“Regular readers of this column will be aware of my love and fascination with the great Scottish manager Bill Shankly”
Socialism without the politics
“They take the wings off us and then mock us for being unable to fly.”
“Ian Blackford and others have been beacons of sanity and collegiate compromise during this whole fiasco but it’s way past the point now where Scotland should be sacrificing itself to help England save itself from itself.”
I Am On Your Side
” A wilful disregard for detail that comes close reckless boredom. Such a person isn’t remotely fit for high office. As my grandfather used to say, such a person isn’t even fit to run Kirkcolm Bowling Club.”
Except for Viewers in Scotland
“it is bizarre that a national broadcaster would serially (and seemingly deliberately) omit the speech of the leader of the third largest party in the commons and the second largest in terms of membership in the United Kingdom”
The Gentleness of Normality
“Roads that start here and end there, somehow allowing a wound to heal…..it’s counter intuitive so say that nothing to see now is more real than what there was then. ‘Nothing to see’ means reality” (Stephen Rea, from “Brexit: a cry from the Irish Border”)
Adore the Rising Sun
“we’re fighting for a mandate for a vote that won’t solve anything instead of using the mandate we actually do have to solve both Brexit and save Scottish Democracy. “
Sound and Fury
“There’s folk getting in an awful stooshie over the whole BBC Question Time rammy. For the record, include me out.”
Farming Matters: England, Their England
“At least 80% of the turnover of the business I now run is generated in England, so it stands to reason that I spend a lot of time there. It’s a privilege, in fact, to do so. In fact, it’s from Yorkshire that I write this.”
Farming Matters: Riding the Rapids
“What we should be worried about is the imposition of martial law, food and medicine shortages, the suspension of the Scottish Parliament by emergency post-Brexit measures and a tanking of the economy that by definition weakens our ability to be independent. “
Farming Matters: As Ithers See Us
“In a week during which Scotland celebrated the 260th birthday of Robert Burns, it lost another Ayrshire writing colossus in the shape of the peerless sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney.”
