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.
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “There’s bigger fish to fry than indulge into to the mind of someone who doesn’t know from one day to…” Mar 10, 18:34
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “He does these video from mummy’s house, I hope. Ornament refers to something that enhances the appearance of an object…” Mar 10, 18:23
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““mild” Is that the Scots for over a million casualties?” Mar 10, 17:52
Aidan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Sorry pressed submit before I finished typing, that should say that Iran is the latest despotic dictatorship Geri is fawning…” Mar 10, 17:42
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The things that Transgenderism and Islamic terrorism have in common is their ability to infiltrate and use Socialist administrations for…” Mar 10, 17:27
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “20 IRGC sponsored terror attacks in the Union of Kingdoms have been stopped by MI5 in the last 2 years.…” Mar 10, 17:19
Aidan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Good to see you back CC, as you’ll see not much has changed whilst you were away. The peaceful democratic…” Mar 10, 17:18
David Holden on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The only thing I can find as a positive about the ” kinetic event ” in the gulf is that…” Mar 10, 17:08
Mark Beggan on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “When did the independence debate sink into colonial cryin’ and threats. I must say that a threat from a Nasty…” Mar 10, 17:01
James Che on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Lorncal, Sorry to interrupt and to be rude, but what planet are you on? Scotland was dissolved from the Treaty…” Mar 10, 16:42
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““The Treaty is old guff” Tho the colonizer does tend to bring out these mankit violated treaties ‘whenever colonialism is…” Mar 10, 16:11
Lorncal on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Geri: the Scottish MPs are outvoted 10 times over and can never, ever affect the Westminster vote. That is just…” Mar 10, 16:09
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Is conscription coming for us all? I expect most posters on here will be no better than Home Guard material.…” Mar 10, 16:06
James Che on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Rev Stuart Campbell. Likewise, It seems some are not capable to apply thought, research and action for themselves and need…” Mar 10, 16:02
James Che on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Lorncal, What homework are you asking me to do for you exactly?” Mar 10, 15:53
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “It appears I have been volunteered for something I did not volunteer for 😮” Mar 10, 14:49
Captain Caveman on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Facts eh? They never are a yoons strong point.” Yeah, silly me eh? Here am I, thinking that murdering tens…” Mar 10, 14:32
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““I’m not one of them and much prefer it when you get another enforced “break”)” FYI, I’ve never had an…” Mar 10, 14:08
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Oh do piss off. The whole world knows those protesters were protesting America crushing their economy. Even Bessent, over at…” Mar 10, 14:02
Captain Caveman on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““Iran isn’t totalitarian.” Oh really, “Geri”? They were literally hosing down thousands of their own innocent men, women and children…” Mar 10, 13:00
100%Yes on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Have you seen the latest article from the bitter and twisted ScotGoesMadonIndy.” Mar 10, 12:48
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Dig deep. Your grifters need you. Mind and ask not fit they can dae fer ye.” Mar 10, 12:47
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Yet again, Alf, havers. The Scots, as sovereign people, never went into the EU’s precursor. It was the UK that…” Mar 10, 12:43
Lorncal on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “It’s really not, James/Hatey. Let’s find out, shall we? Post the SE?” Mar 10, 12:40
Geri on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “‘Iran does practice (forceable) gender transitions’ Whit? Like the West does? It wasn’t that long ago sleepy Joe was offering…” Mar 10, 12:34
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Ah, c’moan noo, Geri. Ah cannae be the only ane who thinks the “royal ascent” is something special tae witness.…” Mar 10, 12:34
sarah on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “The magic of Wings or the demise of Alba – whatever the reason, the donation numbers have increased to the…” Mar 10, 12:23
Alf Baird on Scotland’s Most Frightened: ““longing for Brussels rule” The point was about ‘democracy’ Hatey, and on such matters the Scots decided at the time…” Mar 10, 12:09
Hatey McHateface on Scotland’s Most Frightened: “Yet others claim, Geri, that being “ready to end the war” and “wanting to quit” isn’t the same as “had…” Mar 10, 11:45
