Scottish Roundup

Muahahahaha.

For some reason I was asked to do the Scottish Roundup for this week – ah, the fools! Every time I see roundup, I think of this… Trouble is, the weeds around here just will not die… I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Starting with some light entertainment from Auld Reekie Rants I am sure I was sent an email with some of those jokes at work. Sure enough, they don’t work nearly as well when we tried them on our resident Englishman.

David Farrer, of Freedom and Whisky fame, links to ClydeSights, which seems to be a ship-spotting site. Well, I suppose it is a step up from trainspotting. While I was chuckling about that, I noticed a post about something which does get me angry – in his post Praising the devil he talks about the deification of murderers and despots like Pol Pot, and my own personal favourite, Che Guevara. Regarding the trainspotting comment, David, I had written that before I saw your post… Honest…

Another thing that really annoys me is trade unions and enviro-hippies, and The Devil’s Kitchen has a cracking post which has the two combined. Bishop Hill (no relation) has a post on the biggest enviro-hippy of them all, Al, with his massive carbon footprint.

On a trawl of pages linked from the roundup, I have found a few humdingers. One that deserves particular mention though is Red Star, who is clearly red, but arguably not much of a star talks about Defending class interest in Scotland. “The struggle for independence in Scotland cannot be separated from the struggle for socialism and therefore anything short of the Scottish Workers Republic is not supportable” If that’s the case, then we’re all doomed. Remember folks – “God, guns and guts will keep us safe from commie nuts”. (Bonus points for folk who know what that’s a quote from).

Anastasia Beaumont-Bott is suitably outraged by Tesco selling padded bras for 7-8 year olds… I suppose they have to make their £2.8bn profits somehow…

Young Grant explains why his blogging has been so crap, err, light, lately by the way of a gleefully plundered image on his blog Ropes and Pulleys. For a small fee, I can pop round to his desk and break his legs, if you feel his post on fatherhood isn’t up to the standards we’ve come to expect here in the roundup.

Here’s a post from An Englishman’s Castle, it’s about Scotland, and about equality in the Scottish justiciary, which is why I am including it. That, and there are some fantastic quotes in the post – which I’ll not spoil for you.

Reactionary Snob is suitably scathing of the Pope’s recent remarks while on tour in America.

In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I have a rather good grumble about the attack on our liberties – first it was the smoking ban, now it’s the war on Passive Drinking, and a post on a proposal for anger management for the yoof of today.

On the subject of the youth of today, RfS has a post in praise of cadets – unlike certain a certain whining councillor I had the misfortune to know. It turns out, another councillor has posted about this… Really, that wasn’t the one I was talking about whining…

Both Malc in the Burgh and Scottish Tory Boy poke fun at Wendy Alexander for her third question, well, not being a question… While on politics, Mr Eugenides has a rather amusing post in support of some EU regulation… Yes, I found it rather unlikely too, but highly amusing all the same.

Angus Nicolson posts a comment about CLINT, yes, I read that differently, and thought it was something else… He’s referring to the Local Income Tax proposals. I was referring to something entirely different. I quite like Angus’ tagline “If you want balance then get some scales. This is opinion – my opinion.” That said, I can’t agree with everything he says in his blog, but that can wait for another day, and another fine single malt to get the creative juices (bile) flowing.

I have learned an interesting new term – and not one that would make a sailor blush. Well, maybe. “Cyber Nats” is the topic du jour from the Scottish Tory Boy. Apparently they are the electronic equivalent of Sean Connery – folk who don’t live here, but want to tell us how to run our lives… They exist in the online, drive-by sense, when it comes to interweb polls, and blogs and so on. You know it’s bad when Kezia mentions it too…

Bill and J Arthur MacNumpty have something to say about the ban on blood donation by those deemed to be in “higher risk” groups, with an opposing point of view from Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting.

Ideas of Civilisation gives some tips on tipping. HW tells us, on Holyrood Chronicles, that Kate Moss was spotted in the Bow Bar on the 15th… Good for her. I wonder if she sorted the staff out with “yin for yersel'” while she was there.

Love and Garbage, and Iain Rubie Dale pass comment on the Falkirk man, who was trying to claim he was discriminated against because he is bald… I shall make no further comment, since I seem to be inheriting the family widow’s peak…

Jim Millar has posted some pictures of himself wearing armour. I think he should be wearing that to a council meeting. It might prove to be rather useful. That and I think more people would take an interest in local government if he was to do that regularly…

Almax posts on JK Rowling’s recent court appearance regarding copyright issues surrounding some book not written by her about Harry Potter. I am inclined to agree with his sentiments on the matter, although I think my photo of her, featured in wikipedia, is waaay better than that one.

Now, on to another favourite subject of mine, the breakdown of society, we’re all doomed, check the structural integrity of lamp posts, and your stocks of piano wire… Alex Massie tells us we’re all going to hell in a handbasket because of ‘elf ‘n’ safety!

I think that should probably do it for another week. Readers get bonus points for figuring out which parts of the post were compiled when I was drunk. Readers also get bonus points for realising that was a trick question, and whilst this was composed over several days, I was drunk the whole time. This was quite interesting to do – and the age old problem of if I do it well, they might ask me back, but if I do it badly, it will make me look like a f*ckw*t. More so than *ing out the U and I in *u***i*. Gaaaah! Seriously though, it’s been quite entertaining, for me anyway. Have an adequate day.