHS Scotland budgets, manfully shoved risk assessments aside and heroically ordered copious amounts of the H1N1 pandemic vaccine, somewhere in the region of ten million jabs. 

 

Obviously costs involved in transportation, storage, staffing implementation, etcetera will have to be worked out later. Getting 'big pharms' jabs into our peoples veins, regardless of the supposed benefits of taking the vaccine, was a priority and far outweighed the risk of being perceived as the photo-op seeking Health Secretary who forces her compassion on unsuspecting NHS patients whilst the nation sneezes, splutters and whinges, as normal. 

To date Scotland has had about 70 Swine Flu deaths. Obviously the real danger has been the much quoted ‘underlying health problems’. This lovely phrase seems to imply that the patient was already ill with something ghastly and the Swine Flu helped finish them off. The fact remains that this is an illness that has killed far less Scots than regular flu. At what cost?

Naturally, there are those who have been voluble in their criticism of this culture of cajoling, pressuring and insisting that vulnerable groups take an untested vaccine. The most vocal critics have been the advocates for expectant mothers, who have discovered several cases globally where babies whose expectant mothers had taken the vaccine have died. In spite of this jolly Jackie Bailley, she of the sexiest voice in parliament, has been quick to condemn the redoubtable Ms Sturgeon for failing to personally ensure that all pregnant women are vaccinated…

We're told that the immunisation programme take up has been fantastic. The advert of some bloke sneezing in a lift has no doubt had benefits to Scotland's health causing many of us to avoid lifts and take the stairs instead. 

So far nearly half a million people in Scotland have taken the vaccine, nearly 10 per cent of the population, of those 105,000 are health and social care workers, who work with the vulnerable and were obliged encouraged to take the jab.

Which leaves us with some awkward questions. What are we going to do with the remaining nine million jabs? In our haste to appear to do the right thing did we forget to include a get-out-clause with our suppliers? Have we received all our doses in one go? Are there more to come? Can we sell the unused ones back to our supplier? Will we stockpile the unused vaccines in the hope that Swine Flu will come back stronger? Or will we either donate or sell them to impoverished countries where the ‘epidemic’ is gaining momentum? 

In the meantime, I'll be a brave little soldier and toddle off to my death bed.  

For clarification the photograph below is not Angus Robertson modelling his latest hoodie.

"Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side." La Rochefoucauld.

Paul Hutcheon, Aileen Orr's bestest pal of the Sunday Herald, writes in today's Herald again. Accusing me of alleged extortion. I understand that when police are asked to investigate such accusations, particularly from such a high powered 'victim' they are duty bound to look into allegations. 

As of this morning, I have had no contact with Lothian and Borders Police, whom if they can get up the lane through the snow drifts to the house, are welcome to come in for a coffee and a chat about these 'allegations'. We've got shortbread, bring your own sugar.


I'm genuinely surprised at Paul Hutcheon's role in all this, not that he seems to be doing a Herald journalist out of a job, in his hasty attempt to make this an FMQ question again, but with regard to the conversation we had, when he suggested that me contacting the alleged victim was from a 'humanist' perspective (his words not mine). If he meant was I still deluded into thinking the recipient was still a friend, who had indicated that he would help me out, and that's all I was looking for, then he was right. 

Someone leaked  emails to Paul Hutcheon that were privy to only two people, unless anonymous men in grey suits employed by sinister forces elsewhere, have hacked either of the computers the emails were on, then the leak can only have come from one person....and it wasn't me.

So if this concerted attempt at bullying an individual by government and an ever so compliant media succeeds I suspect you won't be hearing much from me. Files in cakes always welcome... 

Addendum 15th January 2010

Sometimes it's rather difficult to read the Scotsman without a gaping maw at the plethora of errors therein. The latest attack on me by the Fourth Estate, as Ecclefechan boy Thomas Carlyle coined them, is a doozy. 

Tom Peterkin of the Hootsman eagerly laps up Paul Hutcheon's sloppy seconds and reports that "that the police have launched an investigation into alleged "distortion".

Now I'm not entirely sure and it would take a better legal mind than mine to come up with the definitive answer, but is 'distortion' much of an alleged crime? Is Tom talking about distorting sound waves, images or harmony, what can he mean? Hey maybe he means contortion?

The poor feller goes onto create further confusion by accusing me of making "unfounded claims about the sex life of a married Labour MP ."  Err who? Which Labour MP are you talking about Tom? I didn't make any claims about the sex life of any married Labour MP. As you visit the blog quite a lot, 10 times in the last day, from the Johnston Press IP address195.59.102.211 perhaps you'd like to show me where the allegation can be found?

PPS. Jings feller, egg and your face must be in close proximity...

The Daily Record is a big fat liar and other observations.

Our delightfully jolly Tartan overlord Alex Salmond and Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill yesterday appeared before the Scottish Affairs Select Committee (click link for video) at Westminster in the rather sterile sounding session, 'Scotland and the UK: cooperation and communication between governments'. I suppose it's nice to see Westminster adopt 'Government' over 'Executive'.

Anyhoo, the media have jumped all over the Tartan overlord and Kenny MacAskill or Mahatmacaskill ,as Tom Harris likes to think of him, for the comments they made in committee on the release on compassionate grounds in August 2009 of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. 

Foremost in our brave Scottish media was Magnus Gardham of the Daily Record, aka the Labour Party in-house journal. Magnus at his most excoriating best delivered the subhead, 'Kenny MacAskill: I've no regrets over decision to release Lockerbie bomber.' 

The Daily Record much like the rest of the British tabloids and American media have been completely vituperative in condemning MacAskill's decision, much like the blessed Lord Foulkes, whom Tom Harris describes as shouting from a sedentary position during the nominations for the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards, "He's still alive."

There appears to be some desperate wish on the part of the Labour Party and the tabloids for Megrahi to remain alive, not on humanitarian grounds, but merely to embarrass MacAskill. Some have even gone so far as to deliberately mislead their readership with flagrant lies, deceit and propaganda.

Now on Thursday the 26th of November vile, deceitful, cowardly, bullying, smear merchant and attack bastard Montague Burton received a swift belter in the nads from the News of the World. Earlier that day, during an innocent morning, MB, aka me, had visited the parliament's information centre, SPICE to find a hard copy of the Daily Record dated Thursday 19th of November, after a senior colleague had mentioned that exposing the subterfuge and propaganda of the Daily Record therein regarding a photograph of Megrahi, might be a good story for this here blawg. I was rather dismayed and not all together surprised to discover, in a parliamentary email from SPICE, that the hard copy was in fact missing, had in actual fact gone walkies. 

Soon after the shit hit the fan and I was reviled, demonised and accused of being not only Jeckyll and Hyde...but also Walter Mitty!

Completing the blog post slipped from my mind, until yesterday. On a rare away day to civilisation, I managed to pop into the newly upgraded Mitchell Library in Glasgow, where the lovely ladies in the archive section were able to direct me to a copy of the Daily Record dated Thursday 19th of November, wherein I found the story on Megrahi where he brazenly was seen to have the temerity to still be alive, and dash it all, looking a lot better than he did three months earlier. Or was he?

Now dear reader, please have a look at the photographs below. The character in the shell-suit is Mr Megrahi boarding his flight to Tripoli. The photograph on the right and labelled 'Yesterday' i.e, Wednesday the 18th of November is of Megrahi in a suit, shirt and tie.  

                     

This photograph below is rather striking. It shows Mr Megrahi sitting with Libyan leader Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. If dear reader you look closely at Mr Megrahi, below, and above, you will see that the two photographs are identical, right down to the curtains in the background, the sofa back and the flare on his glasses. The wonderful label that informs us that the photograph was taken on Wednesday the 18th of November obscures Mr Gaddafi and Mr Megrahi clasping hands together. It is transparently obvious that this is a cropped image and a picture that tells a thousand lies.

The image above although tagged by the New York Daily News as being updated on Sunday the 23rd of August was taken on the evening that Megrahi arrived back in Tripoli on the 20th of August, after Megrahi changed out of his Greenock prison shell suit into a rather tasteful suit...

So there you have it the very last blog post I'll ever do suggested by a former colleague, jings if I'm telling the truth about this, what else might I be saying that's true? 

As to my assertion that the Daily Record is a big fat liar, well no doubt they could make an excuse that this blatant attempt to decieve was an 'honest mistake', rather than a nasty piece of propaganda, which attempted to sway their readers belief that Megrahi's cancer wasn't real and that Kenny MacAskill had been duped by cancer specialists. 

Interestingly, I first mentioned this duplicity in the Sunday Times article last month. Yet not one of the illustrious 'investigative' journalists working in Scotland could be arsed looking into it. Is it a case that they didn't believe me? If so why did Tom Gordon do the story in the Herald on the Secretary General of the Labour Party, Councillor Colin Smyth being expelled from a Dumfries and Galloway council meeting, when he lifted it direct from this here blog? Perhaps the Scottish media don't like bloggers pointing out their inaccuracies and in this case blatant attempts to deceive...

Of course next Wednesday will be the, jings, fifth month since Megrahi was released. Is his added longevity down to money being no object to his care, the differences in weather between HMP Greenock and Tripoli or the comforting effects of being with your family during an illness?

Expect further frothing from the good Baron Foulkes and the boy Baker minor, who appears to be missing his school cap...

Ouch, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse....

'The truth is, Peter, we have spent ten years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him.
'We have always thought that the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.’

Douglas Alexander talking about Gordon Brown to Peter Watt, General Secretary of the Labour party between 2005 and 2007 in the run up to the election that never was.

Read more: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1241989/Peter-weve-spent-10-years-working-Gordon-dont-like-The-public-know-like-too.html#ixzz0cCJ5pYAn

BNP hail successful conclusion of der masterplan.

Rumours abound that the one eyed leader of the British National Party...no the other one... Nick Griffin,  exploded in a moment of orgiastic delight when he witnessed the above image from the Dundee Satellite Receiving Station, which shows the Britain has indeed become all white.

We gotta get out of this place...

Soooo first there was the massive floods that hit us in November, then the big freeze with added media hysteria popped up, next we'll have the thaw with resulting burst pipes and insurance mayhem, then finally when it's all melted - we'll be back to the err floods.

No doubt after all that, in the next few weeks we'll have the first of the tabloid stories of some poor old soul found frozen to death in their sitting room by a postie who eventually noticed the pile of unopened mail and a slightly whiffy smell emanating from the letterbox. Shocked neighbours will be interviewed and claim that the poor old soul was a quiet body, maybe had relatives in Australia or such like. 

Concerned nodding heads will talk about fuel poverty and how living in front of a one bar gas fire and surviving on a tin of cat food isn't conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Politicians in a rush to be more sympathetic than their rivals will nod solemnly and deliver sound-bites laden with just the right amount of gravitas that indicates empathy but no real solution. Next winter we'll go through it all over again. Nothing will change.

Deep within the bowels of the 'Resilience Room' aka chill out zone, where were the joss sticks, scatter cushions and ambient trip-hop beats?

Cabinet Secretaries will wail at the moon, gnash their teeth and beat their bare chests, well maybe not Ms Sturgeon. "What can be done to save elderly Scots in poor health from starving, freezing and just generally stop from being neglected after a lifetime of work and paying taxes for their meagre pension?" They might be heard bleating. Whilst in an effort to look cool and rational, as if they're not in an Emergency Crisis Command Bunker, some more enlightened souls will perhaps undo the top button of their stiff collared shirts or blouse, in the case of Ms Sturgeon, the only blouse wearer in the cabinet now...

Let's face it, surviving the Scottish winter for a lot of our elderly folk is pretty much shit. There are precious few things to crow about. It's an expensive and dangerous time of the year. If you're unfortunate to be old and on a state pension you can look forward to a hike in fuel and utility bill costs, crap television with the schedule full of things you watched first time around thirty years ago, begrudged visits from the children, the cost of Christmas presents for disinterested grand weans, a wee trip to the shops on un-gritted pavements is likely to lead to a wee trip to the  hospital, which at this time of the year is like a lottery as to whether you come out or not. The winter virus, aka shitting through the eye of a needle whilst throwing up, as my nurse friends refer to it, will mean wards getting closed, Cdiff outbreaks, superbugs...nope a visit to our overfunded, beleaguered, mismanaged, consultant top heavy wonderful NHS 'trust' is not the healthy option. 

So what can we do about it? Well here's a radical suggestion that has many ups, a few downs and a heck of a lot of opportunities for some sideways action.


Some policy wonk needs to sit down with a big calculator and work out how much it costs little old Scotland every winter to maintain our elderly population to the poor standard they have become accustomed to. This calculation should include costs to the NHS, local authorities, elderly care packages etcetera, they might also like to factor in the costs to the elderly person with regard to their heating and food bills. Then when they've come up with a nice tidy overall for the cost to the public purse and a lovely rounded up price per head, they need to shop around to find somewhere that we can relocate some of our needier fellow citizens in a pleasant climate with some sunshine, blue skies and pleasant locals. 

My first thought is North Africa, by jingo, we've got friends in Libya! Average temperature November 24c, December 19c, January 17c, February 19c , March 22c. Both Algeria and Morocco suffer from similar clement weather during our winter months. However, as that suggestion might bring with it accusations of giving succour to terrorists, outbreaks of Islam-o-phobia and general racism against folk whose ancestors had the foresight to adapt to a stronger sun... 


We might look slightly closer to home, albeit probably doubling our costs, by entering the EUROZONE... 

Throughout southern Spain and the Canary Islands, there is a major crisis with the collapse of the property market. Tourist communities sit on the costas like ghost towns, resorts thrown up hastily in a cheap credit boom, put on sale and now sit empty, unloved and unbought. Hotels in the winter season put a brave face on it and try to lure holiday makers in with promises of cheap booze and class acts direct from Blighty...


An enterprising Scottish Government might arrange for starters, say booking accommodation for 1000 of our most vulnerable former tax payers at a preferably discounted rate in some of these hotel resorts, they might arrange medical and care staff through our reciprocal European Health Insurance, they might negotiate a deal with Europe's largest airline who fly direct from Glasgow and Edinburgh. They might just save some lives, save some money and bring a bit of sunshine into the lives of the most fragile members of our community. 

The benefits of a few months in the sun could be huge, a healthier and slightly wealthier senior population with something to look forward to each winter, an opportunity of making new friends, rebuilding communities, ending isolation and loneliness. Many Canadians and Americans migrate to Florida every winter, they've been labelled 'Snowbirds'. They book cheap accommodation, close up their frozen northern homes, fly south and extend their lives. Why can't we adapt that basic ethos for those who ordinarily cannot afford it?

What about the strain on the countries we decide to temporarily relocate our seniors to? I hear none of you mutter. Well, as most of us accept, climate change is a reality. Southern Europe and Northern Africa increasingly undergoes regular heat-waves which result in the deaths of many seniors from heat exhaustion, dehydration etcetera. Something that rarely happens in Bonny Scotland, where the months from April to September are pretty much indistinguishable...Could we possibly reciprocate and bring elderly folk from abroad to stay in our country for a cooler summer?

 

Answers on a postcard below...