First of all, let’s get the gratitude expressed: my heartfelt thanks to all those good and big-hearted people who sponsored me in my run for Trócaire on the Waterside Half-Marathon yesterday. I am glad to say that we smashed our target of £1,000 by at least £100 – well done to all of you. Maith shibh!
Back to bigger matters. First, George Galloway. I’m now convinced the man is unwell and that it’s not all due to the attack on him by some stupid thug in the street. I’ve also realised why he is of the No camp, thanks to a comment on an earlier blog: Galloway is the MP for Bradford, which as the Bradfordian street dogs know is in England. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is one thing; cutting your electoral seat from under you is political self-destruct, and George doesn’t do self-destruct.
Just when you thought the No campaign had thrown pretty well everything at the Yes camp in order to convince voters that they were teetering on the edge of a cliff, they hit the Aye lot with a triple-whammy. First, QE2 advises the Scottish people to think very carefully before they vote. Yep, that’s the monarch who is of course above politics and will remain above politics. Then they assemble the massed ranks of the Orange Order to march through the centre of Edinburgh and assure people that remaining together will get them more of this. And then this morning comes the word that David Beckham has told the Scots they’d be better to stick with England. Was he wearing his famous underpants at the time? Or his deodorant? Or his latest sponsored football boots or haircut? Sorry, I can’t say. But clearly if David says you’re better together, it means Posh has told him to say it, and if Posh believes you’re better together, that’s it. End of.
Funny, I’ve heard all sorts of arguments for and against Scottish independence. So far I haven’t heard anyone say that a sense of self-respect – that you’re a grown-up, mature country – requires you to take responsibility for your own affairs. They’re smart down in Westminster, but they’re not Scots.
The papers and magazines ..the television …they’re all full of this kind of thing over this past few days…They must be canvassing every popular public figure whom they think might influence the public decision. Some are canny enough to hedge their bets. Billy Connolly, now suffering from Parkinsons, might have been relied on in the past to shoot straight from the jocular hip but he’s keeping shtum on what he would do if he had a vote. Fair play to him .I’m sure a guy like him is loved and hated in equal parts throughout Scotland anyway. Why bring any more hassle down on his head at this vulnerable stage of his life?
What the hell has Posh and Becks got to do with any of it though? I never saw either of them as political creatures . They’re a bit media -lite really . : skilled in their very narrow fields , but hardly giant intellects or sources of wisdom. Maybe that’s all that’s needed though..the words of a once brilliant footballer and a n ex pop -poppet , turned fashion designer. Maybe it’s all as light weight and as shallow a choice for a hell of a lot of people. …y’know if if it’s okay for that guy with the bulging crotch in those adverts …well that’ll do alright for me . Her Maj, on the other hand has a great stake in all of this and her language or her attributed comment is suitably wooly as to be no real comment at all. .
.Of course you should think before you vote …everyone with a brain knows that .Think carefully indeed . ….but what should you think ? That’s the question that is fudged here. Her Maj is hedging her bets too. Why would she want to upset anybody?
To more important things …glad that the wee legs held out on the run and congratulations for putting your money where your mouth is…
The NO camp hasn’t told UKRAINE that they would be batter as a region of Russia
The current evidence would suggest that many Scots have thought carefully about the issue of independence for Scotland given the near hysterical reaction of vested financial interests in London. The voting intentions of men in kilts are unlikely to be swayed by underwear, whoever is wearing it. What will it be next, sponsored sporrans, a tartan tax, piobaireachd prohibition or Elvis in Edinburgh singing, “Never Say Yes?
If I was a` No` the hideous spectacle of thousands of bigots marching would send me running into the` Yes` camp. Unless I was a bigot myself of course. As for HM Queen, what an intellect eh? Sky news were actually analysing her pearls of wisdom, trying to fathom the meaning of her words. The Battenburgs don`t say very much but when they do it is amazing stuff. As for George, something doesn`t ring true about his reasons for supporting the continued imperialist dictatorship of Scotland by the English. Celebrities and Sassenach politicians should be seen as the publicity hungry idiots they are, (check out the brilliant youtube clip of English Labour MPs arrival being met by a man playing the Darth Vader music and announcing, `your imperial masters are here`) Scotland is more than capable of achieving full nationhood.
Your fellow citizens you mean Another Jude the ones you cast as your brothers still no change from you at all
That the ‘No’ side has chosen to recruit Posh, Sash and HRH Hush to poke their triumvirate of noses into both the build up and the count down to the Scottish Referendum with the possible intention of providing the ‘No’s’ with the final tush push of the Mrs. Doubtfires over the line dance on Thursday, is understandable.
Not least in the wake of the Ubiquitous Flying Object’s dramatic late entry into the ‘Yes’ side of the equation.
Of whom does one write? Ubiquitous doesn’t even commence to describe this Flying Object known as Fintan O (FO). The lad is everywhere.
Bide a wee and cast a backward glance at the last scene in the best motion picture ever shot in Belfast, the one Roman (!) Polanski described as his favourite ever movie: Odd Man Out (O.M.O.).
There is the fugitive Johnny McQueen (no relation), mortally wounded and staggering to elude his pursuers, the dogged B-Men, through the slow, black and white streets of B-fast (it was a Fillum Noir, after all), almost but not quite out on his feet, half in love with easeful death like he was a half-fit Half-Marathon runner approaching the finish.
And as he leans against the dark wall of a small shopping arcade, to the front of him can be glimpsed the Clock Tower and the Docks, where the ship to take him to safety is about to weigh anchor (not the Titantic, this was shot in 1947, a good year) to the rear of him can be spotted, just about, the name over the door of Ye Olde Shoppe: O’Toole.
Could one make such a thing up? Would one even want to?
Yes, the commentator with the biggest brain and the highest IQ (not necessarily synonymous) in the Free Southern Stateen, Fintan O’Toole, has abjured the negativity of the ‘Noh Drama’ and plumped for the positivitiy which is ingrained in the DNA of the Daft Northern Ayes.
But this does make him an O.M.O.? Er, yes and no. Not an Odd Man Out in the sense that F.O.T. is but toeing the line of TUT which has already tossed its caber on the side of the ‘Och, Aye, Surely’ side. And The Unionist Times’s caber is indeed a tool of some formidable size, both from a length and girth perspective.
But an OMO in the sense that Fintan O’Toole will always wash his faithful readers’ little brains with all the thoroughness and finality of, erm, a box of OMO.
Even while he himself is dressed in his own cleanest dirty shirt. With Saturday morning coming down, and a lonely kirk-bell ringing, somewhere far awaw o’ the heather, here the ubiquitous Fintan manages to out-Krisfofferson Kris himself, no less:
‘ National Freedom isn’t another word for nothing left to lose. It’s another word for no one left to blame – no one, that is, except yourself’.
Having absorbed that humdinger of a honed sentence, the stumbling which Johnny McQueen (see above) was nothing to the stumbling which poor befuddled Perkie had to do even as he stumbled down the stairs, to meet the day.
There’s more.
‘For an outsider like me, this is what is most interesting about the possibility of Scottish Independence. It is not that Scotland may become a new state but that it may become a new kind of state’.
Eh?
Now, there are those mischievous malcontents amongst us who may contend that this is Squintin Fintan’s way of making a pitch across the Liffey and tipping his tam o’shanter in the hope, if not expectation, that he wili be accommodated by the SIC (sic), that is, the Sunday Independent Cult. Where the altitude of his IQ will be better appreciated by those of an even more Evangelical attitude. It has been known to happen before in the, erm, mire of media land, south of the border, down Kevin Street way.
So much rancid haggis, Perkie says.
For this article first appeared in a Scottish Sundae before appearing in Saturday’s TUT. Fintan O’Toole is both ubiquitous in a spatial and temporal sense. The wee laddie with the Ben Nevis of a brain is everywhere. One moment he is on the Crumlin Road in Dublin and the next m. his is on the Crumlin Road, Belfast. On sniffy Liffeyside and the next he is on Auld Reekie. He is ubiquitous. That factual fact just cannot be overemphasized enough.
So, are both TUT and FOT playing a form of footsie with those of us untrarvelled and gullible enough to go along with this abrupt and seeming volte face:?
Leave it up the m. malcontents to mention the name of Roman Polanski (see above).
The Pole (though not a Roman C) once shot a memorable wee version of The Scottish Play. The one in which Mrs. Doubtfire expresses her doots about the reliability of the Three Witches Latest Poll findings:
‘Perhaps they will win us with honest trifles to betray us in deeper consequence’.
The m. malcontents quote this ‘honest trifle’ which Fintan O’Caber tossed in to the pot, to bolster their warped opinion, in his galorious whiskey-drenched dispatch to the whisky-swilling Scots. Or, if one prefers, St. Jackeen’s Epistle to the Jocks:
‘in Ireland, national vanity continued to hold sway. Ireland didn’t have to deal with its deeply problematic realities because it was uniquely blessed. It was holier, happier, more cultured, more Gaelic, more spiritual than anywhere else’..
Hoots, mon, what a thigh slapper this wee Fintan O’Caber is ! What a hoot !
And this is where Perkie experienced a veritable high road to Damn Ask Us moment. What Joyce Grenfell once called an Epiphany. When his low road to Loch Low Intelligence was suddenly illuminated by a flash of those wee northern lights such as the Granite Walls of grey Aberdeen hae known for centuries:
TUT and its claymore-wielder in chief, FOT are advocating a ….Free Northern Stateen.
Mine’s a wee Drambui, mon.
(Housekeeping: James Mason, who played the role of OTR, J. McQueen, was not, of course, the only Mason to make an impact on the streets of B-fast. No relation, though. Whereas James staggered, lurched, wobbled, reeled and swayed his way through the streets, Roy, for it was he, strutted, goose-stepped and stomped his way. One actor who did neither was FJ McCormick, in the role of Shell, real name, Judge. Watch him with the balletic deftness of a G. Best shoe-shuffle out of harm’s way as he zig zags through the traffic. Recognised as the Abbey’s greatest ever actor he only ever appeared in a handful of motion fillums. James Mason claimed that FJ could have become one of the great screen stars of all time. And J. Mason, was some judge, though no relation. Gaze upon this movie and be enthralled.).
Do you know what Mighty Perk…. I do believe your excellent contributions would be met with even greater appreciation if you started to add little footnotes and BTWS [By the ways} .I’m not sure everyone out there is getting the references to old Kris’s cleanest dirty shirt { which is obviously an unholy icon on the lines of the Turin Shroud or the like}…. I’m almost sure that would add even more to their enjoyment. I’d say Jude might even be on the cusp of giving you your own separate page for notations…..you’d never know…..
More dazzling stuff, Perkie. If you lived up here I’d refer to you as the Northern Light.
GRMA, PK agus JC.
PS Now here’s another thing. Sort of time-added on stuff. Re a B-fast Airport after whom a soccer sorcerer was named and who get’s name-checked in the same breath as his fellow genius, FJ McCormick. G. Best could also have been name-checked in the same b. as another Deep Southern actor who too played a stormer in the fillum: Cyril Cusack. He did not deserve to be the Odd Man Out in the name-checking stakes. Here CC showed, as a young actor, that he was more than capable of playing roles other that the one he became stuck with in the endless final act of his long career, that of ‘Cyril Cusack’.
Weren’t G. Best and Sorcha Cusack a sort of short lived Posh and Becks of their time?
The Westminster ‘Friends of Israel’ triumvirate who arrived in Scotland last week, were there for one purpose and one purpose only – as puppets,- sent- to maintain a union of nations, so that the ‘criminal money cabal’ that use and abuse it, as their western economic base, contain its separation and or disintegration, into a smaller viable stronger autonomous entity. Better Together they’ve called it.
You see these very people are the same ‘tribe’ (through a proxy US administration) who are financing wars and fermenting discontent amongst nations all over the world, wrecking the middle-east, encouraging wars in Ukraine and eastern europe, whilst pillaging Africa, and anywhere else they can parasitically infect with their IMF and UN and NATO and EU dollars and war machines.
And they break all these nations up into statelets, because they are controllable. They once called it ‘divide and conquer’ – now its called ‘divide and destroy’.
We are being systematically ‘hoaxed’ by these hucksters whose solution to everything is the destruction of something,- so long as its not themselves.
We are fed a daily diet of lies in their mainstream media and cajoled with fearmongering into accepting each ‘crock of horseshit’ as it is served up, because we have lost the basic concept of ‘critical thinking’.
And as the genocidal and moral decay continues to be perpetrated we are perplexed because we are confused, so we switch over to XFactor.
AND THAT’S HOW THEY GET AWAY WITH IT !
And yet throughout the troubles sweaty Betty battenburg chose not to ‘involve herself’ in the politics in the north. Allthewhile some of her subjects were killing Catholics in so called defence of her realm and all that?
We condemn paisley for his sectarian stirring of the pot over the years but Betty missed opportunities over the years to say to violent loyalism and its sponsors- not in my name. She had more influence over some people in the north more than paisley had and she chose not to use it. In fact by her silence she was actually sending a message of encouragement to paisley etc for although ‘lundy’s’ such as thatcher etc would condemn unionist intransigence at times in didn’t matter one iota as long as the more important person didn’t condemn them ie Betty Saxe- coburg- goth.
If I recall correctly did the Queen not comment on the Drumcree carry-on and was bluntly told to shut her bake by Dr No and his ‘loyal’ subjects?
Did she comment plain and directly to militant loyalism or did she issue a vague and typical ‘balanced’ condemnation of both sides?
Has she ever directly spat it out and said ‘not in my name’ when loyalists were issuing their well directed terror on the nationalist community? Or did a royal press secretary issue a deliberately vague statement for her, along the lines of, sweaty Betty doesn’t involve herself in politics of her state? Well we can see clearly that that was a blatant lie as she has ‘mistakenly’ made statements in public in recent times concerning the Abu hamza farce and scottish independence.
You see Am Ghobsmacht, despite royal protocol, they can still get their message out when it suits them. She chose never to condemn people for killing and defending in her name in the north. In my opinion she is more culpable than Ian paisley for what endured in the north because she had more influence than paisley to influence more. And she chose not to. In my opinion paisley has more integrity than herself.