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Wings Over Scotland


The Long Unravelling 232

Posted on November 18, 2024 by

You’ve got to admit, that’s a zinger.

Craig Whyte is a man who knows all about financial doom looming on the horizon of a once-powerful institution. But it doesn’t take an expert with lived experience to spot what’s coming down the line for the SNP.

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The Way Forward 200

Posted on November 17, 2024 by

As a lifelong political geek and former SNP and Alba Party member, I’ve spent years supporting Scotland’s independence movement. However, over the last few years, I’ve watched the campaign (as opposed to support for independence) wither away. Being a Scottish nationalist has become increasingly disheartening, like watching someone you love succumb to a slow, debilitating illness. In frustration, I switched off from my homeland and turned my focus to the drama of US politics.

Over the last three years I immersed myself in it, watching both left and right-wing outlets. I became so hooked and invested that I jumped on a plane to Washington DC for the 2024 election. I canvassed with DC Democrats in rural Pennsylvania (that’s me third from the left in the pic below), attended Kamala Harris’s concession rally, and went to Trump’s only watch party in DC.

My journey led me to believe that Scotland’s independence campaign could learn a great deal from Trump’s victory and the Democrats’ failure.

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The People You Most Suspected 362

Posted on November 12, 2024 by

We’ll give you three guesses as to the highly controversial and extravagantly taxpayer-funded organisation that has its rainbow fingerprints all over this story, readers.

But you’re going to have two to spare.

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The Show Goes On 256

Posted on November 09, 2024 by

How it happened 419

Posted on November 06, 2024 by

So it looks like the USA has elected a mad orange rapist convicted of 34 felonies who could yet be in jail by the time of his inauguration. (He would remain President even if that happened, which would be really funny.) And we can’t even blame them for it, because the alternative they were offered was, remarkably and stupendously, worse.

Wings called it like we called Trumps’s first victory (and most other things). We tweeted this last year when thinking about the upcoming election. It’s a variant on something we wrote about on Wings eight and a half years ago. We’re posting it again now in the desperate hope that one day, maybe, far in the future, someone will actually listen.

But, y’know, we’re not holding our breath or anything.

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The Mandalorian Candidate 141

Posted on November 04, 2024 by

To be honest, readers, the peculiar events of yesterday continued to nag at us all day as every news broadcaster in Scotland and beyond leapt eagerly on the ludicrous non-story from the Herald On Sunday’s front page. (It was even the #2 item on BBC Radio Wales, inexplicably).

For such an absolute nothingball of scurrilous sub-gossip to so dominate the entire news media was just too strange to ignore. We cannot remember the last time a low-grade freelancer managed to sell the same story to FOUR major Scottish newspapers – who normally, remember, only want exclusives for their big front-page splashes – let alone a crummy opinion columnist (not even an actual news reporter) who’s only been back in journalism for five minutes after a 15-year break as a failed PR guru.

(Once they’d all run the shoddy hatchet piece, TV and radio then had all the excuse they needed to blare it across the airwaves. “Oh, it’s not us inflating and amplifying this garbage, guv, we’re just reporting what the papers are saying.”)

So in our eternal quest for enlightenment and understanding we thought we’d see if we could find out a bit more about the little-known but recently-revived sleeper assassin with the ironic name: Carlos Alba.

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Bespoilers Of Graves 264

Posted on November 03, 2024 by

From here, the top of the barrel is so far away that you can’t see so much as a pinprick of daylight through the most powerful pair of binoculars.

In a moving epitaph a few days ago, the widely-respected Professor James Mitchell of the University Of Glasgow noted of Alex Salmond that:

“He could be irascible and did not put up with fools […] He was impatient with lazy journalism […] and did not hide it. We can still see the consequences in some of the obituaries and commentary that reveal more about the writers than the subject”.

Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood magazine concurred, saying:

“In the clamour for commentators to vent their loathing, there have been too many sour column inches that have framed a man’s premature death around the egos of the journalists that have penned them.

Too great an appetite to rescue the words that were once filed and then spiked following a trial that didn’t give them the verdict they had prepared for. Too much haste to use his passing as the opportunity to seek revenge for a tongue-lashing or a put-down that they had never forgotten.”

And so, then, to Carlos Alba.

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The Skeleton Dance 73

Posted on November 02, 2024 by

That worth remembering 348

Posted on October 29, 2024 by

Alex Salmond will be laid to rest in the green turf of Aberdeenshire today in a quiet and dignified private ceremony. (A public celebration of his life will take place next month.)

Most of Scotland’s press and commentariat beclowned itself shamefully after his death just as it did during his life, but below is a (regrettably short) collection of those who did otherwise and who deserve to be noted honourably beside the man himself.

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A Delicate Art 255

Posted on October 26, 2024 by

Redaction is a tricky business, and comes with numerous pitfalls even if you’re being careful, which not everyone is. If you’re involved in creating a document you know will have to be redacted, there are a variety of safeguarding approaches you can adopt.

When I worked on a videogames magazine called Amiga Power in the 1990s, we ran a fun comedy feature about censorship. But because the company that published the magazine had had some unfortunate mishaps in the field, we took extra care by typing all the “offensive” words as random-length strings of Xs when we wrote the article.

And it was lucky that we did, because as you can see in the feature’s strapline, the art department misaligned the red redaction bar on some of them, and if there’d been a sweary in there it would have been easily identified.

Another way to go is to simply slap down some black ink and hope for the best.

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The Impostor 33

Posted on October 26, 2024 by


The 24 Official Genders Of Scotland 325

Posted on October 21, 2024 by

Are listed below:

Click the pic to enlarge, if you want to lose the will to live.

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    • Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “Have you really got nothing better to do with your time than endlessly churn out tedious, insulting, infantile bilge, Faceache?…Nov 20, 22:15
    • Confused on The Long Unravelling: ““chortle” but postgate was a socialist and subtly, not preachy, wove these themes into his work … (starts thinking about…Nov 20, 22:08
    • Confused on The Long Unravelling: ““rab clark”   dont be afraid of your FREEDOM  www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVw7fzIP6cQNov 20, 22:06
    • Michael Laing on The Long Unravelling: “It’s almost like the independence party has been infiltrated, dismantled and neutralised by agents of the UK state.Nov 20, 21:59
    • Dan on The Long Unravelling: “Plus the clangers are unfortunately now tainted in my mind because of all the racket created by all the folk…Nov 20, 21:40
    • sarah on The Long Unravelling: “A detective inspector on the case has said the same – that it was NOT R—-n agents.Nov 20, 21:34
    • Dan on The Long Unravelling: “It’s complex. The Clangers was broadcast on the BBC so naturally you have to consider whether the storyline is an…Nov 20, 21:33
    • Aidan on The Long Unravelling: “You need to go back and read the Opinion of the committee, particularly the last paragraph under the title “Background”…Nov 20, 21:16
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Yeah, I’ve noticed that on TV booze adverts too. If you can just catch the small print at the bottom,…Nov 20, 21:14
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Jeezo, Ros. Not only are you destroying CM’s rep, now you’re going for Mark Hirst too. Soon Indy will have…Nov 20, 21:02
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Never heard of him, but tell us, how does he spell “Scotland”? Can he get that right? Help us decide…Nov 20, 20:52
    • willie on The Long Unravelling: “To change the topic if I may can I just say that this evening I chanced on a full page…Nov 20, 20:52
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: ““jenno-side” Naw. 36 deid ain’t “jenno-side”. In the SS, you’d have been thrown out if you couldn’t exterminate 36 in…Nov 20, 20:48
    • Confused on The Long Unravelling: “do the clangers remind you too much of beavers? I saw this and thought of you  www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NlQiQfC4zQNov 20, 20:43
    • Confused on The Long Unravelling: “getting the support of a half scottish golf nut who owns a lot of property here -should- have been a…Nov 20, 20:37
    • Republicofscotland on The Long Unravelling: “Craig Murray, already blew the bullshit Skripal nonsense official English narrative out of the water – this is just the…Nov 20, 20:29
    • Confused on The Long Unravelling: “slightly accidental post; but that ridiculous war is past its sellby date, it jumped the shark a long time ago…Nov 20, 20:28
    • Republicofscotland on The Long Unravelling: “When Jefferey Sachs choses to speak – you’d do well to listen to his words. Scroll down a wee bit…Nov 20, 20:18
    • Zander Tait on The Long Unravelling: “You do know your Time Machine YL.Nov 20, 20:16
    • Xaracen on The Long Unravelling: “Your analysis of the matter is inept. The committee clearly took the view that the provisions of the Treaty’s Article…Nov 20, 20:14
    • Republicofscotland on The Long Unravelling: “The evil monsters, that are committing jenno-side in the Levant region, just bombed the ancient city of Palmyra (sssyr-ia) -…Nov 20, 20:06
    • robertkknight on The Long Unravelling: “The MAGA hat waving Raspootyn apologists are out tonight I see. Obviously never spoken to a refugee from east of…Nov 20, 19:55
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Jeezo, how old are you? Mentally, I mean. It’s only 30 years or so since we pushed them back out…Nov 20, 19:55
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: ““I’m pro Minsk Accords” You sure? According to Pres P, the Minsk Accords no longer exist. “residents of the Donbas…Nov 20, 19:43
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Wow, Confused, that’s some post! You do know, don’t you, that Napoleon and the Wehrmacht both invaded R and marched…Nov 20, 19:20
    • Robert Hughes on The Long Unravelling: “ahahahaha ! fckn brilliant , ma man . But yr forgetting ….whilst the Big R has been the graveyard of…Nov 20, 19:16
    • Muscleguy on The Long Unravelling: “If you want change but you willnae vote for the change parties on offer such as ISP then nothing will…Nov 20, 19:15
    • Jay on The Long Unravelling: “I found this ‘R Matthews’ comment by accident! If only it were clear hostility then it could have been regarded…Nov 20, 18:52
    • gregor on The Long Unravelling: “Absurd Smoque: Q: Q (Instrumental:) https://tinyurl.com/vzsrkvcw #SovereignScotland #RealityWinsNov 20, 18:43
    • Hatey McHateface on The Long Unravelling: “Masterful refutation of the facts in my post, Michael. If you’re six years old! If you’re an adult, maybe naw.…Nov 20, 18:43
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