I always like to try to salvage something of value out of the most worthless commodity of the digital age: spam. Most of the cast of characters in Hell Yeah! are named after the "senders" of spam emails, and earlier today I was going through the followers on the Twitter account of my Scottish politics site blocking all the pornbots and noticed a slightly odd shared characteristic in the process.
Almost every one had a single-word biog, and as I went down the list it seemed to have a certain poetry. I had just enough syllables to make two haikus (plus titles), with four left over. If you can do better with the words, send 'em in.
There are two reasons I’m incredibly happy about suddenly and unexpectedly rediscovering it – as I just have – of which the first is the less important.
Alert readers may recall a few weeks back I gave an interview to a blog written by a bunch of – well, let's call them "games journalists" for want of a more accurate term. A straightforward enough business, you might think – ask questions, get replies, publish, done. It didn't work out quite that simply.
While the interview caused a huge hit spike on the site and an unprecedented number of comments (over 100 compared to their usual three or four), this sudden influx of visitors and attention caused great consternation among some of the blog's editors other than the charming and talented young writer who'd done the interview.
Two of them – a pair of particularly lily-livered Future Publishing corporate drones – whined all over Twitter and elsewhere that the (incredibly mild) arguments in the comments were so beastly and upsetting that they were considering deleting the entire site, rather than attract all these awful, horrid people (ie, readers) to it by speaking to such a nasty man.
Long story short, to spare the hurt feelings of the less-popular stories on their blog (which is to say, all of them) the interview has been quietly deleted. So I've retrieved it and posted it below for posterity.
Man, I've been waiting for this to happen for ages. A long long time ago, when I was barely half as old as I am now, there was a magazine called Cut. A sort of artsier Scottish version of the NME, it was a music-and-culture-and-politics newspaper that came out either weekly or fortnightly, I forget which.
Either way, in 1989 Cut began publication of a comic strip written by Grant Morrison (the eccentric/mental creator of Zenith and The Invisibles, among many others), called The New Adventures Of Hitler.
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “He fled to England for safety 20 years after Kenya achieved Independence.” Jul 7, 18:02
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: ““There are elements of colonialism at work in the past and now in the UK. Coercion, erosion and appropriation of…” Jul 7, 17:57
sam on Too Tight To Mention: “The historian, tom Devine says England sought the Union with Scotland for security reasons, not economic reasons. Colonialism begins with…” Jul 7, 17:41
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “Did you get 10 shillings (50 pence) for that one too?” Jul 7, 17:33
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “To reply again, yes, it was the post-independence Kenyan government that put him in prison. That it was a big…” Jul 7, 17:32
Stuart on Too Tight To Mention: “There’s a very interesting set of posts over at the “People’s Assembly” over on Facebook about Salvo/Liberate Scotland, and why…” Jul 7, 17:27
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “Building a nation: Papua New Guinea’s 50 years of independence https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/07/png-independence-1975-50-years-anniversary-papua-new-guinea Interesting read.” Jul 7, 17:27
Northcode on Too Tight To Mention: “Since everyone here is now talking about the imminent resurgence of the Scots leid – initially in the Scottish literature,…” Jul 7, 17:22
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “Yes, he had several languages that he could use for different functions. He also taught in English, but wrote novels…” Jul 7, 17:15
Mark Beggan on Too Tight To Mention: “Your like a death at a birthday party.” Jul 7, 17:14
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: “His book was written and released in English to achieve a wider audience.” Jul 7, 16:51
agent x on Too Tight To Mention: ““Northcode says: 7 July, 2025 at 1:20 pm I’m reading ‘Decolonising the Mind – the politics of language in African…” Jul 7, 16:47
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “I just looked him up. Ngugi started writing his novels in his mother tongue during a year of imprisonment for…” Jul 7, 16:42
sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “On the topic of helping Scotland to cease being subservient, to restore its constitutional and international status. Surely no Scot,…” Jul 7, 16:26
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““Given how you are attempting to bore everyone to death with post colonial theory Professor Baird, isn’t it time you…” Jul 7, 16:00
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““People all over the world want to speak it to get ahead and be successful in life !” Aye, it…” Jul 7, 15:52
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “I’d say that Young Lochinvar’s counter-argument is better, the Treaty of Ardtonish, as being nearer in history – but it…” Jul 7, 15:50
Northcode on Too Tight To Mention: ““Given the earlier role of Dalriada Scots in the takeover of the Pictish Kingdom…this perspective perhaps needs revised” It definitely…” Jul 7, 15:50
Insider on Too Tight To Mention: “Meanwhile Alf, in the real world, there are approximately 1.5 BILLION people currently learning english (often at great personal expense).…” Jul 7, 15:26
Mark Beggan on Too Tight To Mention: “Psychology terms; Rumination, Repetition compulsion, historical nostalgia. Stuck on the past.” Jul 7, 15:16
Northcode on Too Tight To Mention: ““As Thiong’o wrote of colonial education in Kenyan schools: ‘the language of my education is not the language of my…” Jul 7, 15:13
Stuart on Too Tight To Mention: “Given how you are attempting to bore everyone to death with post colonial theory Professor Baird, isn’t it time you…” Jul 7, 15:11
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““The Southern Scots were a part of the oppression of the Northern Scots, the destruction of the northern culture, language,…” Jul 7, 15:08
sarah on Too Tight To Mention: “It is getting the word out that is so daunting. All independence voters need to know about Liberate Scotland and…” Jul 7, 15:03
Mark Beggan on Too Tight To Mention: “And they were very successfull don’t you think. So now that you’ve identified your problem. What is it that you…” Jul 7, 15:03
TURABDIN on Too Tight To Mention: “«LORD GIVE ME CHASTITY and continence, but not yet» This infamous prayer of the young Augustine of Hippo (354-430) reflects…” Jul 7, 15:01
AndrewR on Too Tight To Mention: “You are conflating what colonial powers do – divide and rule – which happened and happens in real life, with…” Jul 7, 14:50
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““Everybody is brain washed” How did you think the colonial hoax worked so well and so easily taking millions of…” Jul 7, 14:36
Alf Baird on Too Tight To Mention: ““There can be no doubt that the linguistic oppression of the Scots leid, or tongue, is one of the greatest…” Jul 7, 14:27
Mark Beggan on Too Tight To Mention: “Post Colonial Theory. Is this what the independence movement is reduced to. Is this all you can come up with.…” Jul 7, 14:08
