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Wings Over Scotland


The Deadest Duck 122

Posted on June 19, 2020 by

We had a little mini-poll out with Panelbase this week, readers. Given that the SNP are currently still insisting that they need ANOTHER mandate at the ballot box to secure a second independence referendum (by our count that would be the tenth), we thought we’d see how many people believed this cunning plan would work.

The results, we suspect, will not amaze you.

Scottish voters, it turns out, aren’t completely stupid.

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Letting the days go by 278

Posted on June 18, 2020 by

BBC Scotland, then and now.

We’re pretty sure they used the same “separating rival groups” phrasing at Tianenmen Square too, but we’d have to go and check. Meanwhile, here’s what really happened.

Hacking The Pie 7

Posted on June 17, 2020 by

My Retropie setup is my favourite physical thing I’ve ever owned. For a total cost of under £200 (the Retropie box itself, plus a monitor and a double arcade joystick), I have instant access to just about the entire history of videogaming up to and including the original Playstation (plus some later stuff too, like the Nintendo DS).

But the physicality of it makes a huge difference. It’s hard to overstate what a complete revelation switching the Pi from a little box under my living-room TV controlled with Playstation joypads to a stand-up machine with proper joysticks was. It changed from something that was nice to have a little play on once in a while to something I use for pleasure every single day.

It’s basically become magic.

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From the archives #13 657

Posted on June 14, 2020 by

We’ve noticed a fair few Unionists this week proudly claiming that an independent Scotland would have been too broke to survive the coronavirus pandemic. They might not listen to our many and comprehensive rebuttals, but maybe they’d heed the words of Tony Blair, from way back in October 1987:

The sliding doors of history, there, readers. When Unionists tell you Scotland is feeble, remember who made it that way, and never forget how it could have been.

Unbonnie Dundas 318

Posted on June 13, 2020 by

Upside-down times 772

Posted on June 10, 2020 by

I still don’t like JK Rowling, for reasons I set out earlier this week. I certainly never in a million years imagined I’d ever find myself in a position where I respected her 50 times more than I do Nicola Sturgeon.

And yet, here we are.

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Stealing a wage 89

Posted on June 10, 2020 by

We’ve often said on Wings Over Scotland that we really don’t mind if journalists are biased. Everyone is biased, including us – we’d just rather people stopped pretending to be impartial when they weren’t. But what we do really hate about the Scottish media is just how astonishingly bad at its job it is.

A particularly striking example arose recently.

Pretty much every newspaper and broadcaster in the country carried the sad story of former Labour MP Paul Sweeney‘s fall from besuited lawmaker to skint benefits claimant. And yet not a single one of them asked the question that literally every single reader of the story would have been shouting at their screen.

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The comfort of lies 197

Posted on June 09, 2020 by

More great news, right?

Except, sadly, it’s completely untrue.

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Just over the next hill 196

Posted on June 09, 2020 by

Good news, everyone – there’s been another surge.

Go back to your constituencies and prepare for indyref2! Yes, again.

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Jail time for Joanne 306

Posted on June 08, 2020 by

This site is not terribly inclined towards sympathy for popular children’s author Joanne Kathleen Rowling. We’re still waiting on an apology for her donating a crucial million pounds towards ensuring Scotland stayed ruled by Tories and got dragged out of the EU against its will, on the bonkers premise that voting No would magically put Scots in a position of unprecedented popularity and power within the UK.

As a smart piece of analysis it’s right up there with “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”, and it would have been nice if at some point in the last six years she’d held her hands up and gone “Y’know what, I called that one really badly wrong. Sorry about the whole Tory/Brexit thing, everyone. We all make mistakes”.

(Wings, of course, got it exactly right at the time.)

We still don’t think she deserves seven years in prison, though.

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The strongman 449

Posted on June 06, 2020 by

A minor confusion 463

Posted on June 03, 2020 by

Oh no, someone’s let Ian Murray say words again.

There’s only one small problem with that complaint.

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    • Dan on Faces In Sand: “Yay, for post responding to Hatey’s brake hack released from moderation. To add a bit more info. Brake fluid has…” Oct 24, 14:26
    • DaveL on Faces In Sand: “‘They need to see that the institutions will function, the economy will stabilise, and the transition will be orderly.’ In…” Oct 24, 14:14
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    • factchecker on Faces In Sand: ““Dan says: 24 October, 2026 at 11:02 am @ “factchecker” You can go fuck yourself with that assertion ya word…” Oct 24, 11:29
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    • factchecker on Faces In Sand: “Our learned professor of boats says 24 October, 2026 at 10:08 am “In any event there is no democracy for…” Oct 24, 10:22
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    • Captain Caveman on Faces In Sand: “@Dan Electoral franchises and constitutional matters are hardly my area of expertise, but surely it’s obvious that EU nationals living…” Oct 24, 09:55
    • Factchecker on Faces In Sand: “Agreed. But most of the same reservations apply to actual elections. The turnout for the Referendum was higher than for…” Oct 24, 09:48
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    • Dan on Faces In Sand: “And how would the EU vote have gone if it had utilised the same open to all franchise used for…” Oct 24, 09:24
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