Ye Cannae Shove a Doggy Aff a Bus!

Just had a chinwag with the old geezer himself, Mr Claus – he's just covered Greece, and is now doing a few stops in Turkey, where he'll probably get accosted by the usual hooligans in the football fraternity there. He's quite relaxed about coming to the UK in a couple of hours time, as his sleds are bursting at the seams with the stuff that the councils crave – salt. A lot of the afore mentioned bodies were taken by surprise last year when we had the unexpected heavy snowfalls, and quickly ran out of salt for our roads. Lessons were learned, or so we were told. Plenty of salt ordered for this year? Yes, of course, we were told! However, some councils have announced that they will be rationing salt next week, will use more grit instead, and will have the gritting lorries out for fewer hours than previously. Are they using some of it in cooking their over sized birds over Christmas?

When S.C. reaches Glasgow, I would expect to see Tommy Sheridan waiting for him, in order to collect the few packets of porridge oats that he ordered, so as to get used to them before he moves into one of Her Majesty's cells next month, if press reports are to be believed. I'm sure we can now rely on the press to tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – after all, it WAS Tommy who was found guilty of perjury yesterday. His performance in court on Tuesday was just about good enough to merit an Oscar, when he pleaded with the jury not to convict him, as he might have to spend Christmas apart from his wife and daughter. It wasn't the jury, the police, or the prosecution that's left him in his present situation – simply his own arrogance. He thought that folk could still be swayed by emotion, and not by fact – he was proved wrong.

The official ring belonging to the head of the Church of Scotland was stolen in a break-in at his home. Moderator of the General Assembly, Right Reverend John Christie, woke on Christmas Eve to find the front door of his Helensburgh home open, and the ceremonial ring gone. Thieves also stole Christmas gifts and other belongings including a wallet. I heard Rev Christie on radio this afternoon, asking that seeing it was Christmas time, the thief could hand the stuff back in the spirit of peace and goodwill etc. Maybe that would have happened if he had offered the culprit the offer of calling round for a nice slice of cake and a large glass of another kind of spirit. All take, and no give, it seems.

Scots should consider Isle of Arran cheese and Stornoway Black Pudding on their Christmas menu to cut down on food miles, according to the SNP. Nationalist MEP Alyn Smith has backed the National Farmers Union Scotland's 'What's On Your Plate' campaign, calling on shoppers to use local produce over the festive period. He said: "We have world-class produce in Scotland. Now is a particularly good time to remind Scots of the fantastic Scottish produce available.” Pity he forgot to give that advice to the party members in the Western Isles, who enjoyed their St Andrew's Night curry bash in Bangla Spice in Stornoway.

A little lost dog boarded a bus by himself and refused to leave as temperatures plunged to minus 11C. The frozen Cairn terrier, named Claus, was found cowering on the bus in the west end of Glasgow with icicles hanging from his fur. Passengers were astounded when the dog, aged about eight years old, boarded the First bus when it stopped on Dumbarton Road on Wednesday. He was so cold he found a warm spot in the corner and curled up. I suppose the “Grannie” song could be adapted:--
Oh, ye cannae shove a doggie aff a bus; Oh, ye cannae shove a doggie aff a bus; Ye cannae shove a doggy, he might be yer pal Shuggie's, Nae, ye cannae shove a doggie aff a bus.
Happy eating, everyone!

Brown Bullying and Holyrood Unrest

Another week, another shambles in what’s called the Mother of Parliaments. This time, Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is labelled a bully in a book written by political commentator Andrew Rawnsley. In it, he alleges that Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell had to take the Prime Minister aside and urge him to curb his ‘volcanic temper’. The founder of the National Bullying Helpline, Christine Pratt, then said it had received three or four calls in the last 18 months from people working with the Prime Minister. During the past 48 hours, we’ve had claims and counter claims, and the only thing that seems certain is that quite a few folk in high office are lying – they certainly all cannot be telling the truth.

Meanwhile, north of the border, mayhem seems to rule as well. Scottish Enterprise, that job creation quango, is to spend more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money on a ‘staff team building’ exercise, which will involve flying workers to Glasgow from offices in Moscow, New York, Hong Kong and other cities. What they are actually meant to be doing in those locations is anyone’s guess. Nationalist MSP Bill Kidd rightly pointed out that “it sounds like a junket.” Alas, he forgot to make any mention of his own party’s intention of hiring a special ‘tsar’ to oversee the independence referendum that his leader, Alex Salmond, is so intent on having. That exercise will only cost the taxpayer a mere £2 million, after all.

Two Labour and two Conservative MSPs have announced that they are to stand in the forthcoming Westminster election, whilst holding on to their seats in Holyrood as well. Again, Bill Kidd has gone on the offensive – he’s a very busy fellow – saying that it’s completely wrong for them to stand for election to both centres of government. Has he forgotten that the only person who holds a seat in both Parliaments at present is his own leader, Alex Salmond? No, he hasn’t, it seems. It WAS okay for Mr Salmond, he reckons, as he informed his constituents in the 2005 and 2007 elections that he was seeking a dual mandate. Sheer hypocrisy! In effect, it’s a case of doing two jobs on a part time basis, whilst pocketing two full time wage packets. Maybe, just maybe, their respective electorates will decide that they are not worthy of representing them either in Scotland or in the UK. I assume they all know how to use a pen, as it’s needed when paying the weekly visit to the Job Centre.

Despite the dire state of the economy, with inflation and unemployment rising, the Scottish Executive seems to be just as interested in the health of pet rabbits at the moment. It is launching a consultation which ‘seeks views on the draft code of practice for the welfare of rabbits which is designed to be a practical guide for owners and keepers of rabbits, but does not cover ‘rabbits which are farmed for food’. I think that if I had a pet bunny, and wanted some practical advice on how to look after it, I would get a good book on the subject, and not look up some Government website for it. The SNP are not the only party to blame for coming up with those daft ideas though – in 2006, it was revealed that there had been on average one new law or regulation every day since the Holyrood parliament came into being, so the Labour-LibDem coalition were at it as well. Some were plain stupid, such as the ban on mink farms, when there none in Scotland. The reasoning given, if I remember rightly, was that someone might want to start one, so it was better to have the ban in place. If someone leaks the story about the large pet in my garden, I’m sure they’ll soon have a law in place banning elephant farms as well.

I heard yesterday that the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, the human anti-depressant, has come up with a form of the pill, called Reconcile, for our canine friends. In fact, it has already been approved for sale to British pet owners. The tablet is said to help cure ‘canine compulsive disorder’ and ‘separation anxiety’ brought on by owners’ long absences during the day. Symptoms are said to include whimpering, poor behaviour, and tail chasing. What utter tripe! The poor dogs are being ‘labelled’ or ‘diagnosed’ with illnesses, just so that drugs can be marketed to supposedly treat them. I would hope that dog owners in Britain would give those pills a wide berth – a large juicy bone from the butcher down the road has been known to keep der Hund very happy for quite a while.
bullying, dogs, Holyrood, rabbits, Westminster

Dennis the Menace a Menace no more!

Nicola Sturgeon, first in line to the throne of that other fishy sounding character, Alex Salmond, seems to have completely lost her marbles this week, having written to a court asking for leniency to be shown in the case of a convicted benefits fraudster. This guy cheated taxpayers out of £80,000 whilst living in a £400,000 home in Glasgow and earning rent for another property in Edinburgh. She must also have been aware of the fact that he’d been jailed for 4 years in 1996 for a pensions and benefits scam, yet she had the gall to tell the court that he’s in poor health and had made a “mistake”. Some mistake! Anyway, it’s made me take a note of my own MSP’s phone number, in case I get nicked in the future for flicking my cigarette ash on to the pavement.

It seems that Dennis the Menace, b.1951, and one of my boyhood heroes, has been disarmed in the comic, supposedly to match Dennis in the TV cartoon version. The politically correct brigade have managed to remove his peashooter, catapult, and water pistol; his menacing scowl has gone, replaced by a wide angelic grin, and his trusty sidekick, Gnasher the hound, has lost the right to bite the postie or the traffic warden, or indeed, anybody else who looks remotely edible. The PC lobbyists insist that children who are exposed to the old-style Dennis, Roger the Dodger, and Minnie the Minx are more liable to turn into serial thieves, murderers, or terrorists. What utter rubbish! Do the majority of us who were brought up reading those comics now go around brandishing guns, knifes, or throwing bombs into crowded places. I think not!

I think I’ve written before now regarding stupid surveys and research carried out at great expense by supposedly respectable bodies and individuals. I’ve just come across another one that has been unleashed this week, involving some research done by Dr Jane Murray of Bristol University. She has come to the conclusion that folk who own cats are quite a bit more intelligent than those who own dogs. No chance of me, then, applying for membership of Mensa, and meeting up with the Queen of figures, Carol Vorderman, at an egghheads’ convention. I’ve never had a cat, and I don’t think I will either, even if it was going to enhance the cells up top. Dr Murray has also come up with the breathtaking revelation that people with gardens are more likely to have pets than those who don’t. I’d actually suspected that was the case for a number of years now, as my pet elephant’s toilet requirements couldn’t easily be met inside the confines of the house. The research wasn’t all rubbish, of course – it also informs us that, on the whole, members of the canine and feline worlds do not get on well together. It must have taken them a long time, and the consumption of countless doggie biscuits, before they came up with that one. Not having had time to read the whole report, I’m not sure if loyalty is mentioned. I think everyone, pet owner or not, can see that cats have a “couldn’t care less” attitude, as long as they are fed, whereas dogs never tire of showing affection for their owners. Of course, it’s a known fact (no research needed) that if you were to die, your dog would lie there indefinitely beside you, whereas your cat …. well, he wouldn’t starve….

Dogs and Airlines

Hypocrisy seems to be alive and well everywhere these days – Highland region have had a vigorous anti-smoking policy for quite a while now, but news has filtered through that £27,000,000 of their funds is invested with a tobacco company. They defend their action by stating that it’s a jolly good investment in a time of recession, and not to be sniffed at. It seems that where money is involved, integrity disappears in a puff of smoke.

 

Talking of sniffing, we know that lampposts were invented for dogs to use as conveniences whilst on their daily jaunts. In Sweden apparently, the acid that they leave on the posts as a by-product is being blamed for corrosion on those particular items of street furniture. Someone there has come up with the bright idea of attaching dog urinals to the posts, consisting of a rubber cup with a hose to carry the offending urine into the gutter. Although I haven’t carried out an intensive study of dogs, I do wonder at what height those contraptions are to be placed – I mean what’s a poor Chihuahua (9 inches high) to do when he’s caught out and is faced with one of them that has been placed at the correct height for an Irish Wolfhound (nearly 3 feet high)? It’s got me so confused that I think I have to go and see a man about a dog myself.

 

Toilets for the pooches; now some news for us humans concerning them as well. It’s been aired today that “Ryanair”, one of the low cost airlines, is thinking of starting to charge for the use of the toilets on their aircraft, a "Pee As You Go" scheme, I suppose. For those who suffer from incontinence, that cheap flight could turn out to be rather more expensive than usual. For others, I would advise you to unload your excess baggage before you board, in other words, “Go before you go!” The idea has been aired by the fim's chairman, Michael o'Leary. I rather think that he's taking the mickey or the p***.

 

It’s been rumoured that Tesco is about to become a stand-alone High Street bank. This could definitely be a threat to small banks and building societies, but given their impressive reputation up till now, I think I should withdraw the £11.40 from under my mattress, and deposit it with them. After all, “Every little helps!”, as they say in their adverts.