And as a rule we don’t bother addressing them because they’re so demented you could spend 5,000 words pulling apart all the individual strands of lunacy every time, and lunatics thrive on attention, but this one does merit a very brief comment.
Because “Vote Labour, get indy” wasn’t our plan. It was John Swinney’s.
As readers may already be aware, my main hobby to distract myself from my day job in the profoundly depressing world of politics is to delve into retro videogaming via my Retropie. It’s an endlessly rewarding fount of discovery and entertainment for many reasons, but sometimes the two spheres collide in extremely unexpected ways.
So let’s talk about GORF.
Midway’s 1981 arcade hit was a pioneering and innovative game. It was the first game to be comprised of multiple highly distinct sub-games, boldly including direct lifts of other people’s coin-ops in the form of Space Invaders and Galaxian. And while it wasn’t the first arcade game to feature synthesised speech – it was beaten to that punch by the likes of Berzerk and Wizard Of Wor the previous year – it was famous for the extensive and iconic vocabulary with which it taunted and goaded the player.
It got numerous conversions of variable quality to various home systems, whether as contemporary licences or later homebrew ports, and that’s where we come in.
Even by the embarrassing standards of The National, the gulf between this morning’s blaring front-page splash and the weak, watery weasel words in the actual article is a chasm so wide and so yawning (in every sense of that word) that it would put the epic planetary scar of Mars’ Valles Marineris to shame.
Coupled with a feebly underwhelming Programme For Government (in which the main policy was the re-abolition of peak rail fares just months after the SNP insisted such a move was unaffordable, with no clue as to where the money had suddenly been found) and a pitiful list of candidates for next year’s Holyrood election featuring the likes of Sally “all aboard the gravy bus!” Donald, Kaukab “DECAPITATE TERFS” Stewart, Kirsten “DECAPITATE TERFS” Oswald, Alison “DECAPITATE TERFS” Thewliss and Alyn “throw anyone who doesn’t want to DECAPITATE TERFS out of the SNP” Smith, the story was an abject vision of a bleak future for independence.
On reflection, we feel we may have not taken this story seriously enough. After all, they don’t put just ANY old guff on the front page of the Sunday Mail.
The less said about the Scottish Government’s toe-curlingly embarrassing “summit” last week, the sooner we can all pretend it never happened. We’ve got little to add to the withering assessments of Robin McAlpine and Kevin McKenna and just about everyone else who’s bothered covering this pathetic waste of everyone involved’s time. (Not that the time of most of these useless quangocrats was worth anything anyway.)
We take a moment only to note something remarkable: the closest Scottish Labour’s hapless branch manager Anas Sarwar has ever come to understanding anything.
Yesterday the Scottish media gave Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman what she’s never willingly given anyone else – a platform on which to make her case.
Most did a very poor job challenging her on her outrageous comments about the Supreme Court, with BBC Radio Scotland’s Drivetime show being an especially wretched example of allowing the interviewee to ignore every question and then just ramble on endlessly about something else entirely, but LBC’s Gina Davidson was on top of her brief and put all the points that reasonable people wanted to be made, while giving Chapman ample time to answer uninterrupted.
Let’s break down how that went, with the help of our handy Bullshit Buzzer.
At the weekend, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman was filmed applauding as a notoriously unhinged transactivist ranted through a megaphone to a small and almost exclusively male crowd of protestors about how he was going to openly break the law by continuing to use women’s public toilets, and addressing JK Rowling with the words “We should all take a shite on you, you heinous creeping old bitch”.
At another protest, Chapman herself asserted that the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on the correct interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 was motivated by not by a solemn consideration of the law or by the arguments of counsel who appeared before it, but by “bigotry, prejudice and hatred”.
Chapman is – incredibly – Deputy Convener of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament, and as such her comments sparked a storm of wholly justified outrage over her flagrant breach not only of Parliamentary rules but also of the law – specifically the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, which requires all MSPs to uphold the independence of the judiciary.
Regular readers of Wings won’t need any reminding that Dani Garavelli of the Herald is, among some very stiff competition, one of the most contemptible pieces of nightsoil currently operating in the Scottish media.
But if you’re new here, we can give you a quick illustration.
If the sneering piety of that opening paragraph made you feel a little revolted, a bit angry and somewhat nauseous, then congratulations, because that means you’re still something minimally approximating to a decent human being. But unfortunately it gets a lot worse from there.
dearieme on Learning Insanity: “@Cynicus: I use “female impersonator” and “castrato”. The latter is a bit approximate but, as the Yanks say, good enough…” Jan 15, 17:31
Alf Baird on Learning Insanity: ““SNP Scottish Government has been corrupted and controlled” Yes indeed, as Fanon wrote: the dominant national party is ‘co-opted by…” Jan 15, 16:03
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “The great thing about the Burqa is that no one can tell what you are or what you’re hiding or…” Jan 15, 15:51
lothianlad on Learning Insanity: “Excellent piece again Stu. Without you, we would be rudderless. An SNP Scottish Government has been corrupted and controlled.” Jan 15, 14:29
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “The Jewish American author, Ira Levin, wrote “The Stepford Wives” in 1975. On one level, it can be viewed as…” Jan 15, 14:23
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “STONEWALL REPORTS ‘SPECTACULAR FUNDING IMPLOSION’ Stonewall’s annual report reveals its income has fallen by 40 per cent in four years.…” Jan 15, 14:06
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “Recent studies have found a large correlation between brain and body, James, so it would seem that they are interlinked…” Jan 15, 14:01
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “OT, I see Italy is to change their rules based to indigenous populations preference, as France and many other Countries…” Jan 15, 13:09
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Regardless of my own dyslexia and appalling education I still would not want to be sticking my neck out claiming…” Jan 15, 12:54
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “ONE DAY AI might provide the means to be anything or anyone you choose in a cyberpunkish universe. No need…” Jan 15, 12:25
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Not so far fetched a scenario as the Scientist and government already consider experimenting on children, babies in the womb,…” Jan 15, 11:52
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “IN DEFINING SEX AND GENDER, it seems hormones and a thing called brian dimorphism are involved…maybe also a touch of…” Jan 15, 11:43
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “In the future scientific world I could envisage the removal of the brain from its wrong body to replace the…” Jan 15, 11:40
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “And I do have a questions, 1: Are the bodies who push this able to define if they were born…” Jan 15, 11:28
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Paid activist, from tax payers money, that no one voted for, Political Phonexology comes to mind. = political evil. This…” Jan 15, 11:05
Cynicus on Learning Insanity: ““I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling.” ======== Derived from “bullock”, meaning a castrated male calf. “Bullock” and “…” Jan 15, 10:25
Vivian O’Blivion on Learning Insanity: “The John Smith Centre, at the University of Glasgow, announce an upcoming, relaxed conversation, debate format between Deputy First Minister,…” Jan 15, 10:12
Phil on Learning Insanity: “Great analysis of utter bollocks. Sort of off-topic but I’ve just watched a clip of proceedings in the Scottish parliament…” Jan 15, 09:28
turnbulldrier on Learning Insanity: “Thanks for the KLF link. That was a fine start to the morning. As for everything else, “Woo Woo” seems…” Jan 15, 07:31
Willie on Learning Insanity: “This article reinforces, if reinforcement be needed, just how how huge anounts of scarce resources like money and time are…” Jan 15, 07:15
Iain More on Governing For Beginners: “P.S I forgot to add – Get that fuckin Yank NAZI Boat out of the Moray Firth” Jan 15, 01:12
Charles Findlay on Learning Insanity: “I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling. Anything else would be bollocks.” Jan 14, 22:44
Charles Findlay on Learning Insanity: “I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling. To spell it bollox would definitely be bollocks.” Jan 14, 22:43
Watching from afar on Learning Insanity: “Should there not be commas between the adjectives? or hyphens somewhere? 😉 (Sven has already pointed out “upon which they…” Jan 14, 21:20
Kate L on Learning Insanity: ““who like all women share an abiding love of steam engines” almost made me spit out my drink. I’ll thankfully…” Jan 14, 20:59
Sven on Learning Insanity: “How very correct my old friend Northy is in suggesting that folk posting upon public Forums upon which they happen…” Jan 14, 20:20
Northcode on Learning Insanity: ““Free speech should have its limits…” – attributed to Jenny-Anne Bishop OBE by an ITV reporter. I agree. Far too…” Jan 14, 20:01
David G on Learning Insanity: “I know Wings serves varied constituencies, but I do so enjoy these more than the ones about the list vote.…” Jan 14, 19:45
Nae Need! on Learning Insanity: “What a lot of money and status is lauded on these individuals. They are afforded a respect they don’t deserve.…” Jan 14, 19:32
