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Wings Over Scotland


Archive for the ‘navel-gazing’


Here’s to you, Mr Robinson 357

Posted on September 28, 2017 by

It’s always interesting to make the news.

But the BBC man seems a little confused.

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Friends and allies 219

Posted on September 15, 2017 by

I apologise in advance to readers for the personal indulgence of this post.

Some months ago, quite coincidentally, I happened to avail myself of Twitter’s archive function, which allows users to download their entire tweet history. For various reasons I’ve been looking at it recently, and until I did I’d been unaware that it records not just a user’s own tweets, but also the tweets from other people that they’ve retweeted.

I’ve collected some of Wings’ tweets and retweets – in reverse chronological order – below. (Famously, of course, RTs aren’t necessarily endorsements, but you can decide on the underlying tone for yourself. Each of them links to the original tweet so you can see the whole conversation, or click on the links being referenced.)

They’re all on one subject, by way of illustration, because Twitter is a transient medium full of people all too eager to jump at the slightest excuse to make spurious and hateful allegations about everything (and anyone) under the sun to serve their own agendas, and for the sake of the future of human discourse it’s worth remembering that nothing exists in isolation or free of context, and we shouldn’t jump too easily to conclusions.

Because the other way never ends anywhere good.

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Taking a stand 344

Posted on July 24, 2017 by

Click pic to go to the Indiegogo fundraiser page, or click here to use PayPal.
All-sources total as of 9am, Tuesday 25 July: £11,640.

.

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Down the tubes 57

Posted on July 01, 2017 by

A very brief stat post, as our “regular” cartoonist is on holiday YET AGAIN.

Wings had just over 300,000 unique readers in June, despite taking the last couple of weeks off ourselves, bringing the monthly average readership for the first half of 2017 to 346,226. That’s 55,532 up on the same period last year, or a 19% increase.

Rarely can a flush have been more busted.

Not too shabby 103

Posted on June 01, 2017 by

…for one idiot and an occasional cartoonist talking to a country of only 4m adults.

And one of us DOESN’T EVEN LIVE THERE!!!!!

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Becoming the squirrel 545

Posted on May 18, 2017 by

I went to the dentist this morning, and boy was I ever in for a shock when I got back.

So I guess we’d better talk about this for a minute.

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With our shield, or on it 212

Posted on April 03, 2017 by

Actually, mighty King Leonidas is understating here. It was 311% in the end.

Wings Over Scotland 2017 fundraiser total: £140,047.

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The Liar 153

Posted on March 25, 2017 by

Normally the amateur blogger, unqualified would-be economist and unsuccessful dog-food salesman that BBC Scotland and the Daily Record employ on a regular basis to openly troll Yes voters restricts himself, when attacking this site, to crude abuse or smear and innuendo like the below, tweeted on Holocaust Memorial Day last year:

Last night, implausibly, he sank lower.

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The competition 158

Posted on January 17, 2017 by

You very rarely get useful stats about online newspaper readership, so we were quite intrigued by this snippet on tonight’s BBC2 Scotland documentary “Paper Thistle”, about the 200th anniversary of The Scotsman.

We don’t know what the numbers are or how brief the period was, but Wings’ average traffic is higher now than it was in 2014, while we suspect The Scotsman is moving in the opposite direction. For a single-issue website to be anywhere even in the same ballpark as a two-centuries-old broadsheet news brand with scores of full-time writers and production staff and a daily newsstand presence is a remarkable thing indeed.

We might start doing classifieds and sport just to see what happens.

Court circulars 173

Posted on December 12, 2016 by

Just a brief update on some legal shenanigans. Having received no response to TWO lawyers’ letters, I’ve filed a court claim against Express Newspapers over false and defamatory claims made in an article by Siobhan McFadyen (sourced by JK Rowling) on the Sunday Express website of 30 October, as detailed in this Wings article.

mentalsiobhan1a

The court fee was partly funded by popular politics pundit John McTernan.

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Men without honour 315

Posted on November 29, 2016 by

I wasn’t going to mention this on the site because it’s basically a personal matter, but as most readers don’t use Twitter or Facebook it probably ought to be briefly filed for the record, given the amount of media coverage there’s been.

mcternanhassan

It won’t take long.

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Love Factor Five 336

Posted on November 07, 2016 by

Half a decade ago today, on 7 November 2011, Wings Over Scotland was born.

fivecakeb

And since we don’t generally do stat posts any more (the last proper one was a year ago), we hope you’ll forgive us a small indulgence to mark the milestone with a light sprinkling of facts and figures.

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    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “You give way too much attention, Northy, to the voices in yer heid.Jul 29, 19:28
    • James on The Nobodies: “LOLZ…..says the Keyboard Warrior – sitting on it’s fat arse in East Kilbride posting Unionist Shite on here all day,…Jul 29, 19:26
    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Ah, Wally, as ever you show us why the smart money is on you still wondering, as the emergency services…Jul 29, 19:24
    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “What’s that you say, Sooty? Burnham’s going after people on benefits? Well, well. Maybe he will live up to the…Jul 29, 19:09
    • James on The Nobodies: “Nah, everyone here knows you’re just a Unionist “Prick”…..Jul 29, 19:05
    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “This is Scotland, sam. Why should we believe you know what a woman is?Jul 29, 18:39
    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “We have serious claims from Professor Baird that I’m a racist and a fascist. We have serious claims from Professor…Jul 29, 18:37
    • Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: ““My point wasn’t about the emotional harm of mockery… it was about its structural uselessness.” Well I daresay, Northy, if…Jul 29, 18:22
    • Alf Baird on The Nobodies: ““It sounds good but it’s not right.” Spot on, James. The statement (“Scotland did fine as a colony from 1750…Jul 29, 16:03
    • Confused on The Nobodies: “Burnham’s been in the job 5 seconds and what has he been doing : – FUCK OFF SCOTLAND was near…Jul 29, 15:39
    • Northcode on The Nobodies: “You’re raising points about government size and historical interpretation, but none of them actually engage the argument you’re responding to.…Jul 29, 15:31
    • Northcode on The Nobodies: ““Mockery and insults are different.” Your distinction makes sense at the level of tone, but my point was about their…Jul 29, 14:53
    • Ross on The Nobodies: “BTW, There’s an easy fix for the ITV screen capture problem – in the browser settings, do a search for…Jul 29, 14:09
    • James on The Nobodies: ““Scotland did fine as a colony from 1750 to 1900, not asset stripped. It was only when big government arrived…Jul 29, 13:50
    • Ian Smith on The Nobodies: “The colonialism is not a serious claim, it is presenting obscure academic opinions as fact. While there are none so…Jul 29, 13:01
    • Ian Smith on The Nobodies: “Assuming no mainstream political party is going to radically improve anything for the country, there is still a good case…Jul 29, 12:55
    • diabloandco on The Nobodies: “If any silly sod replies to derogatory comment at 12.10 then hell mend ye! On a completely off topic subject…Jul 29, 12:45
    • sam on The Nobodies: “Mockery and insults are different. Alf usually gets insults and mockery. Insults are unnecessary.The intention is to hurt someone who…Jul 29, 12:10
    • Chas on The Nobodies: “Does that mean you are leaving ‘Wings’ for good? I hope so.Jul 29, 12:10
    • Northcode on The Nobodies: “I was in the mood for a spot of speech writing the other day, and I’m in the same mood…Jul 29, 11:43
    • Jamie on The Nobodies: “More pictures of Monica Bellucci are welcome.Jul 29, 11:11
    • Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: “Sometimes mockery is richly deserved and entirely apt. Besides, sticks and stones eh? Maybe people need to have thicker skins…Jul 29, 10:54
    • Xaracen on The Nobodies: “It had to be said, Northy, and you said it well.Jul 29, 10:37
    • Northcode on The Nobodies: ““Democratic institutions inside a colonial framework cannot produce constitutional change”: Is a premise put forward by Alf Baird as part…Jul 29, 10:24
    • sam on The Nobodies: “The i paper ‘Burnham bounce’ puts Labour ahead in poll, but can it last? 18:44 Mon, 27 Jul Yahoo News…Jul 29, 09:58
    • Alf Baird on The Nobodies: “Hatey, you are on the wrong side of history and morality in your admiration for the mafia and its backers…Jul 29, 09:19
    • Captain Caveman on The Nobodies: ““Racist yesterday, Alf, and now fascist today.” Is he really expressing such sentiments and views? If so, that’s a disgrace…Jul 29, 08:53
    • Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “On the subject of shite, Dan, it’s interesting that you have nothing to say to a poster who not only…Jul 29, 08:13
    • Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Racist yesterday, Alf, and now fascist today. You academics don’t half like to throw the big, complicated words around. How…Jul 28, 19:54
    • Andy Wiltshire on The Nobodies: “Apropos of nothing, Rev, what ever happened about Lynsay Watson? Was any kind of justice ever served?Jul 28, 18:26
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