Humza Yousaf didn’t turn up to the count tonight. In the end, even on a dreadfully low turnout of 37%, Labour won by 9,446 votes, with more than twice as many as the SNP.
It was a much worse defeat for the governing party than most expected. There should be only one outcome.
We were curious to find out what we’d said, but it seems to have been expunged from The National’s website. We eventually managed to track the email down in our vaults, though, so just as a bit of a change, here it is, as a reminder of a different time.
The greatest intellectual weakness of the independence movement is its attitude towards Trident, and trying to reason with people about it (whether readers or other independence activists) is consistently one of the most frustrating aspects of writing Wings, because nuclear disarmers and Unionists are equally impervious to logic on the subject.
The UK’s nuclear “deterrent” – or as it was more accurately and memorably described by the former Vulcan nuclear bomber squadron commander Air Commodore Alastair Mackie, “a virility symbol, like a stick-on hairy chest” – is the greatest gift to a future Scottish independence negotiating team imaginable.
The rest of the UK gets a lot of economic and infrastructural benefits from Scotland, like water and energy, but ultimately it’s not massively bothered about those. Water is not yet a critical area and energy can be sourced elsewhere, and in any event Brexit shows us that the UK is more than willing to do itself enormous harm in the service of ideological political goals.
Obviously stuff has continued to happen on the Speccy scene since then, so it’s now, in some senses, not quite so definitive. Or at least it wasn’t, until I updated it, which I’ve just done, so now it is again. Of it. Or something.
(I appear to have a debilitating compulsion to write top 100s for no very good reason. There’s also this one, and I’m currently working on yet another as a distraction from the wretched state of politics, so fans of subjectively-numbered lists of extremely old videogames should definitely stay tuned.)
I also wanted to have it all in one post rather than five, so now if you want to see the videos of the original arcade games you’ll have to click the titles of each entry – only the Speccy videos are embedded within the article, so the page SHOULD now actually load up without falling over.
There are loads of new entries, a few position adjustments – don’t get TOO excited, Bomb Jack fans – and a bit of general tidying, but I haven’t rewritten the entire thing because it’s 33,000 words and I’m not a lunatic, although those two facts are mostly unrelated. So if you haven’t seen it before, go and get a cup of tea and some biscuits, because this might take a while.
Holiday Boy is sadly incapacitated today – ironically, having injured himself on his last holiday – but fortunately we do have some graphical content for you, having just been leaked this copy of the SNP’s campaign poster for the next general election.
You can almost smell the mince and carrots, can’t you?
The Spectrum community is arguably more on top of the machine’s history than any other in the world of gaming, so it’s always quite noteworthy when something and/or someone escapes its notice entirely. And so it is with Lukasz Kur.
The screenshot above is of a game called a_e Adventure, or sometimes a_e in King Chrum’s Gold Mines. (According to Kur the character’s name represents “a portion of a forum member’s user name which inadvertantly looked like an emoticon of sorts – a little face with asymetrical eyes.”)
Last night a by-election hustings was held in Rutherglen to which all 14 candidates were invited to hear and answer questions from the electorate on women’s issues. The SNP, Labour, Green and Lib Dem candidates all declined to attend. But the SNP, at least, was represented at the event.
James Cheyne on Just Good Friends: “Northcode. 12 july, 9:52 pm, Excellent post.” Jul 13, 12:00
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “You mean aside from the £200m already committed to Grangemouth?” Jul 13, 11:58
James on Just Good Friends: ““…The UK government is working to rescue an English oil refinery where hundreds of jobs are at risk. The Lindsey…” Jul 13, 11:48
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “A QUHEIN LETERATOUR, «We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy,…” Jul 13, 11:33
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “@Andy – and to put that in context, a petition to secure the release of a dog from a dog…” Jul 13, 11:21
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “OK, WE ALL GET IT that union treaty was total gruel, cauld kale, and by today’s standards probably illegal, but…” Jul 13, 10:46
Andy Ellis on Just Good Friends: “So a whopping 675 signatures on the petition now? I wonder what explains that given you constantly advertise it on…” Jul 13, 09:14
Chas on Too Tight To Mention: “Hopefully somewhere where they do not have an internet connection.” Jul 13, 08:22
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Inspirational stuff, NC. Do The Collected Speeches Of Nicola Sturgeon next.” Jul 13, 00:30
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Stick around, Dave, all will become clear. OK, maybe not the posts in Scots.” Jul 13, 00:10
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Ah kent ye’d say that, Alf. Remarkable, no?, hoo muckle fowk pick up ootside o formal education when they’re interested…” Jul 13, 00:07
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Epic fail there, YL Sah! Mind and keep your UK passport and your UK driving license safe. It’s the “logical”…” Jul 13, 00:02
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “A ‘mediocre meritocracy’ is the inevitable reality within a colonial society (Memmi), much as we see. But this is not…” Jul 12, 22:28
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “” if Scotland is still in large parts a Scots speaking nation, there’s precious little evidence for it on here.”…” Jul 12, 22:20
Shug on Just Good Friends: “It is very telling that the BBC is not making hay with this material. They will when that are ready…” Jul 12, 21:25
Northcode on Just Good Friends: “This infernal heat has driven me mad and in my madness I’ve been forced to transcribe the first few paragraphs…” Jul 12, 20:33
agent x on Just Good Friends: “http://www.manifestoforindependence link to petition.parliament.uk those links don’t work for me.” Jul 12, 19:47
Young Lochinvar on Just Good Friends: “In reply to P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface @ 4.04pm The sexual perversion thing is all yours, just trawl back through your posts,…” Jul 12, 17:25
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Alf, if Scotland is still in large parts a Scots speaking nation, there’s precious little evidence for it on here.…” Jul 12, 16:11
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “If “logically” the UK no longer exists, you’ll have burned your passport and your driving license. Looking forwards to your…” Jul 12, 16:04
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Not too bad a post, NC, but it lacks fundamental clarity. Which union are you discussing? The UK or the…” Jul 12, 15:59
Young Lochinvar on Just Good Friends: “Good post NC. One small correction, the construct was first called Great Britain. The United Kingdom came along later when…” Jul 12, 15:34
sarah on Just Good Friends: “A lot of us do, Dan – just not speaking up much nowadays. I shall mention, again, several things that…” Jul 12, 13:49
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “PILE it HIGH, sell it cheap in POUNDLAND. https://archive.is/VLCVd Everything must go!” Jul 12, 13:23
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “FALSE FRIENDS. DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS fail when people with ability don’t have authority and people with authority don’t have ability What…” Jul 12, 12:45
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Have you done any polling on how important the issue of the formation of the union in 1707 is to…” Jul 12, 12:13
Alf Baird on Just Good Friends: “Yes Hatey, if we “look at voting preferences against geographical areas in recent times” what we find is that the…” Jul 12, 11:49