Hi! I noticed, with very considerable amusement, your complaint last night that I hadn’t made a “substantive reply” to the [EDIT] EIGHT posts (totalling nearly 11,000 words) of semi-coherent ranting about me that you’ve made on your site in the last eight days.
(I’ll be absolutely honest, I’ve only skimmed the last few.)
We both know the reason that’s so tear-streamingly comical, of course.
In so far as it’s worth talking about Scottish constitutional politics at all these days, it’s worth taking a moment to analyse the bloodless, anodyne nothingness spouted by the First Minister on The Sunday Show at the weekend.
That clip is less than three minutes long, but it’s so soul-crushingly boring and full of content-free drone and waffle that it’s almost impossible to sit all the way through it, so we’re going to translate and summarise it for you.
Warning: despite the quite zingy title this is actually going to be a very dry stats post, readers. It is, on the other hand, based on a man having something disturbingly close to a complete psychotic mental breakdown, so there’s always that for a bit of colour.
Because the paragraph above, and in particular the highlighted part, is without a doubt the most dishonest, diametrically false and wildly extreme lie about Scottish politics that we’ve ever seen anyone tell in the 13.5 years of Wings Over Scotland’s existence.
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.
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Not going to happen. Now Iran will attack theirs. They said the other day they’d be moving to reciprocal targets.…” Mar 14, 20:39
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Please, YL, It’s challenging enough for this old duffer’s weary and deteriorating grey cells to sort out and skip over…” Mar 14, 20:33
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “If predictions pan out as some suggest – it’s going to be you living in a Totalitarian Theocracy. A one…” Mar 14, 20:26
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “@Aidan You’re putting way too much effort into responding to the wrong conversations… You’ve time to “engage” and bicker with…” Mar 14, 20:24
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “Oh fuck me another one has started. I can’t go watch the borders rally tonight as I’m in Spain but…” Mar 14, 19:45
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Hey Aidan ya bawbag. No point in you complaining about Wing’s BTL discourse dying on its arse when your own…” Mar 14, 19:14
agentx on Looking up at the stars: “It’s an 80 minute game – Ireland 43 – 21 Scotland at the end. It was a great game of…” Mar 14, 18:58
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “A useless piece of smegma like you isn’t gonna be doing any rounding up, sit doon.” Mar 14, 18:23
James on Looking up at the stars: ““…murder and torture…” That’s your job, right?” Mar 14, 17:49
James on Looking up at the stars: “Sven; There always was and only ever will be one original “Site Prick”. It is in reality a 77th bunch…” Mar 14, 17:48
Young Lochinvar on Looking up at the stars: “Just seen the news and have noted the latest piece of subliminal doublespeak. Kharg island in Iran was attacked because…” Mar 14, 17:47
James on Looking up at the stars: “Aw, Adrian, petal; I rather think it would.” Mar 14, 17:45
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Maybe be more specific as to which particular “site prick” you identify, James, some of our views may differ.” Mar 14, 17:38
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “Yeah you come and round me up James you stinky fat shit. It’ll definitely go well for you.” Mar 14, 17:08
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “[« The Scottish approach was based on their misunderstanding of the two words ‘Scotia’ and ‘Scotus’. From the fourth century…” Mar 14, 16:55
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “« Bunaíodh cur chuige na nAlbanach ar an míthuiscint a bhain siad as an dá fhocal ‘Scotia’ agus ‘Scotus. Ón…” Mar 14, 16:53
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “Ok. You have just advocated murder and torture. You are a cowardly prick. Now get to fuck.” Mar 14, 16:03
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Not that long AGO, Rev Stu published an article on here, ripping THE shit out of somebody for producing material…” Mar 14, 15:58
James on Looking up at the stars: “Can we start the round ups and lynchings with the 77th bunch? And unplug the Site Prick while we’re there?” Mar 14, 15:57
James on Looking up at the stars: “Wish someone would offer £20 for you to fuck off.” Mar 14, 15:31
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “Rugby score looking better: Ireland 19 – 12 Scotland at 53 minutes.” Mar 14, 15:28
James on Looking up at the stars: “He wisne frae Edinburgh ya fucking unionist clown.” Mar 14, 15:28
twathater on Looking up at the stars: “As usual poor wee hatey nae pals has to have a go at elderly Scots people who have paid their…” Mar 14, 15:05
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““every accusation is a confession” Erm. Nah. Don’t tell him.” Mar 14, 14:28
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “The original Roman calendar was based on the lunar cycle. The Ides was the first full moon of the month.…” Mar 14, 14:25
Confused on Looking up at the stars: “The london regime is an illegitimate terrorist junta by any decent standards of normal human behaviour, operating as an organised…” Mar 14, 14:07
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “How applicable to Scotland if one subscribes to colonial theory, and apposite also on the eve of the Ides of…” Mar 14, 13:37
Northcode on Looking up at the stars: “The Ides of March arrive tomorrow… I wonder if anyone has told Trump what that means. Et tu, Hegseth?” Mar 14, 13:17
Dan on Looking up at the stars: “Wings killed itself because it continued to allow obvious disruptors to piss pretty much everyone off btl to the point…” Mar 14, 11:54
