The Yes movement, like almost all movements, is plagued with a small but incredibly loud faction of intolerant, destructive extremists. Alert readers will have noticed that this site has again been the victim of them this week, but we’re not alone. They’ve also gone after two print publications – The National and iScot – over their “transgressions” against the beliefs of these self-appointed arbiters of what people are allowed to think.
What those two outlets and Wings have in common is achievement.
I went to “Dunkirk” at the cinema today. If you want to know what it’s like, just watch this trailer 40 times in a row and save yourself the £12.
It’s a poor movie, disjointed and aimless and curiously lacking in tension or narrative given the real-life subject matter. (It’s remarkably short on dialogue, which is lucky because you can barely make out any of what little script or story there is from behind the endlessly howling one-note airhorn of the soundtrack. It’s a bit like someone filmed an IKEA assembly manual in live action during a Formula 1 race.)
But I couldn’t help thinking that part of the reason it was so unengaging was because it felt akin to watching a boxing match between two fighters you don’t like. If Mike Tyson took on Tyson Fury, would you cheer for the rapist or the anti-Semitic homophobe?
Deep in the summer news desert, the papers today are struggling for material again. The Sunday Herald has a shock-horror front-page exposé about some photos from an Orange Lodge party that turn out to be from 2010 and 2013, while the Scottish Mail On Sunday reaches all the way back to 1940 to fill a couple of pages.
We were intrigued to hear Labour activist Duncan Hothersall tell radio listeners this morning that his party’s opposition to independence was rooted in “Labour values”, and most specifically by his assertion that “nationalism and socialism are opposites”.
So we thought we’d take a look back at our last Panelbase opinion poll, which we conducted in February, and see what the values of Unionists were.
We haven’t said much about the huge furore whipped up by the Guardian in recent days around spurious allegations of racism/online abuse by supporters of Scottish independence, made first by Sadiq Khan and then by a deranged “Better Together” activist who also thinks all vegans are racist (or something).
Partly that’s because we covered the initial speech by Khan and the fallout from it pretty extensively, and partly because we didn’t want to feed the Guardian’s clickbait.
However, when the activist who was allegedly “hounded off Twitter” in fear for her life – fear caused by supposed comments that nobody has actually seen – miraculously recovered her bravery less than a week later (coincidentally just in time for the launch of her book), we thought it was probably time someone started keeping some records.
The votes for “God Save The Queen” being driven by Tories, English-born residents and supporters of a particular football club probably won’t come as the biggest shock in the world to anyone.
(Alert viewers will of course have noticed that due to MI5 INTERFERENCE in the poll, there were actually two votes for Hoots Mon, which have been suspiciously rounded down to one. We are conducting an investigation, by which we mean brutal purge.)
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Che spambot in full flow, I see. Give it a bloody rest, will you?” Sep 10, 10:02
Colin Alexander on Anything But That: “My gut instinct is that the YES campaign was deliberately designed to fail. I suspect that pressure was also applied…” Sep 10, 09:46
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I made no comment about my personal life, James. 🙂” Sep 10, 09:42
James Che on Anything But That: “Hatey, I don’t think anyone enquired about your’e personal life.” Sep 10, 09:17
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Much like dogging.” Sep 10, 09:08
James Che on Anything But That: “Hence my interest in researching historical records, maps, buildings, old battles and history in general began,” Sep 10, 09:03
James Che on Anything But That: “Forgot dozens of horse shoes and tools, A interesting hobby because its like a lucky dip, some days you come…” Sep 10, 08:36
James Che on Anything But That: “Did I find any thing interest? Yes I suppose depending on what a person is interested in, every thing from…” Sep 10, 08:30
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Man, must be 35 years since I last opened some embassies. Happy days. But glad I stopped.” Sep 10, 08:14
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Duncan MacTrump says; Currency: That was the question that sunk Big Eck. Great guy, treated very badly by very nasty…” Sep 10, 02:36
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Does Scotland have any legal right (As the law now stands) to open embassies?” Sep 10, 01:47
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Metal detector? Find anything interesting?” Sep 10, 01:25
James Che on Anything But That: “I personally think that John Swinney and Andy Burnham have a lot in common in how they run Countries.” Sep 10, 00:55
James Che on Anything But That: “As the Devolved governance parliament in Scotland from Westminster parliaments “Scotland Act,” The Westminster parliament has every right to launch…” Sep 10, 00:47
James Che on Anything But That: “I see the Telegraph is suggesting that Andy Burnham is running the parliament similar as a boy Scout leval.” Sep 10, 00:37
James Che on Anything But That: “In a attempt to give you more meat on the bone, I will have to refer you to the Westminster…” Sep 10, 00:32
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Naw, Alf. In as much as neoliberalism has an agreed definition at all, its meaning has nothing to do with…” Sep 9, 23:16
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “You are dribbling your Buckfast.” Sep 9, 23:07
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I respect that James. But it is too high brow, technical, academia land. We plebs need meat on the bones” Sep 9, 23:05
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““the basic point of neoliberalism” and of course liberal imperialism and its colonial procedures. A colonized people suffer from territorial…” Sep 9, 21:38
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Every time someone asks Andy Burnham a question he does this amazing goldfish out of water impersonation.” Sep 9, 19:59
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Out of all the Shires in Scotland Aberdeen seems to produce an altogether unique form of stupidity and arrogance. Lowest…” Sep 9, 19:53
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “I hope people aren’t being distracted by a smirking bald guy and a whole lot of gas. Who would fall…” Sep 9, 19:46
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “Wow! Looks like some big, bad, English basturts really are gonna do it. But this time I don’t think they’re…” Sep 9, 18:59
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “Given the gas was unburned, the CO2/greenhouse gas impact would have been horrendous. Roughly the same as driving an average…” Sep 9, 16:58
agentx on Anything But That: ““John Swinney nightmare as Westminster launches probe into Peter Murrell’s crimes and Lord Advocate’s role in Cabinet” For details read…” Sep 9, 16:39
sam on Anything But That: “sez the UK parlyment England which has about 90 % of UK surface water has problems, to put it mildly,…” Sep 9, 16:37
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: “OK we’re talking methane, not propane, therefore a lower calorific value and all that jazz, but fuck me, 700kg of…” Sep 9, 16:37
agentx on Anything But That: ““Stephen Flynn says he was unaware of ferry gas escape” ——————————————————- No surprise there then!” Sep 9, 15:57
agentx on Anything But That: “The Math Breakdown:Methane Volume: \(700 \text{ kg} \div 0.657 \text{ kg/m³} = \mathbf{1,065.4 \text{ m³}}\) Average UK 4-Bedroom House: A…” Sep 9, 15:54
