scottsdad

MSP for Ochil for all of 5 minutes. Beaten by a Tory in Clackmannanshire. That takes some doing.

Just got a 6 page leaflet through the door. 4 pages are about avoiding a referendum, one is about economic recovery, and one is from the local candidate talking about local issues. 4 pages!!

Here's what I don't get from the Alba folk. Day 1 of the new parliament, the SNP, Greens and Alba have made a majority. What happens next? Without being flippant and saying a referendum - when will it be? What form? Will they pressure Westminster first to give it the legal standing? UDI? Nobody is saying. My feeling is that on Day 1, Alex Salmond would probably put forward legislation for a referendum almost immediately, regardless of potential success or pitfalls. And if the SNP or Greens say anything to try to take a more thought-out approach, Alba will be screeching that they're not on board. The Yes camp will be at each other's throats before the campaign even starts.

Senna was excellent. Towards the end the documentary showed his final lap from the camera on board his car. No music, just the lap. And because I know what was coming, my heart was absolutely pounding!

I've not said what the horror stories my dad faced are, but dead kids are a central theme. And the fact he had a young family of his own at the time must have made it worse. One I remember was in the mid-90s. I was a teenager. He would have been about 55 when this incident happened. For a good month he just never spoke to us. Mum told me what had happened, and to give him space. We did but it was like walking on eggshells for weeks until he got out of the funk. Never seen anyone so deflated. But he still put on the uniform every day and went to work. So when I get ratty at work because of something someone says to me, this is what I remember as a reality check.

Goodness me this thread has taken a left turn. The response to "Shut up" is, for most people, "I will not shut up", or even if you were in school "No, you shut up". F off and die is a bit extreme, and you deserve folk on here giving you a bit of a hard time about it.

I guess I've seen policing from the other side. My dad was a copper for 30 years before retiring. I met loads of policemen through him, some good guys, some not so good guys. Over the years he has told me some stories - things that went well and some wee transgressions. I might share some of these at some point but suffice it to say I think that on the whole coppers are good. Recently I had a really, really bad day at work. I was upset for about half an hour when I remembered a few of my dad's horror stories. In the grand scheme of things, my bad day was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to his worst day at work. Even now, decades after he retired, two stories in particular can bring him to tears.

Imagine the two scenarios below. 1. The SNP and Greens between them make a majority in the new parliament. Together they work out the best course through parliament of getting the referendum legislation in place, start getting the wider Yes movement together, and push for a professional, civic and popular campaign. 2. The SNP and Greens make a minority in the new parliament and Alba, which has taken votes from both, allows them the votes to get the majority. In scenario 2, does anyone believe that Alba will go with the SNP and Greens? Or will it be about jumping up and down, making a lot of noise for an immediate referendum. The new Yes movement will be the next football for the Alex Salmond project. In short, if you want a referendum and want it to succeed, I would suggest an SNP/Green vote. Note: this is not my own voting intention as I haven't decided if I will or not.

I have been re-watching The World At War, the documentary made in the early 70's about World War 2. It got me thinking - what is the best documentary ever made? I would vote for this. Made 30 years after the war, they were able to interview very relevant people (generals, ministers, Hitler's interpreter, Karl Doenitz (who took over from Hitler)). Laurence Olivier's narration is just sublime. Any WWII documentary made now would be interviewing historians and wouldn't get the real feel and flavour of what the was was actually like. Any other shouts?

Last night I started feeling really positive for the first time, that life would get back to normal. For a good half hour I was really optimistic that by the summer things would look and feel a bit more like normal life and society. Immediately after this started feeing really down. The thought that caused it? Variants. So much stuff on the vaccine-dodging mutant super killer variants that some scientists and public health folk seem to want that it brought down my mood a long way. We're stuck with the zero-Covid people who will sacrifice all manner of quality of life to achieve this. We need to say clearly that we are not prepared to live half a life forever

The talk of a "supermajority" makes a mockery of the whole thing. People here have said that the SNP "only" got 4 list seats last time. That's kind of the point; that the parliament will in general reflect the vote share of the parties. SNP get 50% of the vote, end up with about 50% of the MSP's. That's the whole reason the top-up list system is in place. If the SNP or anyone else wanted to game the system like Salmond is suggesting, they could have created a separate party (say, the National Party of Scotland) to stand in the list seats whilst the main party stood in the constituency seats. 22 years and nobody has done this - because it goes against what the system is set up to do.

What isn't clear is how many folk go into hospital with Covid, and how many go into hospital for something else and catch Covid there. I heard on Radio Scotland a couple of weeks ago that something like 60% of hospital infections were caught in hospital. SO this number might stay high for a bit.

I said before that I have always voted. It has turned to farce once - the 1999 Ochil election. The candidates were as follows: Richard Simpson (Labour) - elected for the constituency George Reid (SNP) - elected via the list Nick Johnston (Tory) - elected via the list Jamie Erskine, the Earl of Mar and Kellie (Lib Dem) - was, and remains, in the House of Lords. So, in fact, all the candidates ended up in parliament in one form or another.

If Sunak every becomes party leader/PM, they might have a wee image problem. Not his race or skin colour - will people ever vote for someone so small? He's about 5 foot 4. He has tried to get round this by changing his annual budget picture from this: to this:

I'd forgotten about some of these! Makes you wonder what would be wrong with standing as an independent (like Dennis Canavan did successfully).

The Genghis Khan series was indeed excellent. The Mongols.....a great bunch of lads. His Julius Caesar one was good also. Not so keen on some of the other series (Wars of the Roses series was a bit meh).

Sarwar saw the bear trap and side-stepped it quickly. Douglas Ross getting the Better Together gang back again is a way of coalescing the pro-union votes around the Tories. Having seen how this destroyed Labour in Scotland in 2014, Sarwar was wise to tell him to stuff it.

No chance voting for this. It can be added to the list of vanity project political parties along with: Change UK (collection of misfits) The Brexit Party (Farage) The Reform Party (Farage) The Respect Party (Galloway) Workers Party of Britain (Galloway) All For Unity (Galloway again) Solidarity (Sheridan)

Roger Waters Christine McVie Bruce Springsteen Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (English not their first language, and they did songs like The Day Before You Came) Leonard Cohen

Add the Alba Party to this list. No way am I voting for Sleepy Cuddles. Years ago he was the politician in Scotland I admired the most. Now he's on some weird ego trip that I can only assumed is to give himself a platform. No thanks, absolutely not. And look at the crowd who are swarming around him!

Gates of Athens by Conn Iggulden. An excellent book (as always with him - his Genghis Khan series is the best historical fiction I have ever, ever read). Great story, well written. Next one in this new series is out in May. I'll get it when it comes out I think.

Much made of the efficacy of the AZ vaccine on the South African variant, with people stating categorically that it is ineffective. The study itself can be found here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=featured_home The key section for me being the results section: This is a really small-scale study. I'm not saying it's wrong, but more needs to be done to look in to this. Of these cases identified here, nobody was hospitalised (either from the vaccinated or the placebo group), mainly due to the age of the participants. It covered nobody over 65 and the median age was 30, so half the people in this study were aged 18-30.

I've never seen the movie but have read the book, many years ago. I enjoyed it a lot!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! The TV has a web browser in it. Think I'll see if it will stream through that. Failing that, will try one of the suggestions here.

I remember when Karren Brady took over as part of the board at Birmingham City. Married a footballer there, then sold him.