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Too Tight To Mention 331

Posted on July 02, 2025 by

So this snuck out quietly at the bottom of page 2 of today’s Daily Record.

And like, we suspect, most of Scotland, our response was “WHAT?”

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The Con Merchant 433

Posted on June 28, 2025 by

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, before the internet, scammers used to have to work a bit harder to cheat people than they do now.

A popular method was to advertise a “clearance sale” in the press. You’d see an ad in the Daily Record or a local paper for an event in a High Street location – typically a vacant shop – promising brand-new TVs for £20, microwaves for a fiver, toasters for £2.50 or whatever. So you’d show up on the day and it always worked the same.

There’d be the ringmaster on a raised platform, surrounded by loads of unmarked white boxes, and he’d start off by picking some “random” punter from the crowd and bestowing gifts upon him. This guy would walk away with armfuls of swag for £25 or something (doubtless just going straight round the back with them), and the real show would begin.

Next the ringmaster would say “Now, before we get properly started, who’ll give me £10 for what’s on my mind?” (that phrase, “what’s on my mind”, was always the same). And basically they were flogging a mystery box, invariably containing a few trashy trinkets worth a fraction of the cost.

Any chump who bought one would then be escorted out of the shop before opening it, on the pretence that the bargains on offer in these sales were so great that they were limited to one per person. (There was always security on the door, sometimes even cops. There’s nothing intrinsically illegal about selling mystery boxes, even mainstream chainstores still do it today.)

And that was basically it. The ringmaster would delay and delay, punting more mystery boxes and never actually getting to the bit where you could buy a specific item at a specific price, and after a couple of hours the event would close down and the would-be customers would disperse in disgruntlement.

Now here’s John Swinney.

He’s got a mystery box to sell you.

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The Art Of Noise 38

Posted on June 27, 2025 by

Genuinely, can anyone tell us what the heck this actually means?

Because to us, it’s just meaningless quacking to fill a void.

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And it’s goodnight from he/him 33

Posted on June 26, 2025 by

And now for tonight’s headlines.

Police Scotland have nevertheless denied that prisoners in their custody are being excessively pampered, following reports that a man was hustled out of St Leonard’s station in Edinburgh with an electric blanket over his head.

Meanwhile, following the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case, the force’s HQ at Tulliallan was burgled by a gang of militant transactivists who stole all the toilets. Officers say they have nothing to go on.

More comedy news as we get it, folks.

But Don’t Give Yourself Away 60

Posted on June 25, 2025 by

Seamus Logan, an SNP MP of whom it has often been said “Seamus who?”, has an article in The National today categorically ruling out Scotland achieving independence via a democratic vote in an event fully recognised by the UK government.

That in itself shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to Wings readers, as this site has been documenting the SNP’s increasingly open abandonment of even the pretence at achieving independence for more than five years now.

Logan’s stance that if begging Westminster for another Section 30 doesn’t work (which it doesn’t, hasn’t and never will) then it’s basically impossible and we should just give up has – to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention – been official SNP policy since at least the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon and in reality long before then, and we don’t think it’s a coincidence that the party has lost more than half of its members and over 40% of its voters over that period.

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Anatomy Of A Lunatic 79

Posted on June 23, 2025 by

Honestly, folks, I don’t even want to do this because almost nothing is more tedious for anyone else to read than two people having an internet beef – a lesson that I learned, ironically, from reading the site this post concerns, which does little else – but as well as reacting on a basic human level to someone being THIS deranged by hatred of you, it’s worth marvelling, like an elegant Victorian gentleman or lady taking a guided tour of an asylum, at how much insanity they can squeeze into a small space as a result.

And to detail the madness we have to start with that headline.

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A different school 144

Posted on June 23, 2025 by

Tommy Sheppard knows a John Swinney you don’t know.

And who, conveniently, you’re not allowed to see.

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Holiday Relief 366

Posted on June 17, 2025 by

We’re thinking of just handing over Wings to Grok for the summer so we can spend all our time feeding the swans, readers. Here’s what the Twitter artificial intelligence bot said when we asked it to assess today’s National front page.

Sounds about right to us. We’re off for a walk.

Let’s Not Make Some Plans 240

Posted on June 13, 2025 by

At first, this merely sounds like the worst day out ever.

But for supporters of independence, in fact it’s even grimmer than that.

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The Grand Tour 154

Posted on June 10, 2025 by

Lacking anything better to do on a grey and cloudy day in Bath, we thought it might be a lark to go through every Holyrood constituency in Scotland and contemplate where it might go in next year’s election, based on the current state of polling.

And just to make things interesting, compared to our last assessment we’re going to give opposition parties the (often considerable) benefit of the doubt in a few seats for the sheer heck of it, and see if there’s any even slightly plausible outcome that means the SNP might win some list seats if all their voters vote for them on both ballots, or if they’ll waste a million votes for nothing and get dozens of Unionists elected like they did in 2021. [SPOILER: don’t prepare yourself for a surprise.]

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Two Of A Kind 58

Posted on June 09, 2025 by

Humza Yousaf, March 2024:

Actual result: Labour 37, SNP 9, Lib Dems 6, Tories 5. The two horses in the two-horse race finished second and fourth, and won just 19% of seats between them.

And here’s John Swinney a week and a half ago:

The two horses finished second and third.

The matter of whether Yousaf and Swinney are a pair of massive liars, or are simply hopelessly out of touch with political reality, is one we’ll leave to your own judgement.

What We Don’t Know Now 71

Posted on June 08, 2025 by

One of the very few phrases universally recognised in Scotland but which will draw blank looks anywhere else in the UK is the dry, dark “Well, ye ken noo”. Until recently it had no equivalent that we can bring to mind in the rest of the English-speaking world, although arguably that gap has now been at least partly filled by the acronym “FAFO”.

(We try not to swear on the site, so let’s say it stands for “Fool Around, Find Out”.)

So now the smoke has cleared, the troops have departed the battlefield and the winner is enjoying the spoils, what did we find out on Thursday night, and what didn’t we?

Let’s assess the scene.

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    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Dan – and yet I’m apparently the one talking Scotland down! Why don’t you get yourself to the comedy festival,…Jul 8, 12:56
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Xaracen – The plan as described on this blog many many times was to approach C-24. We were all encouraged…Jul 8, 12:51
    • Captain Caveman on Too Tight To Mention: “@Xaracen “@CC, a good outcome in 12 months is that Scotland’s case is being evaluated by the C-24. No-one is…Jul 8, 12:13
    • sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “It wouldn’t have happened under Alex, I’m sure. Every single b…y decision by the authorities in Scotland is rubbish. Hence…Jul 8, 12:09
    • Xaracen on Too Tight To Mention: “No, Aidan, you are mischaracterising the plan. You may be thinking of my mischaracterisation, which I admitted was incomplete, but…Jul 8, 11:56
    • Dan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Aidan at 8:58am Yer being awfy selective bigging up Auld Reekie’s GDP, and it having a shit comedy show where…Jul 8, 11:54
    • Captain Caveman on Too Tight To Mention: “I think Xaracen’s inability and/or refusal to set out even in basic terms what a “good outcome” looks like in…Jul 8, 11:15
    • Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: “OT. But, why are we using American corporates as consultants for road infrastructure around fort William? Aren’t there any Scottish…Jul 8, 10:27
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “Again, there is no point in trying to rewrite history here. Go back and read the posts prior to May…Jul 8, 10:25
    • Xaracen on Too Tight To Mention: “No, Aidan, that was not the plan. I had misunderstood part of it because I was unaware at the time…Jul 8, 09:38
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Alf – does Edinburgh not have one of the highest rates of GDP per capita anywhere in the world, higher…Jul 8, 08:58
    • Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: “Gaun yersel Aidan, tell us aw aboot oor zero-growth unner-developed and plunnerred colonial economy aye rin bi a bunch o…Jul 8, 07:40
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “Let’s rewind back a bit, go back to any WoS post from May or earlier and the plan was very…Jul 8, 06:18
    • Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “Dangerous stuff. The more boxes that are ticked that say “ye just Cannae dae it” and that we are in…Jul 8, 05:07
    • Anthem on Too Tight To Mention: “Brilliant!Jul 8, 01:33
    • Dunx on Too Tight To Mention: “The UK has a veto in the UN Security Council, not the General Assembly . The GA is a talking…Jul 8, 00:41
    • Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “I suspect not MB. The problem I have with the Jacobite rebellions is the whole “using” thing the exiled Stuart’s…Jul 8, 00:24
    • Young Lochinvar on Too Tight To Mention: “LOLz 🙂Jul 7, 23:57
    • Stuart on Too Tight To Mention: “Would that be the same UN General Assembly where the UK Government can wield a veto? Why yes it is!…Jul 7, 23:21
    • Xaracen on Too Tight To Mention: “Only one page on JPTI appears relevant, Aidan, and it doesn’t say what you asserted. JPTI states on its site…Jul 7, 22:52
    • sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “Liberation’s case has to be approved by the General Assembly of the UN. That is well known. The route to…Jul 7, 22:28
    • Oneliner on Too Tight To Mention: “Not My KingJul 7, 22:27
    • Confused on Too Tight To Mention: “I like to think of it this way : an analogy Scotland is like Auschwitz (rich industrial area, but not…Jul 7, 22:10
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Too Tight To Mention: ““The foundational function of the State is the monopolistic organization of the power of the sword over a territorial cultural…Jul 7, 22:07
    • James on Too Tight To Mention: “I quite agree, “Chas” is indeed a unionist prick. Well said.Jul 7, 21:56
    • Northcode on Too Tight To Mention: “Leah Gunn Barrett has this to say about the Darien Scheme. The Darien Myth and the Origins of the Union…Jul 7, 21:53
    • Mark Beggan on Too Tight To Mention: “Pity the Jacobites didn’t win. Young English nationalists would be talking of the slaughter of London, the burning of Winchester.…Jul 7, 21:46
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Alf – I constantly praise Scotland and talk up its strengths both here and in person. Can the same be…Jul 7, 21:37
    • Aidan on Too Tight To Mention: “@Xaracen – it’s on the JPTI website. If you want the actual wording you’ll need to email JPTI or persuade…Jul 7, 21:35
    • Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““they talk about our history and culture as being ancient guff but not one of them has ever presented anything…Jul 7, 21:19
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