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.
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.
Wherever you find giants, you also find parasites, bottom-feeders and carrion. When a mighty lion dies in the jungle, tiny creeping crawling maggots and insects and bacteria feast gleefully on its corpse for many days.
Which naturally brings us to the Scottish media.
The above paragraphs of cowardly innuendo and baseless speculative smearing were penned by Severin Carrell and Libby Brooks in the Guardian on Monday. (They’re not from the ironically-headed “Appreciation” that the same two hacks wrote for Sunday’s Observer, in which they audaciously claimed that Salmond’s success was down to Nicola Sturgeon).
They sneakily imply that Salmond was guilty not only of the sexual assaults of which he was cleared in court, but also of an unspecified number of unnamed others, and make assertions of “disturbing evidence about his personal conduct” without specifying what that evidence or conduct might have been.
Everyone even remotely connected to Scottish politics has known for months that the below is the case. It’s an open secret.
But what’s playing out right now is something much bigger than the fate of one or two or three individuals. It’s the entire future of the credibility of Scotland’s justice system.
Just a quick bit of housekeeping here with regard to the new Wings comments section, which offers far more functionality but has also attracted a few complaints because it’s no longer a straight chronology of oldest-to-newest tweets.
(We could actually change that back, but the cost would be losing the ability to reply directly to individual comments, which is a big loss, so we’re leaving it as it is for now.)
To those beefing because that means you can’t now immediately tell which comments are new, a couple of helpful pointers. The easiest way to fix the problem is a simple one: keep the tab open.
If you keep the most recent page open in a tab on your browser, the Comment Bubble (visible at the bottom left of that pic) will keep track of all new comments – it refreshes every 30 seconds – and highlight them for you in yellow until you’ve read them.
(The little orange circle should take you to the first unread one if you click it.)
Sadly the Bubble stops working if you close the tab or navigate to a new page from it, but since most people have scores of tabs open at a time that shouldn’t be a problem. So there you go.
When times are quiet in Scottish politics, as they currently are, our favourite genre of story is “mainstream press belatedly catches up with Wings Over Scotland”. And so to this morning’s front page splash in the Sunday Mail.
The rumour mill has been grinding about Operation Branchform developments again in the last few days, although we’ve seen too many false dawns now to get overly excited about that. But the Mail’s story sounded awfully familiar.
While we get on with some tinkering behind the scenes in the absence of any Scottish political news – we have an exciting new comment system and the Contact form finally works again! – readers may wish to enjoy the full marathon three-and-a-quarter hours of last month’s fun indyref anniversary event at the Glasgow Science Centre.
Campbell Clansman on A Delicate Art: “RoS: Would Alex Salmond have called Scots who disagreed with him N*zi collaborators? (“Vichy House Jocks”) I think not. What…” Oct 29, 15:07
Robert Louis on That worth remembering: “Rest in peace, Mr Salmond. Last great true king of Scotland. When will we see your likes again?” Oct 29, 15:05
sarah on That worth remembering: “Thank you for letting us know that there are some good friends outside the kirk as well as inside. I…” Oct 29, 13:59
Harry Dunlop on That worth remembering: “Crikey the piece by Brian Wilson is a belter.” Oct 29, 13:54
sarah on That worth remembering: “That is outrageous about the LGBTQ… stuff at Holyrood. Are there no sane, decent people working there? Obviously not. The…” Oct 29, 13:44
Confused on That worth remembering: “in fact, the 8th circle is the domain of “sodomites” (paedos) and “usurers” (bankers), which makes you wonder about their…” Oct 29, 13:18
Graeme on That worth remembering: “Should have said this was in The Spectator.” Oct 29, 12:59
Craig on That worth remembering: “I’m currently standing outside Strichen Church and there a few mourners outside as well, blue skies and a cauld wind.…” Oct 29, 12:44
Graeme on That worth remembering: “Perhaps Iain Macwhirter: “Alex Salmond took the SNP from electoral irrelevance to the governance of Scotland. He was the most…” Oct 29, 12:42
holymacmoses on That worth remembering: “Remembering is important. Acting on his life’s work is the greatest gift we could give to the memory of such…” Oct 29, 12:41
Glenn Boyd on That worth remembering: “And thank you to Stuart for listing the tributes to Alex. I have not had the opportunity to read them…” Oct 29, 12:30
Confused on That worth remembering: “the 9th circle would contain almost the entire Scots political class – in fact, I hear Beelzebub is doing a…” Oct 29, 12:26
Al Harron on That worth remembering: “Greatly appreciated, Rev, though we can surely consider your own “The Giant” among those beautiful tributes, since you’re more a…” Oct 29, 12:06
red sunset on That worth remembering: “A sad day. My condolences to Alex’s family. And to those close to him. You were our guiding light, and…” Oct 29, 12:06
Geoff Anderson on That worth remembering: “I hope a positive emerges in that the Movement unites and drives forward. That is what he would have wanted.…” Oct 29, 12:03
Antoine Roquentin on That worth remembering: “At a time when we need heroes with incontrovertible records of endeavour on the battlefield of liberation, who else can…” Oct 29, 11:52
Glenn Boyd on That worth remembering: “I am glad to see that Alex will receive the dignity in death that he was denied in life. Rest…” Oct 29, 11:50
Marjorie Ellis Thompson on That worth remembering: “Yikes. Like Martin Luther King he led us to” Oct 29, 11:48
Marjorie Ellis Thompson on That worth remembering: “I truly believe that lije Martin Luther Jing,ge led ysto the mountaintop and we need to get to the Promised…” Oct 29, 11:47
gordoz on That worth remembering: “I really do doubt there is anyone left at the very British organisation that could be considered as honourable (or…” Oct 29, 11:31
100%Yes on That worth remembering: “RiP former FM, but the job isn’t finished and I don’t want to be the next one being laid to…” Oct 29, 11:16
Confused on That worth remembering: “Salmond’s death made me think of my dad dying, just over a year ago, of colon cancer. It’s not the…” Oct 29, 11:02
Robert McAllan on That worth remembering: “Aye min, Lachin Y Gair immediately comes to mind. The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr!” Oct 29, 10:53
Zander Tait on That worth remembering: “Yes Callum. It is disgraceful, but one only needs to scan the collage of the National front pages so helpfully…” Oct 29, 10:46
Republicofscotland on That worth remembering: “Yip – the Chief will be laid to rest today – he fought for our freedom – for that we…” Oct 29, 10:44
Ian Morrison on That worth remembering: “Honourable mentions too, surely, for Alex Neil, Lesley Riddoch and Iain Macwhirter. They didn’t offer hagiographies, but what they wrote…” Oct 29, 10:37
ross on That worth remembering: “Yes, no wish to sully this article with ire but that periodical is a comic unworthy of serious debate or…” Oct 29, 10:30
Republicofscotland on A Delicate Art: “Fictional Kingdom, Fraudulent State – YOURS FOR SCOTLAND” Oct 29, 10:28
Liz on That worth remembering: “Sad day He will never be forgotten “Scotland is a country not a county” RIP 1954-2024” Oct 29, 10:21