Dear “Better Together”,
Today I, a Scotsman, travelled from England to Wales to buy some Irish chocolate. This might not be possible if Scotland becomes independent. (Of course there isn’t any conceivable reason for that to be the case, but – as you know only too clearly – if you put the word “might” in front of scare stories nobody can say you’re actually lying.)

Feel free to use that one. DON’T LET ALEX SALMOND STEAL MY SWEETS.
Tags: and finallyproject fear
Category
culture, world
For those of you who stubbornly STILL don’t follow us on Twitter, this is our favourite still from the trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, the latest instalment in the blockbuster series from splendid Edinburgh-based videogame developers Rockstar North.

(This is AF #54, if you’re keeping track. We know we weren’t.)
Tags: and finally
Category
culture, pictures
This is getting spooky now.

Scottish Labour quasi-leader Johann Lamont at FMQs last month.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
culture, disturbing, pictures, scottish politics
Relaxing at the splendid American Museum high on the hills at the outskirts of town tonight, celebrating Independence Day on a glorious summer’s evening with a few Budweisers, a barbecue and a couple of hundred ex-pats and well-wishers.

Our turn soon.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
culture, pictures, world
We haven’t seen anyone giving due kudos to BBC Scotland’s graphics department for this splendid bit of work on last night’s Newsnight Scotland yet, so we’ll do it now.

As “vicious insidious pied-pipers of cybernats”, we appreciate it especially.
Tags: and finally
Category
pictures
The first minute is January to May of 2011. From around 1m 12s, the glass represents the next two years’ referendum polling. Julianne Moore plays the parties of the Union. (Jeff Goldblum is the SNP throughout.) Technically speaking nothing changes for quite a prolonged period. Positions are maintained. But something’s happening.
That’s just how we interpret the situation. We could be wrong, of course.
Tags: and finally
Category
comment, culture, scottish politics
Johann Lamont (we think) at today’s FMQs:

Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
pictures
Hang on – didn’t our “Project Fear” pals spend half of last year sobbing and wailing and raging that a certain tri-morpheme prefix was leading and unfair and beastly and a clear attempt at rigging the referendum by the dastardly, unprincipled Nats?

Maybe our memory’s playing tricks on us. We’re pretty old.
Tags: and finallyhypocrisy
Category
comment, scottish politics
We almost feel sorry for the UKIP candidate for Aberdeen Donside, poor Otto Inglis. All day today he’s been pictured on news bulletins standing silently like a spare object at a wedding while broadcasters interviewed his party’s leader Nigel Farage instead.

Then again, after the brutal shoeing Mr Farage took from STV’s Bernard Ponsonby this evening, perhaps Mr Inglis will be feeling he got the best end of the deal.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: and finally
Category
idiots, media, scottish politics, transcripts, uk politics
With apologies to both The Jungle Book and Animal Farm.

But seriously – how DOES one tell Tories and Labour apart nowadays? Policies?
(JOKE.)
Tags: and finally
Category
pictures, uk politics
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending, for the sake of a change of scenery and a few convivial drinks with the estimable Lallands Peat Worrier and others, a meeting of the Oxfordshire branch of the Green Party. The subject of the meeting was Scottish independence, which as you might imagine is something of a niche interest in Oxford (let alone among Greens in Oxford).

I don’t precisely recall the number of people who turned up (see “convivial drinks”), but if it wasn’t more than the Scottish Tories drew to the above meeting, hosted by party leader Ruth Davidson, it was certainly within two or three people of it.
For some reason nobody filmed us for the telly, though.
Tags: and finally
Category
comment, pictures, scottish politics
ANDREW NEIL, 5-6-2013: Would you keep child benefit for better-off taxpayers?
MARGARET CURRAN: Well, what we are saying, and Ed will make his own speech tomorrow, and I don’t have foresight of that… What we are saying is when you get into government, and when we come in in 2015, we won’t be able to do all that we wanted to do… Will child benefit for the wealthiest people be our top priority? I’m not sure about that.
ED MILIBAND, 6-6-2013: When it comes to the decisions of the next Labour government it won’t be our biggest priority to overturn the decisions this government has made on taking child benefit away from families earning over £50,000 a year.
We must admit, for someone who hasn’t seen the speech it’s a heck of a guess. Does anyone want to ask Ms Curran if she’s got a score forecast for Croatia vs Scotland?
Tags: and finally
Category
uk politics