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The Paper Teapot 338

Posted on February 08, 2024 by

As Twitter followers will have noticed, we’ve been busy this week with an extensive remodelling of Wings HQ, which involved the main computer being out of commission for several days while the office was basically torn down and rebuilt from scratch. (It seemed a good time to do it, given that there’s nothing remotely of interest happening in Scottish politics.)

Unfortunately the lack of activity on the site caused the comments on the last post to degenerate into the most wretched playground shrieking match, so let’s see if we can’t distract the children and talk about something else for a bit.

Particularly alert observers will have noted that Kezia Dugdale, the most spectacularly inept and unsuccessful Scottish political leader in history, this week demitted her role as Director of the John Smith Centre, which she was handed as an incentive to quit Scottish Labour after dragging it to 14% in the opinion polls.

And we wondered how anyone would be able to tell.

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As you mean to go on 1,153

Posted on January 31, 2024 by

Nicola Sturgeon turned up to the COVID inquiry today in a car with no MOT certificate.

Which raises a couple of questions.

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Cheap lies 66

Posted on January 31, 2024 by

We long ago ran out of words to express the magnitude of the contempt in which the SNP now hold the people of Scotland. Which is unfortunate, because this probably calls for the invention of a whole new scale.

Shall we go through just a few of the more crassly insulting holes in this pitiful excuse for a cover story, just to pass the time while we wait for the former First Minister to appear before the COVID inquiry? We don’t know about you, but we’ve got nothing better to do.

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The reddest flag in history 61

Posted on January 30, 2024 by

Nicola Sturgeon is due to give her evidence to the COVID inquiry tomorrow – if, of course, she remembers anything. We’re awaiting, open-mouthed in genuine shock, her explanation for this.

Because try as hard as we might, we cannot for the lives of us bring to mind a single possible legitimate justification for a First Minister to do such a thing.

Alert readers may however note that 19 March 2020 was just four days before Alex Salmond was cleared of all charges, and might find themselves pondering the reasons why she might want to be in possession of a cheap disposable text-capable phone at that particular point in time.

Full transparency 387

Posted on January 27, 2024 by

The changing times 437

Posted on January 23, 2024 by

Just three and a bit years ago:

And today:

Comment seems superfluous.

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The End Of The Road 248

Posted on January 22, 2024 by

There are many people in the world deserving of sympathy at the moment, readers, but spare a thought in your busy day for Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain.

Just two and a half years into the post (most incumbents post-devolution have served around five), she’s already had to deal with a lot of what sports people call “hospital passes”. But she’s about to find herself in another nasty spot not of her own making.

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The Purity Police 190

Posted on January 20, 2024 by

Less Equal Than Others 124

Posted on January 19, 2024 by

On Tuesday 16th January the UK parliament put beyond doubt that their claims down the centuries that the UK is a respectful union of equals is, and always was, a lie.

This was the second time I’d brought my Scotland (Self-Determination) Bill before the house and there are various opinions floating around about the reasons for, and implications of, introducing the legislation as drafted. Wings kindly suggested I set out my reasons for bringing it forward for a second time, and why I consider Tuesday’s defeat in the chamber as a Pyrrhic victory for the union.

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First Do No Harm 425

Posted on January 15, 2024 by

We make no apology for returning once again to the depressing subject of the Scottish Government’s proposed new law to ban “conversion practices”, because it provides such an illuminating microcosm of how far a once competent and widely-respected administration has fallen since 2015.

Emma Roddick, who is piloting the bill towards the statute books in much the same way that Mohamed Atta piloted American Airlines Flight 11 towards the World Trade Centre, is a 26-year-old who by her own admission suffers from a serious and debilitating mental illness that any sane country would regard as an insurmountable bar to political office.

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Bully Boys 189

Posted on January 13, 2024 by

Down the memory hole again 123

Posted on January 12, 2024 by

The Scottish Government’s website about its controversial and extremely disturbing new “conversion practices” legislation assures citizens that the proposal was formed after consultation with an “Expert Advisory Group”.

But all of a sudden it doesn’t seem to want you to know who they were.

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    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Pax tecum” Et cum spiritu tuo. “An quhen all cessyt he spak” Thanks for the link, Fearghas.Jan 25, 07:16
    • Willie on Yelling at the tide: “The use of troops to intimidate and kill protestors in Minnesota is now very much beginning to resemble the actions…Jan 24, 23:02
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “Meant to add this link to the online text: VIRGIL’S AENEID, TRANSLATED BY GAVIN DOUGLAS (1513) www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/49884/pg49884-images.htmlJan 24, 22:33
    • DaveL on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, there’s Wee Adolf McHateface reliable as ever. Wee Adolf, I’ve got to say it, It’d be a first for…Jan 24, 21:35
    • Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““You tell me whoever it was prevented you from learning Scots” First nursery school, then primary school, followed by secondary…Jan 24, 21:12
    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““hundered ” Aye, a ken aboot that yin anaw. Whit am a like the day? A’m aw flustered because nane…Jan 24, 20:50
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Great post, Northy. See that “theirs” in your last sentence? Is that the Scots leid richt their? Always keen tae…Jan 24, 20:41
    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, Hatey, they are a shower o cunts, right enough. Thank fuck for you, though…Jan 24, 20:39
    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““theirs ” Aye, a ken.Jan 24, 20:36
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “@TURABDIN You just don’t get it. Scots invented the modern world. Only, the “modern” world our ancestors invented was the…Jan 24, 20:34
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, Willie, what’s the world coming to, eh? You can’t even threaten armed cops with your own handgun any more…Jan 24, 20:26
    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““…why are the online introductory pages of DSL all in English?” Whit leid sud thae be dae ye think? “Why…Jan 24, 20:17
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Morning Northy! Sorry it’s been near 12 hours and nae cant has stirred himself to respond to your post, other…Jan 24, 20:16
    • Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “Pax tecum. “Quhen he spak all cessyt” (Virgil’s AENEID, translated by Gavin Douglas, 1513)Jan 24, 20:12
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Confused writes on humility and shutting your fucking mouth. Sorry, words fail.Jan 24, 20:08
    • robertkknight on Yelling at the tide: “Ermmm… Last time I checked, Lowland Scots a.k.a Lallans, or synthetic (modern) Scots, isn’t the only dialect of Scots with…Jan 24, 20:06
    • Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “You tell me whoever it was prevented you from learning Scots, Alf, and as one, Wings BTL will seek them…Jan 24, 20:02
    • Willie on Yelling at the tide: “Just watched the latest citizen of Minnesota beaten to the ground by ICE agents and then dispatched with some 10…Jan 24, 19:27
    • TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “Just a thought…why are the online introductory pages of DSL all in English? Why does the DSL effectively treat the…Jan 24, 18:59
    • Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““…if some cite “Pictish DNA” (not so Billy Kay) as prime reason for championing it [Scots?], that logic seems not…Jan 24, 18:54
    • Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: “Its not that complicated at all. What you are describing are merely various forms of Cultural Imperialism. Language is one…Jan 24, 18:38
    • sam on Yelling at the tide: “It is rather more complicated. https://media.scotslanguage.com/library/document/Scots%20Timeline%20Post-1700.pdf 1720’s Introduction to Scotland of the New Method of teaching English based directly on…Jan 24, 18:20
    • James Cheyne on Yelling at the tide: “Chagos Islands, Thank goodness that Trump is stopping the financial fraud of funneling tax payers money out of Britain, Foreign…Jan 24, 17:35
    • Marie on Yelling at the tide: “The world’s greatest living half-Scotsman (lol) has backtracked on his offensive lies – trouble is the dough ball has already…Jan 24, 17:33
    • Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: “As ‘a fowk’s’ langage is a determinant o the identity o the ‘fowk’ wha speak hit, it staunds tae reason…Jan 24, 17:14
    • TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “if you compose text offline then paste and post, do you get moderated? it does seem so.Jan 24, 16:44
    • James Cheyne on Yelling at the tide: “Following the archaeology of pictish digs, there is a pattern that implies the territorial boundaries and scope of pictland, i…Jan 24, 16:33
    • sam on Yelling at the tide: “https://theconversation.com/how-celtic-languages-spread-across-britain-and-ireland-why-we-need-to-reconsider-the-early-story-271338 “..Recent studies of ancient DNA have revealed waves of migration into Britain from regions that are now in France…Jan 24, 16:13
    • TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “Lallans speaking Scots settling in Orkney & Shetland aka Hjatland eventually ousted the local Norse, athough it survived long enough…Jan 24, 15:47
    • DaveL on Yelling at the tide: ““… which was better than WW1 where they were 3” Aye and it took them six months to organise themselves…Jan 24, 15:39
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