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.
Northcode on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I have an urge to scribble doun some Scots words and post them to this place: Tho we hamespun Scottis…” Mar 5, 21:47
Northcode on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “To compare colonisation wth immigration is a false equivalence. Here is a modern definition of colonialism: ” [colonialism] depends first…” Mar 5, 21:21
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “ALBA CONTINUATION GROUP WELCOMES MACASKILL’S POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Alba Continuation Group Welcomes MacAskill Engagement as Members…” Mar 5, 20:15
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Excellent points, Lorncal. Both gender woowoo and multiculturalism have another thing in common – we, the people, were never asked…” Mar 5, 18:49
Lorncal on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “H McH: the thing about decolonisation is that it rarely turns out the way you thought it might before you…” Mar 5, 18:19
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “So very New Testament of you HMcH It’s much older; Lilith then Cain kicked it all off for the Abrahamics..” Mar 5, 17:51
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “When the Eagle soars and the Lion roars the world stands still. America is waiting.” Mar 5, 17:38
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Be more like Spain” In early 2026, Spain agreed to unilaterally grant legal residence and work permits to approximately 500,000…” Mar 5, 17:12
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Did you hear that on the street like yesterday? Crivens. Fit an interesting street ye hing oot oan!” Mar 5, 17:03
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Surely, for the colonised, it is always “our” government? It’s the post colonised for whom it isn’t. I don’t have…” Mar 5, 16:58
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “I thought you would still be mourning the elimination of the father of post colonial theocracy. From my reckoning you…” Mar 5, 16:50
Fordy on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Been saying that since Sturgeon was first minister all the faux grievances with Westminster is just to keep the sheep…” Mar 5, 16:24
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““our government” ? For the colonized it is never ‘our’ government.” Mar 5, 15:48
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The English keep voting for these parasites. They’re lazy, they don’t even get off their arse & threaten to physically…” Mar 5, 15:31
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Last I heard it’s basically over for the yanks. Iran sent a £600 drone that bypassed the American billion dollar,…” Mar 5, 15:17
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “MSM reporting the Home Secretary wants to sub asylum seeker families to the tune of £40,000 to sling their hooks.…” Mar 5, 14:50
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Isn’t that a Catholic thing? I don’t think they call it a shambles, though.” Mar 5, 14:42
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Alf The impact of extended Scotchland Office lunch “hour” tea trolley duties away from the internet.. Quack quack 🙂” Mar 5, 14:37
Young Lochinvar on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “4 fighters to Qatar, 1 frigate to Cyprus (sometime), 2 helicopters to Cyprus and 1 charter repatriation flight (eventually).. World…” Mar 5, 14:32
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Both poles of the Baird/Northy axis have been absent until today. So, little of worth that merited responding to. Can…” Mar 5, 14:28
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Tut tut, only 13 out of 46 comments here for Hatety ower Scotland. Ye’ve drapped belaw yer usual 30%.” Mar 5, 13:54
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““The solution? STOP ILLEGALLY INVADING OTHER COUNTRIES. Simples” I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. Is it flattering…” Mar 5, 13:49
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““the current crop of politicians may not have the requisite skills & intelligence to handle” Maybe aye, maybe naw. I…” Mar 5, 13:35
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “That so? These people sound like what we would call colonialists on here. Happy to be proved wrong. Maybe they’re…” Mar 5, 13:19
agentx on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Flight data shows that in the week leading up to the US and Israel’s attack on Iran, 24 US military…” Mar 5, 13:15
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Wheesht, Northy, that carpet has been gnawed to threads. There’s a plush new carpet on the flair, 100% acrylic, with…” Mar 5, 13:14
Lorncal on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “John Swinney says he will hold another referendum only because he is sure that the SNP will not have a…” Mar 5, 13:14
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Who started this?” To be fair, I would say the Romans. To be unfair (and why not?), the First Caliphate…” Mar 5, 13:09
TURABDIN on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “INDEPENDENCE is a good, but a good that in a deeply troubled & divided world imposes responsibilities that the current…” Mar 5, 12:53
