You’d have to be living in a pretty strict prison not to have heard the big story from today’s Olympics in Paris, in which male Algerian cheat Imane Khelefi was put in a boxing ring with young Italian woman Angela Carini and allowed to hit her in the head for 46 seconds until she retired, in tears and in fear for her safety, saying “I had to preserve my life”.
Sound like your kind of fun, men? It’s surprisingly easy!
Let’s take a moment off, folks. In our latest Panelbase poll, we also threw in a question just for fun, with genuinely no agenda at all, simply because we were curious to know what the answer was. Here it is:
For what these are about, see here. This one’s from 23 August 2019.
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I’m going to talk about this story for a bit, and I’m sorry because I’m as sick of this subject as everyone else is but it’s really really important. Tune out for 10 minutes if you must.
I’ve never been a person who suffered from blackouts. In my younger days I would frequently drink Olympian amounts of booze and pass out in a heap (and/or pool of my own vomit) under a table, but when I woke up I always remembered how I got there. I also went under general anaesthetic a couple of times at the dentist when I was wee, and always remembered counting down from 10 with the mask on before I woke up. (“10…9…8…zzzzzzzz”)
In my entire half-century on this planet, there’s only one gap in my memory. (Like, I don’t remember what I had for dinner on 8 July 1987, but you know what I mean. I remembered it the next day, just not any more.)
It happened when I was about 14, playing rugby at school.
Watching the Six Nations rugby tournament every year is usually quite a dispiriting experience – not just because of Scotland’s invariably underwhelming performances (broken up by the occasional false dawn), but because talking about it on social media always results in an extremely tedious flood of comments about how rugby is a sport played and watched exclusively by middle-class Tory No voters.
(That’s Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw there, with Wings mascot Hamish.)
Speaking as someone whose interest in the tournament (in the pre-inflation days when it was the Five Nations) was first sparked when my extremely working-class Bathgate comprehensive school started taking pupils to Murrayfield in the 1980s – 50p for the bus and 50p for the match ticket, which got you a seat on wooden benches actually on the grass – this attitude has always instinctively felt like complete nonsense.
So when we did our latest Panelbase poll during this year’s competition, we figured we may as well actually find out.
…for the relationship between the four “partner” nations of the UK presented itself at the weekend when BBC anchorman John Inverdale asked the Scottish rugby pundit and former international Andy Nicol “what does this do for self-belief from a Scottish perspective, Andy?”
Which was clearly pretty ironic in itself:
But alert readers may recall how that “epitome of Better Together” worked out.
Tremendous news for the rest of Scotland’s football clubs as Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers promises never to win the treble unbeaten again, even if his side score more goals than the other team in all their matches.
…is roughly how often Aberdeen get to the final of the Scottish Cup these days. The last time was 17 years ago – a tournament which started in the last century and ended the year Rangers started paying their players with EBTs – when SFA rules meant that they had to play almost the entire game without a recognised goalkeeper.
(A tackle in the third minute broke veteran custodian Jim Leighton’s jaw, and because you were only allowed three players on the subs bench the Dons had no backup No.1 and had to put striker Robbie Winters between the sticks, with a predictable outcome. Leighton never played professional football again.)
In politics, Labour were only one year into the first ever administration of the modern Scottish Parliament, and still in the first term of Tony Blair’s rule at Westminster. The idea of the SNP winning an election, let alone holding an independence referendum, was the preserve of mad fantasists.
And the last time the Pittodrie side actually won the trophy was 27 years back, which is so long ago that most of Hampden was still open to the elements.
Still, it would be weird if we got to the final again next year and some of the Aberdeen support refused to go on the grounds that the matter of who was the best cup football team in Scotland had been settled forever today.
Or if Celtic won but had fielded an ineligible player and the SFA ordered a replay, but the Dons declined to take part because they’d played too many finals recently.
The categorical support of Andy Murray for Scottish independence, though only finally unambiguously revealed in today’s Sunday Times (the tennis star’s day-of-poll tweet backing Yes could by a strict semantic interpretation have been said to be somewhat equivocal), isn’t much of a surprise.
So it’s perhaps worth reminding ourselves what the media told us.
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “I guess she’s not yet sweating, then. And these days, it’s Mr Mountbatten-Windsor. Leave your glengarry undoffed, willie!” May 31, 11:10
Owen Mullions on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““I feel I’m being tried for a crime I didn’t commit” wails a tearful Sturgeon. She doesn’t do irony doesn’t…” May 31, 11:08
Terry on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Ha ha. Well done You deserve a laugh and praise after your tireless pursuit of the truth. The whole of…” May 31, 11:04
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““ Sturgeon’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg will come to be seen alongside Prince Andrew’s interview with Emily Maitlis.” ========= Are…” May 31, 10:59
Captain Caveman on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Well, it would’ve been quite amusing if she had in fact chosen that most beautiful English city – the Roman…” May 31, 10:48
TURABDIN on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Independence movements eventually take the violent route. The mainstream Scots independentists appear rather squeamish/nervous in that regard. Fanon ultimately reached…” May 31, 10:47
Ex President Xiden on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Well there you have it. In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, wee Nicola reveals she is in fact…” May 31, 10:44
willie on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “And here’s a prediction. Sturgeon’s interview with Laura Kuenssberg will come to be seen alongside Prince Andrew’s interview with Emily…” May 31, 10:28
willie on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Just watched Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning interview with Sturgeon. Pinnochio would be hard pressed to come up with the whopper…” May 31, 10:21
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “If Fanon, Memmi, Cesaire, Elkins and the Jonesy boyo don’t explain the “colonial condition of Scots”, Alf, why do you…” May 31, 10:09
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “They’re also reporting a surge in donations to the SNP, as the faithful rush to make up the shortfall caused…” May 31, 09:52
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Wally Walrus returns from the fjords, to practice his extremely limited vocab on here. Keep your flapping flippers above the…” May 31, 09:46
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Sure. My predictive text replaces Scottish with Scittish all the time.” May 31, 09:38
Minceheid on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Hatey McHateface says: 30 May, 2026 at 8:31 pm She’s nae Humza Yusaf either. It was nice of you to…” May 31, 07:41
Phil on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Excellent post Red. You are dead right, there is nothing there. Or, as my Dad said when she first appeared…” May 31, 06:51
Dave on Marvola The Memory Woman: “No need to apologise for lacking a sense of humour, sweet cheeks 😉” May 31, 05:34
Young Lochinvar on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Probably realised at long last she isn’t getting any sympathy here except from the microscopic tranny community and that all…” May 31, 03:31
paul on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “That’s because the scotch folk are so horrible to embezzlers ,perjurors and criminals. It will be a warm breath of…” May 31, 02:05
Onlooker on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Don’t even think it’s as complicated as that, Alf, though what you say may be wee part of the overall…” May 31, 01:56
paul on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “The SNP have won lots of by-elections and elections before but since the sturgeon era (I include js and hy)…” May 31, 01:53
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Sorry, a link in the previous post became detached: https://www.headline.co.uk/titles/quintin-jardine/secrets-and-lies/9781035402939/” May 31, 01:53
Onlooker on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “It would be ‘mibbes naw’, smart cunt. Only middle class folk know big German words, and how to use them…” May 31, 01:41
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “in his quest for appropriate book titles, how did the Rev miss Quintin Jardine‘s Secrets and Lies ? It’s subtitle…” May 31, 00:16
Charles Mackay on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “The English press are reporting she has now moved to London-brazen betrayal” May 30, 23:48
100%Yes on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Nicola in the Kitchen with Husband and guest making cups of coffee, she really knows her way around the kitchen.…” May 30, 22:25
sarah on Off-topic: “Chortling at that, TC!” May 30, 22:24
robertkknight on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “D’Izzie… Your attempts to promote Independence via the morally, politically and financially bankrupt SNP will no doubt be welcomed by…” May 30, 22:02
