The football world is coming to terms with the impending retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. The legendary manager was in his current post before the author of Fitba Thatba was born! Raymond Weir gives us five reasons why Fergie reigns supreme among managers. Sticking with football, Paul Edie looks forward, longingly, to the cup final. Will he finally have cause to celebrate? I have to be honest and say that I know very little about football, and what little I do know is mostly related to Inverness Caley Thistle. However, it seems to me that there is something wrong with a universe in which Partick Thistle isn’t in the top flight. Glasgow Punter celebrates their return and looks back at their journey. Meanwhile, the Tour of Scottish Football Grounds watches the Jags in action against Raith Rovers.

Moving on to politics, Ian Smart shares some honest and balanced thoughts on being cybernatted after Twitter comments. He doesn’t shy away from his own mistakes, but suggests that the over-reaction was unwarranted. Lallands Peat Worrier argues that the First Minister isn’t quite as unpopular with women as some think.

Over at Out-Law.com, there’s a story on the complexities of splitting off pension funds for companies operating in an independent Scotland.

Audrey Birt learned about caring for patients as a nurse. She then saw it from the other side as a patient and has some thoughts on how important it is to get the quality of care right, to let people feel involved and part of the process:

What being on the receiver end of care has helped me understand though is why    when your care is not person centred it is easy to disconnect. I hadn’t understood before why people sometimes didn’t  attend follow up. But  then when you wait hours in a follow up outpatient clinic to be told you are fine, without any exploration of what fine would be for you.  Nothing about how your life has been impacted on, simply about how a scar has healed…the visible ones at that. Yes I understand how it feels not to want to go back.

Dorkymum adds to that theme as she outlines why she is supporting the A Midwife for Me campaign, which aims to ensure continuity of care in maternity services, so that the midwife a mother meets in labour is someone she has come to know through her pregnancy.

Think, it’s free looks at the recent Save the Children report on the challenges facing countries in the developing world on maternal and neonatal mortality.

And if you thought that Women’s Aid only provided refuge care for the families affected, think again. On Together we can stop it, Liz talks about her job supporting children and young people who have experienced domestic violence in their lives.

On music, Lis Feria interviews Gord Matheson of Strangers Almanac about their new album and the influence of explorers including Scott of the Antarctic. Hercules Moments delves into the secretive world of the Fair-Oh’s, whose sound is described as a pancake roll filled with glass.

Duncan Stephen enjoyed Adam Buxton’s Best of Bug show which was supposed to be about music videos, but found comedy in You Tube comments.

I was quite jealous at Foodie Quine’s trip to Dunblane Hydro to taste some of Nick Nairn’s dishes.

If you’re a keen photographer, you might be interested in Dear Kitty. Some blog’s article on a Scottish nature photography competition. The closing date is 1 August, so you have all Summer to get your best entries together.

That’s all for this week. We are currently making up the rota for Roundup editing between May and August. If you fancy taking a turn in the Editors’ Chair, contact us on Twitter or email scottishroundup@gmail.com.

Roundup is brought to you this week by Gavin Hamilton who blogs at The View from the Hills.

The Independence referendum is but 500 days away (so soon I hear you say) and it is all getting a little intense.  This week a comedian got abuse, a St Andrews academic called the police over threats and a driver who has killed cyclists in accidents – twice – somehow avoided jail.  To cap it all off, for light relief, UKIP made an electoral breakthrough down south.

What did the Scottish blogging world have to say?  Thankfully it wasn’t all politics and doom.

We were reminded that the weather is getting brighter as spring takes hold after such a long winter this year. Kate on thin ice tells us she is feeling upbeat  .  She tells us about what is going on in her life this week including Britmums Live, some interesting parcels and a chance to appear on TV.

Shoogly Peg wrote a charming piece discussing her daily struggles with a new baby and to understand modern art in umbrellas and unpredictability.

Music Road reviews the work of Scottish artist Karine Polwart and her album Traces here.

Elsewhere we are reminded about a couple of examples of volunteering in life.  Never mind the Indy Referendum, the countdown has begun to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.  In a Bun Dance tells us all about this and the chance to be a volunteer helping at the games.   She describes her interview as one of 15,000 applicants for 10,000 places.  There are pictures too! 

It is not just at home that Scots are volunteering.  Little Grumpy G is working in Uganda as a volunteer.  He writes about that and his travels to Kenya during some downtime here.

Finally, many people in Scotland volunteer each day as carers for loved ones.  They do so on many levels in many different circumstances.  This week Carers Speaking Out talked about this from a different angle in a thought provoking piece written from the person cared for’s point of view in A tale from the other side.

Cycling scandal

A few readers may have noticed a case at the end of the week of a motorist avoiding jail after they were involved in an accident in which a cyclist was killed – for the second time!  The Mind of a Helmet Camera Cyclist wrote about it in What chance have we got.

Andrew Cyclist also wrote about wider questions of cycling safety and the state of our highways in I want to cycle. 

The political stuff

 “It is hard for power to enjoy or incorporate humour and satire in its system of control” Dario Fo

There was also plenty of blogging going on in the political world as usual.

The week started with a controversy over political satire.  Susan Calman wrote about receiving a lot of internet abuse because of a set she did on the radio.  If you haven’t seen her blog it is here.

Euan McColm wrote about this particular stooshie and the fallout in Scotland needs more political satire not less.

Controversial Labour activist, Duncan Hothersall, tried his own hand at a bit of satire in Yes campaign launches magic ballot.

The week ended with a magnificent piece by Stephen Noon on positive and negative political campaigning in Keep it calm your country needs you.  

All in all the Yes campaign started the week on the back foot regarding the debate about Currency and Pensions.  Divergent views emerged.

Natalie McGarry writes about this in her best piece yet for Better Nation – Diverse in action.

Douglas Mclellan also wrote about the diverse views on what independence means in Unless we grasp/explain that Indy is about power v policy we will lose.  He argues that Independence is about “having the power to develop and implement the policies needed to develop a different defence policy or more holistic welfare provision.”  And that Independence shouldn’t be about persuading people to vote Yes by arguing that nothing much will change.

The week ended with UKIP making a breakthrough in the English County Council elections – particularly in eastern England and along the South Coast.

@simonK133 drew some interesting parallels in a tweet on Friday between Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond, saying they had both “resigned, comeback and …. tapped into a mood”

A Scottish Liberal writes a comprehensive piece on what the drivers are for UKIP’s success in How do you solve a problem like UKIP.

Alex Massie argues that The Tory response to UKIP’s gains is what matters.

Bella Caledonia writes a nationalist angle arguing we need Independence from UKIP.  Perhaps bringing the week full circle and putting the nationalist cause on the front foot again.

Aw well – only 500 days to go folks.

While the past few Roundups have been dominated by major news events, our submissions this week have been far more capricious in nature. This always seems to be the case when I am in charge – which in some ways is great, matching as it does the theme of my own blog, but it also makes finding an overarching thread a little difficult.

So best not to try then. This week saw the publication of the longlist for the 2013 SAY Award, the Scottish Album of the Year. Last year saw Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat win the £20,000 prize, and I was delighted to be asked to nominate once again on what looks like a really strong and eclectic selection. You’ll be able to judge for yourself ahead of a public vote for one of the ten shortlisted albums when the full longlist streams through the SAY Award website and app from Monday. Voting also closes this week on the Scottish Curry Awards, as Trampy and the Tramp point out.

DorkyMum celebrated a big birthday this week; and rather than try to cram as much into the tale end of her 20s as I did, she instead looks back pretty fondly at what she has already achieved. The Only Boy in the House is also feeling the passage of time at the moment, as he watches his two lovely girls grow.

George Osborne was in Glasgow this week, discussing the currency options for a future independent Scotland. Since I got to read the Treasury’s policy paper for work I can summarise: nothing’s going to work as well as the status quo so why discuss it? On the same day the Scottish Government published its own paper and – would you believe it – came to a completely different conclusion. As our lawyer wearily summarises, this one’s going to run and run.

Sticking with politics, both Will Paterson and Allan of Dispatches from Paisley consider the current state of, and ponder the future of, the Labour party. Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has, according to Allan, “jumped the shark”; but with the lack of a likely candidate to replace her the party needs to have a serious think if it wants to present a serious challenge to the SNP.

I’m still having a hard time getting my head around the fact that the government down south wants to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights (and, presumably, revoke its own Human Rights Act) in order to deport one man. Legal blog Prout de Jure has far more coherent analysis on what led up to this development in the Abu Qatada case; namely the Court of Appeal’s refusal to allow the Home Secretary to appeal its earlier decision to the Supreme Court. “If we suspend the Rule of law and start to allow the Government to ignore the law and judges to turn a blind eye to the Government ignoring the law the terrorists have effectively won,” the blog concludes.

This post is more than a week old, so I hope you will forgive a little friendly nepotism when I share my friend Kat’s thoughts on the Boston marathon bombing, as a native now living in Glasgow. She later made a map-comic setting out the parts of the route that have played parts in her life. In the midst of turbulent times on the other side of the Atlantic, the Burd points out that Scotland has its own issues with guns.

There are also some great new sites to bring to your attention: A Thousand Flowers (lefty politics and gender); The Brawsheet (for creatives); and Get Out Glasgow (events, music, food … obviously). And Glasgow-based Team Girl Comic, which you may have picked up before if you visit the right places, is now publishing a weekly web version.

And finally, boy band and X-Factor runners up JLS called it quits earlier this week. In typically succinct fashion, Love and Garbage manages to capture what we’re all feeling.

Thanks for the point in the pub quiz that one time, guys (it stands for Jack the Lad Swing).

It seemed to me, as we finally saw some weather that could be identified as being Spring-like, that there was a seasonal theme around rebirth and renewal in the blogosphere.

With Margaret Thatcher’s funeral this week, the main theme of Audrey Birt’s excellent Roundup last week continued.  What was Mrs Thatcher’s legacy and what did it mean for Scotland? How did she affect us as individuals?

A Scottish Liberal was unimpressed by the talk of protest at the Funeral and challenged those to roll up their sleeves and improve the world:

If you dislike what Thatcher stood for, and I understand that fully, why not find some more useful outlet for your political expression? Why not join a political party?  Why not get involved in a democratic movement? Why not work for one of the many voluntary organisations promoting social inclusion?  Essentially, there are very many ways you could serve society more effectively than via a short-sighted demonstration of hate. Hate is, after all, very easy; working to create a better society is a long, hard challenge.

Douglas McLellan, one of the newest and possibly most right wing (his description) members of the Green Party in Scotland writes at Better Nation that it’s time for Scotland to get over Thatcher.  He argues that many of our problems are to do with our choices of today:

Instead of looking back to the failures or successes of Thatcher, why can’t Scottish politicians move forward, looking to provide solutions to current problems regardless of their supposed origin? It seems no policy now can be brought forward without genuflecting to the memory of Thatcher. The peculiarly Scottish approach of developing public policy by first referencing bad things in Scottish history means that often the proposed solutions are not as helpful as they could be. For example, Scotland has a health problem. I am part of that problem as I am very overweight. If I still lived in Fife my weight problem would no doubt be attributed to living in a former mining village suffering from unemployment caused by Labour in the 1970s and the Tories in the 1980s (remember Labour never did anything bad to mining communities….). However my weight problem is actually to do with a disposable income large enough to fund far too many takeaways, full fat soft cheeses and high sugar/caffeine drinks.

Kate Higgins likens the referendum campaign to Tom and Jerry and says that it should be more about inspiring people than the campaigns  kicking lumps out of each other.

Living on words alone tells us of David Steel spending a night in the cells after a demonstration against the closure of the Borders rail line. This week, work started on its reconstruction.

Kelvin Holdsworth has been fending off attacks from China, France and Russia this week. Thankfully his websites are now back in safe hands and he has some advice to help us avoid the problems he experienced. On a similar theme, The Admiral’s Album had a photo which highlights just how useful our laptop could be to a fraudster but is that what we care about?

Bear Bahoochie recounts a story of unread books and fascism – a conversation overheard in a school library.

Yesterday was Record Store Day, a highlight of the year for my husband. He was out of the house to catch the first train to Edinburgh so he could be first in the queue outside Underground Solu’shn in Edinburgh. Well, he’d planned to be first, but ended up being 11th.  I was particularly chuffed to see he’d brought me a new edition of “Maybe I’m amazed” by Wings.  Ralph’s Life wrote about his thoughts on record shops in general. Circus Girl wrote about why she was supporting the event.

Sticking to a musical theme, Raymond Weir combines musical appreciation with grammar pedantry. What’s not to love?

A new blog reviewing places and events in Edinburgh has recently started up. Edinblogger reviews a Mexican restaurant.

My Beautiful Bailey tells of her adventures on her first Munro bagging trip in her new caravan.

Tartantights enjoyed her afternoon of sport.

Things are changing in the In a Bun Dance household. Will she succeed in ensuring that the whole family pulls their weight when it comes to the domestic chores?

Finally, wonderful news from one of the Roundup family. Regular Roundup editor  Shoogly Peg, wrote very movingly about her first four weeks of motherhood.

As Eilidh finally emerged on that sunny Thursday, she was met by a row of three smiling female doctors and my two wonderful midwives, all calmly helping our little girl  into the world with kindness, knowledge and confidence. I wish I could show Eilidh a photograph of that moment. Because this is what we want you to aspire to, little Eilidh. You can be anything you want to be: a doctor or a teacher, a plumber or an actor or a travelling acrobat. Whatever makes you happy: but if you have kindness and confidence, then you have everything you need.

Many congratulations to the whole family.

That’s all for this week. We are about to start compiling the Roundup rota for May-August. If you fancy a week in the editor’s chair, let us know by Twitter @scottishroundup or email scottishroundup@gmail.com.

When the news broke on Monday about Margaret Thatcher’s death I knew the focus of this weeks roundup was pre-determined. Like many others I chose to avoid Twitter, feeling at risk of reading things I would rather not. Her death has polarised our  society yet again and we do ourselves a disservice by over simplifying the messages from the past. Scotland’s bloggers have brought a thoughtful range of opinions.

Ellen Arnison expressed her concern about any kind of celebration associated to someone’s death and shared from twitter the amazingly accurate predictions of the range of reactions. Kate Higgins on the other hand challenged those who claimed that Mrs Thatcher as the first female prime minister was good for women, where is the evidence for that she asked us.

Raymond  Weir shared Ellen’s distaste in the behaviour in response to the news, including the efforts to get THAT song to number one. Recognising the polarised beliefs hid an uncomfortable truth:

“And it’s not just that she won; it’s that in her winning, she changed the rules of the game. ”

Mike Small in BellaCaledonia in a piece called “the patriot prime minister” challenged the many who have lined up to praise her and her impact in the UK saying the  “apologists for the society she created can keep lining up to explain and revise her legacy, but few of us who lived through it will be convinced.”

Gerry Hassan asked that we recognised the myths around Thatchers legacy from both the right and left. He challenges Scotland’s “false memory syndrome” and reminds us we can choose what the legacy of those earlier times is for our country now:

“Margaret Thatcher may have inadvertently contributed to the self-governing Scotland of today, but the time has come for us to stop playing games with shadows, hunting for the pantomime villain to blame all our woes on, and get on with creating a better, fairer nation.
These few days should be a time for reflection and release. We don’t have to be Thatcher’s Scotland if we don’t want to be.”

In Think Scotland Euan McColm shares with us the tale of his grandfather who was a late convert to conservatism because of Thatcher. At retirement when he saw need around him he set up a cafe in the basement of a high rise flat for isolated older people, using the profit to take them on trips. A wonderful story of compassion and social entrepreneurship. In Euan’s  words:

“My grandparents and those who worked alongside them knew that Thatcher was – literally – correct: society is not a thing to which we turn. It’s a thing we are.”

Leaving politics for a moment I have also been reading about health and healthcare ( as I do!).  The Silver Linings Pixlet has blogged about returning to work after illness, always a difficult time but as she explains having mental health problems feels an even greater challenge. However as a blogger she feels a responsibility for the many others who too will have a mental health problem. She shares her own learning :

“I’ll continue to beat myself up over it, but I’m learning not to be ashamed. And that’s as much a start as any.” She does many a service through her honesty.

I was pleased to see the new AHP blog aiming to share the experiences of allied health professionals. Social media can support the change of culture we need to see in health and social care so great to welcome them to the blogosphere. The Ayrshire blog too about health attracts many interesting guest bloggers. This weeks blog discusses the power of an unusual integrated approach to improving health care: integrating ethics, aesthetics as well as science.

In my own blog I remembered a book I read as a student nurse by Ivan Illich, called “Limits to medicine” about iatrogenic disease.  A challenging read in all respects when it came out 30 years ago, but it’s current resonance leads me to ask, who should we be listening to now to avoid us waiting another 30 years to learn the lessons of today?

And finally as someone who grew up in mining community in Fife, my father working in that industry most of his life. I of course have not been immune to this week’s events however chose not to blog on the subject,  others have said it all. But I did recall my reaction to the film Brassed Off which I watched just a few short years after my father’s death. The speech at the end left me sobbing, recognising well  the truth it illustrated for those fragile communities, damaged not only by the government but by a union leader who also had an ideology to prove and a society who stood by and accepted it.  I leave you with the wonderful Pete Postlethwaite.
http://youtu.be/kK9Yc0FNfIY