Millionaire-funded diehard loyalist forelock-tugging faction Scotland In Union published an extraordinary blog post yesterday.
Its 606 words comprised a sort of Caledonian Cringe Greatest Hits, allegedly penned by someone called Fiona Annesley (of whom we’re told nothing else, and who has no detectable online presence), but the line that particularly caught people’s eye was this:
The complete series so far. If you’ve got a story like this to tell, or you know anyone who does, Phantom Power want to hear from you – drop them a line.
I went to “Dunkirk” at the cinema today. If you want to know what it’s like, just watch this trailer 40 times in a row and save yourself the £12.
It’s a poor movie, disjointed and aimless and curiously lacking in tension or narrative given the real-life subject matter. (It’s remarkably short on dialogue, which is lucky because you can barely make out any of what little script or story there is from behind the endlessly howling one-note airhorn of the soundtrack. It’s a bit like someone filmed an IKEA assembly manual in live action during a Formula 1 race.)
But I couldn’t help thinking that part of the reason it was so unengaging was because it felt akin to watching a boxing match between two fighters you don’t like. If Mike Tyson took on Tyson Fury, would you cheer for the rapist or the anti-Semitic homophobe?
Today’s Daily Record covers the story we mentioned yesterday about a report from a Scottish Labour campaign group making the pretty factually-uncontestable point that the branch office’s dismal strategy in last month’s election held the UK party back.
We’ll be honest with you here, readers – even though it’s only July, when it comes to sheer ham-fisted, tin-eared, clown-shoed, foot-shooting idiocy we didn’t think anything in Scottish politics in 2017 could possibly top the SNP’s decision that the surefire way to win back voters after a poor election result was literally mutilating puppies.
After all, that’s the sort of thing you say as a self-evidently ludicrous and hyperbolic joke: “Ha ha, the SNP are so dominant in Scotland these days that the only way they could lose an election would be if Nicola Sturgeon went on telly and started hacking the tails off week-old puppy-dogs without anaesthetic! LOL!!!!!”
It couldn’t even be defended as a grotesque but cynically cunning attempt to win votes from the rural hunting-and-fishing lobby – they did it right AFTER the election, when all those people had just gone out and voted Tory anyway.
But bless their hearts, Scottish Labour never once saw a low bar that they didn’t try to slither under, and today they pulled off the seemingly impossible.
Broadly speaking, the psychological phenomenon known as the Pollyanna Principle is a tendency to neurotically see the most positive possible view of a situation. It’s not generally widely found in newspapers – for whom bad news as a rule sells much better than good news – but for some reason the Scottish press makes a uniform exception when it comes to military shipbuilding.
This, for example, is today’s Herald:
Now, in itself that headline is – unusually – true, so far as it goes. But it only takes until the first sentence of the article text before things start to fall apart.
Deep in the summer news desert, the papers today are struggling for material again. The Sunday Herald has a shock-horror front-page exposé about some photos from an Orange Lodge party that turn out to be from 2010 and 2013, while the Scottish Mail On Sunday reaches all the way back to 1940 to fill a couple of pages.
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “UN/New Caledonia independence referendum; Eligible voters; only those who were already residents of New Caledonia by 1998 and their descendants.…” Apr 22, 18:54
Dan on The Pit Of Vipers: “@ Colin Alexander The legal advice you site may have been technically correct when it said no to Scotland remaining…” Apr 22, 18:52
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “Surprise surprise, the unionist lickspittle Adrian says everything was hunky dory. But he/she/it also says Scotland in the ‘union’ is…” Apr 22, 18:48
Alison on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Watson is so dangerous. One of his daft followers will act in his name & someone he has singled out…” Apr 22, 18:34
TURABDIN on The Pit Of Vipers: “INDEPENDENCE? See you all in hell first. https://archive.is/6xCXm” Apr 22, 18:01
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Please tell us about this UN standard to which you refer about “media interference” being prohibited, by which you mean…” Apr 22, 18:00
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Yes but it’s nonsense isn’t it, the “report” is predicated on some pretty unlikely claims, like nearly 2% of those…” Apr 22, 17:44
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “The whole thing was rigged, even the dogs in the street know it. The result and process fell foul of…” Apr 22, 17:12
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “‘DUNOON UNIT REPORT: THE POSTAL BALLOT AT THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM’ (2015): “We are now convinced that the Postal Ballot…” Apr 22, 16:04
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “Okay – but I think the crux of your post is that votes were counted that should not have been…” Apr 22, 15:26
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal To make ordered reading of the thread I think your post should have been a reply to my 13.38…” Apr 22, 14:32
Lorncal on The Pit Of Vipers: “YL; personally, I think that the so-called feminization of society is a load off old b******s. It is the usual…” Apr 22, 14:10
Colin Alexander on The Pit Of Vipers: “how do you know those things? “second-home owners were getting votes” anecdotal evidence. “temporary residents, foreign students” franchise was officially…” Apr 22, 13:52
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Lorncal Disagree with you on this one. Ok, Just for a moment; imagine Sturgeon was an instigator or ringleader. What…” Apr 22, 13:38
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “I see (no pun intended) that the Lyrid meteor shower could be visible in night skies. Sort of thing that’s…” Apr 22, 13:11
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: ““We know second-home owners were getting votes, temporary residents, foreign students, dead people etc. We know postal votes were being…” Apr 22, 11:57
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “PAUL ROBESON SINGS FOR SCOTTISH MINERS (1949) www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0bezsMVU7c” Apr 22, 11:16
Colin Alexander on The Pit Of Vipers: “Before 2014 Alex Salmond proposed a multi-option ballot that included Home Rule / Devo-Max. The UK Govt refused. (Opinion polls…” Apr 22, 11:04
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Pit Of Vipers: “PAUL ROBESON: On colonialism, African-American rights. (3 mins, Spotlight, ABC,1960) www.youtube.com/watch?v=puOIdh944vk” Apr 22, 10:58
Dominic Berry on The Pit Of Vipers: “You get the sense that these people think that anything is permissible as long as you don’t get caught. And…” Apr 22, 10:30
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: “Yes, in a colonial society we might expect all social institutions to be colonial in terms of their allegiance and…” Apr 22, 09:58
Frank Gillougley on The Pit Of Vipers: “After all this time of him being in the political domain, isn’t it kinda obvious to everyone with any nous,…” Apr 22, 08:42
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “What surprises me the most is obviously not turkeys not wanting to vote for Christmas, but the relative ambivalence of…” Apr 22, 08:01
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “George Sorry brother I’m an atheist after a youth spent being dragged weekly to fairly hardcore COS. I worked out…” Apr 22, 00:44
100%Yes on The Pit Of Vipers: “James Kelly, reveals a bit more of the family home. This time with his bedroom and some of his favorite…” Apr 21, 22:57
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “Thanks Sven I typed that on the hoof without checking. Sorry. Appreciate it! 🙂” Apr 21, 22:00
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “@Young Lochinvar I genuinely think people dont understand what is happening. The Lord High Commissioner did a great job last…” Apr 21, 21:11
Sven on The Pit Of Vipers: “I believe it’s the other way round for the Scripture reference, YL, 32:23. Very appropriate.” Apr 21, 20:50
