Seriously, all those millions in development, all the hundreds of pounds people have spent buying the PS4 and the VR headset and the game and the upgrade – how hard could it be to have it detect when you'd gone seriously off track and have the navigator go "ARGH! SHIT! OW! BLOODY HELL, GET BACK ON THE ROAD YOU MORON!", so as to not completely ruin the whole thing?
How dull-witted do you have to be, how far have you missed the point by, to obsess over every last wheelnut in the name of "realism" and then sit the player beside a virtually-real companion who keeps calmly reading out directions even as the car he's in plummets down a mountainside on its roof? For God's sake.
This is Spectator columnist Alex Massie reacting earlier this week to the news of Alex Salmond doing a show for Russian news channel RT.
Alex Salmond is these days a private individual with no responsibilities to anyone, and RT is a legal, Ofcom-licenced UK broadcaster whose output is beamed free into every home in the land.
The first episode of The Alex Salmond Show featured guests from both Labour and the Tories, opened with lengthy discussion and advocation of women’s and LGBT rights, followed by a 15-minute interview with deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont – something which has proven beyond the capabilities of mainstream UK news outlets despite the remarkable events currently engulfing an EU member state.
(BBC Scotland, we should perhaps note at this point, does not currently carry a single dedicated political TV show from a Scottish perspective at all and hasn’t done for more than a year.)
Massie used some slightly more measured language when it came to writing about the show in the Spectator, merely describing Salmond as an “idiot”, a “fool”, a “chump”, “pitiful”, “embarrassing” and “disgraceful”. But when it came to another former Scottish party leader, he was for some reason in a rather more forgiving mood.
We’ll be honest, readers – if this doesn’t make you want to leave the UK all by itself, it may be that there’s nothing that ever will and we should just give up.
(Alternative titles considered for this piece included Live And Please Let Die, Doctor Oh God No, The Barely-Living Daylights and Quantum Of Bollocks.)
This documentary starts a little slowly, but becomes an eye-opening case study of how Labour steamrollered through crippling PFI contracts to build public infrastructure on the never-never when they ran the Scottish Executive from 1999-2007.
Since David Torrance shows no sign of being willing to retract the falsehood below that he tweeted earlier today despite our requests, we’ll have to address it here. Apologies for the indulgence.
We can find nowhere that we made any allegation of Torrance being “paid” by RT. We tweeted that he’d “worked for”them, and said he’d “simply appeared on” the channel. Neither of those statements claims that any money changed hands. If Torrance says that he worked for RT for nothing purely in order to get some free publicity for his book, we’re happy to accept that at face value.
(Although we’re not sure if that makes it better or worse, to be honest.)
Yesterday’s Daily Record (which would increasingly be an accurate three-word name for the paper) ran an innocuous piece of page-filler fluff rubbish, and for once we’re not talking about a David Torrance column.
It featured the “psychic” predictions of a man who, the Record told us – no fewer than FIVE times in the opening few lines – previously predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, and who had a track record of “incredible accuracy”.
Mainstream and social media alike are now well into their second day of an absolutely epic meltdown at the news that Alex Salmond is to broadcast a chat show on RT, the Russian equivalent of the BBC.
It really is almost impossible to overstate the magnitude of the shrieking fit the decision has produced. Addled old Lords with criminal convictions for violently and drunkenly assaulting Her Majesty’s police have with an audacious lack of self-awareness decried the immorality of one of HM’s advisors going on TV to talk about stuff, and one Lib Dem MSP has even gone so far as to raise a Holyrood motion demanding that the state interferes with the lawful employment choices of a private citizen.
We imagine that RT will be beside itself with joy at the avalanche of publicity the UK press and political sphere is giving it. We’d be amazed if the hysterical brouhaha didn’t double or treble the audience figures that Salmond could otherwise have expected.
Today’s Cairnstoon will be along a little later. But in the meantime, if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Glasgow (or if you’re not, but hurry), today offers a rare opportunity go along and physically touch the magical drawing fingers of the artist himself, as Mr Cairns takes time out from his busy schedule of holidays to launch the second volume of his splendid sketchings, alongside other beloved Wings contributors Greg Moodie and the esteemed Wee Ginger Dug (plus his human butler Paul Kavanagh).
(Please note that Mr Cairns is currently carrying a rather painful spinal injury probably incurred during an an overenthusiastic golf swing, so we respectfully ask any readers who may be planning particularly expressive bearhugs or backslaps to ca’ canny.)
Wings Over Scotland turned six years old this week (on Tuesday, to be precise). We didn’t make any fuss or hoopla because we didn’t have anything particularly interesting to say about it, although we may as well note in passing that average monthly unique readership for 2017 to date has been 316,015 – that’s 24,000 up on the same period in 2016 and 16,000 higher than January-October 2015, despite this being the dullest year in Scottish politics since the site began.
But it’s just been brought to our attention that on our birthday the Scottish Government happened to publish its response to an FOI request from a notoriously mad and creepy Yoon troll who’s been repeatedly banned by Twitter but keeps coming back with new accounts. We thought you’d be modestly amused by it, because the Yoons are raging.
It’s been a difficult few months for a variety of reasons (although some of the technical aspects of that should improve in about a week’s time), but we’ll keep on keeping on.
Connor on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Why no paypal option ? Sorry I do not feel safe having to give my card details to all, paypal…” Oct 2, 11:39
Captain Caveman on In The Eyes Of The Law: “I respect anyone who gets up for work every morning, goes to work, pays their own way, pays their taxes…” Oct 2, 11:28
crisiscult on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Middle class, working class, etc have become a bit meaningless in how they are used today, the terms often being…” Oct 2, 11:09
Southernbystander on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Once you become a professor in this country you become middle class whether you were before or not. Alf suggests…” Oct 2, 10:30
Captain Caveman on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Yep, I reckon Messrs. Fanon and Césaire were early pioneers of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.” Oct 2, 10:18
Spartan 117 on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Alf doesn’t have any of his own opinions, he just uses the quotes of others. That Masters or PhD must’ve…” Oct 2, 09:45
sam on In The Eyes Of The Law: “The police would have to pay attention to the findings of the court in considering what fresh evidence there might…” Oct 2, 09:42
Cynicus on In The Eyes Of The Law: “I doubt if Mr Murrell is a trustee of the fund.” Oct 2, 09:32
Captain Caveman on In The Eyes Of The Law: “So have you donated or not, Alf? Or are you rudely derailing ANOTHER thread with your garbage?” Oct 2, 09:18
Hatey McHateface on In The Eyes Of The Law: ““Not every day I get to pish 600 thousand up the wall”” Oct 2, 08:59
100%Yes on In The Eyes Of The Law: “The fighting pot mounting up quite nicely. The SNP needs stopping and removing how anyone can talk about working for…” Oct 2, 08:44
Vestas on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Done. Put a few quid extra in as I have a horrible feeling I still owe you from the Kezia…” Oct 2, 08:19
Northcode on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Just to add one point of clarification: when a decision is sent back for lawful reconsideration, the court doesn’t direct…” Oct 2, 08:09
Northcode on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Yes, the court can say the original process was unlawful and require it to be done again properly — which…” Oct 2, 07:56
Hatey McHateface on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Which group, oppressor or oppressed, does Fanon put Professors into?” Oct 2, 07:55
Minceheid on In The Eyes Of The Law: “That reminds me – who was that SNP guy that got busted for hiding a camera in the bogs or…” Oct 2, 07:18
sam on In The Eyes Of The Law: “You are wrong on this as well. The Court can find the decision unlawful and order a reconsideration. It can…” Oct 2, 07:11
sam on In The Eyes Of The Law: ““check procedure and not much else.” A judicial review of Police Scotland’s decisions might be brought on grounds that the…” Oct 2, 07:06
John McNab on In The Eyes Of The Law: ““This changing room’s lying empty.”” Oct 2, 06:38
Elmac on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Contribution made and more if required. We need justice to hold these lying corrupt sleazebags to account. If the prosecution…” Oct 1, 23:31
MarkerPost on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Donated. Hope the fund is ring-fenced…” Oct 1, 23:17
James on Whatever Can Have Happened?: ““….they smelt of pubs…. and Wormwood scrubs…. …and too many right wing meetings….” What a shower of unionist twats….” Oct 1, 22:24
Alf Baird on In The Eyes Of The Law: “As Fanon wrote, in a colonial society “The national middle class discovers its historic mission: that of intermediary”, between who…” Oct 1, 20:48
crisiscult on In The Eyes Of The Law: “Don’t post much, not on Twitter/X anymore (nothing to do with Musk, just find it unusable these days), but always…” Oct 1, 20:44
Northcode on In The Eyes Of The Law: “My understanding is that Justice Reviews are really narrow — they don’t look at the underlying merits or reopen investigations,…” Oct 1, 19:36
