Our 2019 crowdfunder now has just 24 hours to go, and to be honest it’s exceeded our wildest expectations. Despite the moribund state of Scottish politics over the last two years we’re currently around £3200 beyond the previous all-time record, and that’s just phenomenal. You never stop taking our breath away, folks.
But we’re going to rattle the tin one last time by repeating something we said last year.
We probably don’t push the annual Wings fundraiser hard enough. Sure, we tweet about it every few days, but other than that we pretty much leave it to get on with itself – we haven’t run an article about it since launching it nearly a month ago.
That’s partly because thanks to the phenomenal generosity of the approximately 1% of readers who’ve donated so far, we’ve very comfortably covered our basic outgoings for the next 12 months and then some – the vast salaries for myself and near-regular cartoonist Mr Cairns, of course, plus webhosting and various other operating costs (eg commission to the fundraising/payment processing companies), money for some more opinion polls and a boost to the Wings Fighting Fund.
But as it enters its last few days we’re going to nag you a bit now, because we don’t think there’s a better-value investment in the independence cause to be had anywhere.
Well, hopefully there won’t be too much of that, as we’ve got a sitter in to keep the Separats in check while we’re away. But activity on Wings will probably be a little sparse over the next few days, for hopefully-obvious reasons.
There’s a limit on how much we’ll be able to say about the case, and chances to post on the site will be restricted in general, but we’ll try to keep on top of any important events. Normal service will be resumed ASAP. In the meantime, behave yourselves.
Apologies for the shortage of content in the last couple of days, folks. The 10-year-old Wings PC has been wheezing and groaning and emitting smoke for a few weeks, but it’s now reached a point where we can barely keep it from crashing for five minutes at a time, and we’ve run out of sticking plasters (and stuff to delete on its tiny C drive to give it a bit of cache space and stop it falling over clutching theatrically at its throat).
(Don’t even get us started on a rant about all the idiot software that insists on stealthily clogging it up with mysterious useless bloat but won’t work anywhere but the C drive. Who knew it was even possible to hate iTunes any more than we already did?)
We ordered a new one a while back, but until it gets here we might be a bit light on anything that involves a lot of typing, linking or formatting. Please bear with us.
We happened to be looking at a couple of old articles this morning, and noticed that some of them had blank spaces where videos should be.
We didn’t think much of it at first, because people do sometimes delete old videos or shut down their accounts, but when we checked one of them we discovered it was hosted on the Wings Over Scotland channel.
The new crowdfunding platform we used this year is a curious and arcane beast, and as a result the honest truth is that we’re still not quite 100% certain what the precise final total (including “offsite” donations and a few that squeezed in after the technical deadline) is. But as best as we can make out, including everything, it’s this:
(Fundraiser page here, or click here to donate directly.) .
The current total stands at a phenomenal £128,600 – already the second-highest ever by a five-figure margin, and just £11,447 short of the all-time record.
Because we were genuinely concerned about this year’s fundraiser. It was coming off the back of our lowest traffic month in four years (February was absolutely dead in Scottish politics, and we had almost no internet for the last two weeks of it), and some other indy sites had had badly underachieving crowdfunders in recent months.
So it’s quite the pleasant surprise to be able to say that the total (direct donations as well as through the fundraising page) for the first 24 hours alone was… £72,429.
Anthem on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “What do you expect when it’s filled with English unionist parties?” Mar 26, 00:17
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Not a bad ad. Punchy with facts & to the point. & TBF, yoons do have a low attention span.…” Mar 26, 00:17
Mark Beggan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “WOW! Just seen the SNP advert on Tube. Not a party political broadcast but an advert with very colourful and…” Mar 25, 23:32
100%Yes on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “He’s just a bitter and twisted individual. I ignore his site and everything about him. He just attacks anyone who…” Mar 25, 22:37
alan scott on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “And jist lolz at a unionist lecturing on Scotland wasting monies, whilst not being critical of the much more significant…” Mar 25, 22:19
alan scott on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I know the vast majority on here want Holyrood to be replaced by an independent Scotland. I’m just suggesting Holyrood…” Mar 25, 22:12
alan scott on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I agree I’m a British Nationalist because the country I was born in and love is the United Kingdom of…” Mar 25, 22:06
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: ““Today, Scotland is in a worse position in every measurable aspect than it was 12 years ago.” That’s your Union.…” Mar 25, 21:53
robertkknight on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “The words…”None are worthy of my vote” will appear on my ballot paper. F**k the lot of ’em!” Mar 25, 21:16
Big Jock on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “And we have the SNP arse licker James Kelly accusing everyone of being a right wing racist. For the crime…” Mar 25, 21:02
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Chas Maybe it isn’t me that’s dense… To respond to the correct comment trail, you simply scroll up from the…” Mar 25, 20:58
Chas on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Dan I did not respond to the wrong post. There was not a ‘reply’ option to your ‘percentages’ mince. You…” Mar 25, 20:32
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Iran nailed it at the UNHCR with it’s warnings to it’s neighbours. & Well said by that lady who politely…” Mar 25, 20:23
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “They’re not dead. I hate to break it to you but they already won on day one. Pay the toll…” Mar 25, 20:04
George Ferguson on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Fearghas Of course this false debate is coming to a conclusion. But meantime others have suffered Stu, Father Ted, A…” Mar 25, 19:53
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “And seeing as Confused mentioned Jim Rogers and the lady in red shiting herself the other day… It’s only a…” Mar 25, 19:27
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “GIRLGUIDING WILL BE FEMALE-ONLY FROM SEPTEMBER Girlguiding has announced that any gender-confused boys who identify as girls will have to…” Mar 25, 19:25
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “C’mon tae fuck Chas. I hope you don’t play golf like you act on here. At least try to respond…” Mar 25, 19:22
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Breaking news for Chas who seems permanently in the dark to current world affairs happening outside of his basement. The…” Mar 25, 19:22
James on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Wow. Just wow. Utter bollocks that was de-bunked years ago being sicked-up by English Yoon “Chas”. Is this really the…” Mar 25, 18:35
Chas on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Dan I have seen your post with the various percentages several times previously. Where you gleaned them from and at…” Mar 25, 18:33
George Ferguson on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Agreed Stu I am not voting for anyone on May 7th. Last year on this blog I said Scottish Labour…” Mar 25, 18:33
Captain Caveman on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Well, “Geri”, I might well be Del Boy but at least he’s popular and British. Unlike some, eh pal. As…” Mar 25, 18:26
Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Sorry Geri, I just can’t accept any definition of anything involving Ms Sturgeon involving the descriptor “honest” as being applicable.…” Mar 25, 18:22
Young Lochinvar on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “No Geri I don’t think so. I can’t put my finger on it but it’s got similarities to (here) Hateys…” Mar 25, 18:17
Geri on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “Of course he isn’t anti immigration & of course he’ll do absolutely nothing to fix it. It’d upset his wealthy…” Mar 25, 18:10
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “And an apology and admittance from Main that coal actually was a resource worth mentioning. https://wingsoverscotland.com/never-learned-to-shovel/#comment-2778577 And more so now…” Mar 25, 18:00
Dan on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “@Chas I’ve previously proffered a suggestion on how a self-governing Scotland could be run, and it’s based on using the…” Mar 25, 17:56
Sven on Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off: “I so wish I believed you were mistaken, Red, unfortunately I believe you’re completely correct.” Mar 25, 17:54
