First off lets get the football out of the way. Even I ended up watching some of the Scottish Cup Final match between Hibs and Hearts and The Scottish Football blog nicely summed up the pre-match nerves for Hibs. The hype over this match made a nice change from hearing about the continuing saga that is Rangers attempt to stay in the SPL. Chris Graham reflects on the latest SFA decision regarding the club and how this might affect it’s future.

If the football news is affecting your mental health you are not alone, 1 in 4 of us will have mental health problems every year. Beauty from Pain shares her reflections on what she’d have missed if she had committed suicide and Touch&Tickle is running a Mental Health Carnival and is inviting us all to share our mental health experiences and stories.

Speaking of stories, for your reading pleasure Dorky Mum shares the first stories from her son. Loons and Quines, meanwhile, has been busy making props for her moose loose aboot this hoose themed storytelling session at her library. Felicity Martin shares a story from her dog who climbed her first Corbett (it’s the photos that make this one fab). Though if you fancy something more adult then have a read of View from the Pier’s interview with Donald Smith who is the director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Then head over to Tobar au Dualchais, an online collection of recording from across Scotland of things like stories, traditions, poems and songs.

Speaking of songs did you see episode 7 of Horrible Histories season 4? No? You should totally go and watch it right now. I’ll wait…. Back? Genius right. I just adore that Blue Blooded Blues song for the Scottish Stewart Kings and Queen. I’m also pro host Rattus Rattus.

From historical heroes to pop culture heroes. How many Super-heroines can you think of from comic books? Now how many of them aren’t wearing a sexy, but almost certainly, gravity defying impractical outfit? The only one I thought of was Supergran. The reason for this pondering? My recent quest to make three different mini super-heroines. I am not the only one struggling with the world’s gender stereotyping,  Transatlantic Blonde has been having a hard time finding stickers that don’t get her back up.

Finally, I want to dedicate this post to Jane Watson, who passed away on Thursday. She is the mother of Kids,Crafts and Chaos writer Clair and I can’t think of a better tribute than the one Clair wrote for her at the start of the month for her birthday. Warning folks you might need a hankie for this one.

Calton discovered the Scottish Roundup as a newbie blogger late last year and it introduced him to an amazing number of good Scottish blogs. Now it is his turn to share some of them with you.

Calton loves maps and National Collective has some really interesting ones made by superimposing Scottish maps on the map of Catalonia – another small nation with a devolved assembly and an independence movement. It was also the birthplace of Holyrood architect Enrico Miralles, which is a not necessarily a recommendation, depending on your opinion of the upturned boat at the bottom of the Royal Mile! Except the Kyes and Western Isles also has some good maps of old Inverness in a recent article about Cromwellian Forts.

Perhaps because Calton views the capital from the sky, he had completely missed the portraits of hoodies which have appeared on the sides of buildings. Fortunately blurofwoodsmoke hadn’t and has captured them for his blog. Scottish Art Blog showcases a wonderful picture of an owl from the 186th exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. Two very different types of art and two very different venues. Both stunning.

Being a political blogger, Calton cannot avoid mentioning the council elections. George Stachura thinks that the Libdems need to hold their nerve. Calton wonders what they actually stand for these days. Liberal Sellout got Calton’s vote for the best blog post title of the election with ‘Dear Edinburgh Lib Dems: Do you want to die?‘  Mairi Campbell-Jack writes about the use of words in politics, which is of interest to all political bloggers. Calton is not sure that he agrees with Stevie Mach on the need for the pro-independence parties to have their own TV channel however Stevie makes a reasoned case for it. Check out his blog and make your own minds up. Looks like the new Labour administration of Aberdeen City Council are going to throw out plans for the new Union Street gardens. Suzanne Kelly of Aberdeen Voice will be happy.

Calton’s first (and hitherto only) appearance on the Scottish Roundup was for a controversial post he wrote on Jackie Baillie. (Which may, or may not, be the reason we never see her sitting behind Johann Lamont during FMQs these days.) This time it is Better Nation putting the boot in. Justifiably? On the evidence given, Calton would say yes.

Right, that’s the political bit over. Now for the really important stuff – food! Berry Scrumptious has a recipe for lemon curd layer cake and a photo to make your mouth water.  A wee bit of cooking has been making roasted beetroot salad which looks great with lamb chops. Susan K Mann made carrot and coriander soup with some carrots donated by a certain company who shall remain nameless (on this blog at any rate). Mrs Middleschmiddle was trying out economy gastronomy earlier in the year – hopefully she’ll post an update soon. Looks like Argyll and Bute Council have been economising on the school lunches according to NeverSeconds – the blog by an underfed schoolgirl which is taking the blogosphere by storm! Someone send that girl a food parcel!

Unlike last week, there were lots of blog nominations this week on a wide range of subjects so apologies for not managing to include them all. If your nomination hasn’t made the cut this week you can always resubmit it for a future roundup. Happy reading!

So, for one week only, here are a few of the Burdz favourite blog things.  And a diverse and wonderful gallimaufry they are too.

First up, Scots Whay Hae! who posts a great round-up of his own, of good choons from Scottish bands in the last month and a review of the new Iain Banks’s novel, which made me want to rush out and buy it.  So I did.  And you’ll do the same (I hope).

Next, a great blogpost from Is there a Plan B? on the environmental trials and tribulations of nappy provision and what to do with them (you might want to eat your breakfast before reading this one).  Ah, the guilt of motherhood, tis a wondrous thing.

There’s always something of interest and plenty to raise a smile and even, a laugh out loud moment, over at the Ben Lomond Free Press.  I was tickled by the poetry on offer this week, and more especially being reminded of the importance of friendship.

And just to take things a mite more serious, one of my essential reads every week is the lovely Audrey Birt’s breast cancer blog whose most recent missive encourages us all to visit Scotland more often.

They say a picture paints a thousand words (or something like that).  Sarah Rooftops’ blogpost this week is no exception.  Not a word beyond introduction is needed to tell the story of a big event in Aberdeen this week.  Superb photies.

But if it’s words you’re looking for, look no further than Lallands Peat Worrier.  There are plenty in his treatise on devolution and the social disunion of the United Kingdom, but every one is a winner.  Warning – this blogpost will make the wheels turn furiously.  Not to be tackled with a hangover.

Also offering some very wise words this week is Love and Garbage, who displays a distinct lack of local election fever and whose experience explains eloquently why apathy reigns.  The Reid Foundation also visits the issue of voter disengagement and decides that it isn’t the people who are broken.

Visiting Rangers Tax Case has become a regular feature in my blogging world, despite carrying no torch for Rangers (I won’t extend this metaphor for fear of inviting opprobrium to the pages of the Scottish Round Up), because it visits the parts of this saga the MSM are incapable of, or do not wish to, dissect.  This week, the Miller preferred bid.  Lanced.

Bright Green Scotland continues to deserve its plaudits as one of the most thoughtful and creative political blogs around.  20 Ways to Change the Way We Eat promoted the wonderful Fife Diet’s council manifesto which we should all promote to whichever colour of council we end up with.

Finnish lessons were the order of the day over at Another Side of Lesley Riddoch whose podcast discusses a fabulous Nordic Horizons event which considered Finland’s approach to education.  A must listen for any parent or teacher tearing their hair out.

Being a political anorak, I’ve rather enjoyed all the blogposts dissecting and analysing the local council election results.  Dispatches from Paisley has a very tidy summation which captures it all really.  And a fantastic post from Moridura looking at media commentators’ responses to the SNP’s performance.  Guess what?  They all had lots of measured things to say.  Not that you’d know if you visit some other Nationalist blogs (which won’t be linked to here).

There’s a very honest and painful dissection of the Liberal Democrats’ pitiful performance last week from Gavin Hamilton (the View from the Hills).  Ian Smart, who makes me laugh probably more than is proper, also has a far from triumphalist look at Labour’s performance.

And finally, my least favourite blogpost this week.  My ain round up of all the council results.  Ach, it’ll take a couple of hours I thought, it will be a scoosh.  And interesting I’m sure to somebody somewhere.

Ha!  Thanks to the BBC’s decision to do something bizarre with the results and gains and losses, it was the worst twelve hours of my life.  First drafting, then checking and re-checking, then changing, then apologising to everyone everywhere.  Never. again.  And no you can’t have a link to it.

The news, and hence the Scottish blogosphere, has been dominated by two main stories this week: ‘What are we going to do about Donald?’ and the other one. Many bloggers have chosen to deal with both in the same post, with varying degrees of how much both are entirely Alex Salmond’s fault.

It began innocently enough when a Holyrood committee wanted to question a range of experts on renewable energy and naturally called in Donald Trump. Billionaire ba’ heid Trump put himself in charge of Scotland’s energy policy some time ago and blew into town promising Scotland would become “a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid.” I didn’t think it sounded so bad if it meant he’d get back on the plane.

In Ten Lies of Donald Trump, Andy Wightman offers some of heid-the-ba’s most recent untruths. This is by no means a comprehensive list but will up your creativity in the swearing stakes. Of this mere tip of the iceberg number 6, “We’ve had tremendous support from environmental groups”, would have to be my personal favourite.

A Sair Fecht also questions Trump’s distant relationship with the truth (apparently Al Megrahi was seen jogging in the park last week). At one point he resorts to personal insults, something I would never do, but such is the strength of feeling regarding combover-boy. Rupert Murdoch is thrown into the mix and in the process A Sair Fecht offers a new word to the English language – the Murdump – describing what the First Minister has had to contend with in trying to coax jobs out of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Peter A. Bell focuses on the Leveson enquiry and how Salmond was or wasn’t involved in the BskyB deal. I have no idea what Chiels That Winna Ding means (and I’m technically Dundonian) but his argument is very clear and anyone who read the four innocuous emails in question would have to agree that they’re probably the dullest scandalous material ever released.

That didn’t stop Lallands Peat Worrier accusing Salmond of “astonishing naïveté,” something that doesn’t get said very often of the high heid yin, and herein lies the thrust of much of the debate that has followed. That is, is the First Minister a bit keen to court powerful businessmen? Wings Over Scotland discusses Labour’s policy in Labour’s Long Spoon and concludes their handling of the issue would have been no different. My own view is that it’s okay for successive Prime Ministers and opposition leaders to seek favourable press coverage and inward investment to their country but it’s simply not on for Alex Salmond to do the same.

Elsewhere, historian David Starkey has been up to his roguish tricks again. Starkers, or Tool Britannia as he is known in Scotland, called Alex Salmond a “Caledonian Hitler” who thinks “the English, like the Jews, are everywhere.” I thought this was nothing that a good skelp wouldn’t sort but when I said as much on Twitter, I was told I would have to join a long and disorderly queue waiting to administer it. Bella Caledonia takes a more rational view of this twisted little ego-ball in Starkey.

Turning from one horror to another, it’s important to remember that not all Scottish bloggers are dealing with news and current affairs. One of my favourite escapees is Edinburgh’s only supernatural crime fighter Rose Garnett. In The Ghost Formerly Known As…, Rose is confronted by the spectre of a murder past and is plunged into the start of a new case. A little dark relief for those in need.

In The Hands on the Clock, ‘poet warrior’ John W. Macdonald shows us the two terms are not necessarily incompatible and reminds us that poetry is alive and well in Scotland.

Marianne Wheelaghan quotes Mark Twain in You have to write for a long time, to write like yourself …: “My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Fortunately everybody drinks water.” I suppose my own writing is more like lemonade in that it’s not so good for you but is a bit more fun.

My latest post at Tony Boaks’ Despairing Notes: Easily Mistaken For A Funny Blog was inspired by the Daily Record. It might be unusual for the Record to inspire anything other than despair but I should explain that it was Muriel Gray’s description of the paper which was responsible. In Muriel Gray’s Parrot, I encounter a most discerning reader who is vocal in his criticism of Scottish print journalism.

Tony Boaks is the main character in my blog. Everywhere else I’m known as @gregmoodie.

I like a good roundup on a Sunday but this one will have to do.

It’s been a long driech winter but with a few signs of spring in the air, many have taken their first holiday or break of the year with one blogger I Done a Holiday making a welcome return as he recounts how he has managed a) To freeload around the world in recent years and b) Get himself tae France for Easter.

A Son of the Rock has journeyed south to Gloucester and follows his passion for all things Art Deco.

AnElephantCant meanwhile extols the virtues of staying closer to home and pays a poetic tribute to Glasgow’s Queen’s Park which is celebrating its sesquicentennial year (It’s ok, I had to look it up too!)

It’s a sporting month, what with the boat race and the Grand National, and what’s this? there’s to be the first all Edinburgh cup final since 1896 and a rare chance for the Hibees of cup glory? Fan of beaten semi-finalists Aberdeen, Ken Fitlike wishes Hibs well whilst reflecting on what might have been. Well worth checking this post out for the photos.

Adullamite meanwhile can hardly contain his glee at his beloved Hearts overcoming Celtic in the other semi final. He has also managed to source some photos of that last (and only) all Edinburgh cup final 116 years ago.

It was with great sadness this week that I learned of the passing of Alastair McSporran after a long and bravely borne illness. “Alastair’s Heart Monitor” was quite possibly the most visited blog in Scotland before he decided to make it private a few years ago, he having been appointed to a high profile position in the legal establishment. Anyone old enough to remember the fitba’ fanzine The Absolute Game can still read some of Alastair’s wonderful writing in another blog he set up to remember his and others’ contributions.

Talking of matters legal, there was a first this week in the broadcasting of Lord Bracadale’s passing of sentence to David Gilroy in the Suzanne Pilley murder case. Lallands Peat Worrier expresses reservations about what televising such an event achieves.

In other academic surroundings, Scunnert publishes a magnificent photo of the new library at his place of work and delivers some homespun philosophy in a conversation overheard in Aberdeen.

Ellen Arnison is a dab hand with the camera too, catching a wonderful shot under a particularly stunning April sky of the highland fault line from Conic Hill above Loch Lomond.

Kerry Dexter writes about Scots and Irish folk music and tells of the stage production/book/record The Boy and The Bunnet, which is an educational production in Gaelic/Scots language and music.

On to the more serious matter of politics as Scott at Love and Garbage p..p…p….picks up on the local council election fever sweeping the country.

As if a penguin standing as a candidate, or indeed voting, wasn’t strange enough, who knew it was a criminal offence to put a dummy up for election? Election agents nationwide will surely be dreading a knock at the door.

I fair enjoyed my first review for a while and thanks for reading.