Would an independent Scotland be financially sound?

every scot SHOULD read this

I've lifted this entire article from Newsnet . I hope they will forgive me. It seemed to good to not be shared. There are nearly 300 comments, many worth reading.

279 COMMENTS

By John Jappy 

As a civil servant in London, and being part of the establishment, I always accepted the general view that an independent Scotland would not be able to survive on its own without financial help from the London Exchequer.

However, when in 1968 I was able to examine the so-called "books" for the first time, I was shocked to find that the position was exactly the opposite and that Scotland contributed much more to the UK economy than its other partners.  This was, of course, before the oil boom.

I realised that the Treasury would wish to keep this a secret, as it might feed nationalistic tendencies north of the border, which at that time were very weak.  I took the decision to keep an eye on the situation to see how long it would take for the true facts to emerge, which I felt would only be a short time.  However, the Treasury and the Establishment did an excellent job, aided and abetted by the media, to keep the myth about Scotland alive.

In fact it took another 30 years before the first chink in their armour started to appear.  This came unexpectedly on 13 January 1997 when, in reply to a series of questions put by SNP Leader in the Commons, Alex Salmond MP to the then Tory government, Treasury Minister William Waldegrave admitted that Scotland had paid a massive £27 billion more to the London Exchequer than it had received since the Tories came to power in 1979.  Statistically this works out at £5,400 for every Scot. 

There were no attempts to refute these figures, which caused much embarrassment to the Tory Government of the day.  However, the facts were quickly covered up by the Unionist controlled media.

Then a year later with a Labour government now in power came a further bombshell.  Following further promptings by the SNP, on 21 August 1998, Mr Salmond received a letter from the House of Commons Library (ref. 98/8/56 EP/rjt) which gave a table showing that based on Scotland's GDP per capita, Scotland would occupy 7th place in the world's wealth league.  The UK was at 17th Place.

When the Labour government came to power it announced a 1p cut in the standard rate of income tax.  From my detailed knowledge of income tax, I felt that this was the worst possible thing that they could do, as extra monies would be needed following on from the Thatcher era, if they were to fulfil even a fraction of their promises to the electorate.  I came to the conclusion, and I still feel that I was right, that this was done by Labour to prove to the voters of Middle England that they could match the Tories in tax cuts. 

Despite the disclosures of 1998, attempts to deceive the Scottish electorate did not end there.  In March 1999 a Labour Party leaflet appeared which said that if the SNP were to forego Gordon Brown's 1p cut in the standard rate of income tax, every family in Scotland would be £250 worse off.  This became the major topic of a TV debate between Alex Salmond and Donald Dewar.  Salmond tried to point out to Dewar that he was using the wrong figures.  Watching the debate, I saw Dewar's eyes roll in his head for a few moments but he carried on regardless.

After the debate it took the Labour Party a whole week to admit that they were wrong.  There was in fact a whole chain of errors which the Labour Party tried to blame on "printing mistakes".  However Labour could not deny the fact that in their calculations the UK average figure, which included the high wage earners in the city of London and the booming economy in the South East corner of England (which if I may say so were the result of the selfish policies of Mrs Margaret Thatcher), the figure used was almost double those of the average Scottish wage which at that time stood at £17,000 per year.

Looking closely at the figures and taking the year 2006 as a benchmark, I found that Scotland had an annual relative surplus of £2,8 billion, which works out at £560 for every man, woman and child.  In contrast the UK had a deficit of £34.8 billion.

In November 2006, the U.N. published its annual "Human Development Index".  For the sixth year running, oil rich Norway topped the list, and won on such factors as generous welfare payments, education, high income and a long life expectancy.  Norway wisely created an "oil fund" in 1995 which in 5 years reached a total of £250 billion, so that Norway sailed through the Credit Crunch. 

Who are the real subsidy junkies?

Any lingering doubt that Scotland more than pays its way, or survives on subsidies, was dispelled by a new report published in October 2007.  Whilst the Daily Mail, which by no stretch of the imagination could be described as a supporter of Scottish nationalism, devoted a whole page to the analysis of the report which was based on tax paid per capita as against spending, Northern Ireland received £4,212 more than it paid in tax, North East England £3,133, Wales £2,990, N.W. England £1732, South West England £978, West Midlands £931, East Midlands £185 and lastly Scotland £38.  Only the South East corner produced a small surplus due to tax paid on the high wages within the city of London at this time (pre-Credit Crunch).

Analysis

It is no longer refuted that Scotland exports more per capita than the rest of the UK.  In 1968 when I first discovered that Scotland was in surplus in relation to the rest of the UK, its exports could be broken down into whisky, meat, timber, fish, and of course tourism which is a huge hidden income.  Those exports are supported by a population of only 5,000,000 as against 45,000,000 for the rest of the UK, quite a substantial advantage.

With the oil boom, Scotland's economy was transformed.  Scottish oil has to date funded the Treasury with £300 billion, which has pushed Scotland up from 7th place in World Wealth rankings, had it been in control of its own resources, to 3rd place.

On 29 May 2008, Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling admitted in a back-handed way, that Scotland's oil revenue had been underwriting the UK's failure to balance its books for decades.  There is still 30 years of oil supply left in the North Sea (some 150 million barrels) valued at 2008 prices at 1 trillion dollars.  This excludes the new fields being brought into production in deeper waters west of Shetland.

Meantime whisky exports, which I listed in 1968 as one of Scotland's top assets, have risen at a phenomenal rate.  For example, whisky exports to China amounted to £1 million in 2000/2001, by 2007 they had risen to £70 million.  They have continued to rise, although I don't have more recent statistics.

On the economies of Independence, Scotland has also 18 times its requirements in North Sea gas, which on current trading is more expensive than oil.  The country exports 24% of its surplus electricity south of the Border, with much of the back-up by Hydro Electric unused.

Even if nuclear is excluded, the future looks bright, the new Glen Doe hydro station on Loch Ness which was opened by Scotland's First Minister last year can produce enough electricity for 240,000 homes.  Further projects down the Loch which have now reached the planning stage will increase this to over 1,000,000 homes.  Wind and wave energy will also contribute significantly in the future.

No doubt as the time draws nearer to the referendum on Scottish Independence, politicians will do their best to distort the figures, but the truth is something that never varies.
Before retiring, John Jappy was a senior civil servant in the Inland Revenue, working for the Accountant & Comptroller General's Branch based at Somerset House in London.  His duties involved liaising closely with Treasury officials to prepare accounts and financial information for UK government ministers.

In which Tris ponders the purpose of the House of Peers and wonders at the politics behind the benighted deknighted

I'm not entirely sure how much the House of Lords costs us taxpayers every year. Many figures are bandied about (and we are told how much cheaper it is than the Commons), but no one seems to know exactly what the figures represent:

Expenses of peers (or attendance allowance as it should properly be called) is surely only a small part. There is an historic building to be run, with priceless artwork to be hung and maintained; there are restaurants, tearooms, shops and bars to subsidise, staff to pay to open doors, type letters, run errands, polish coronets, oversee robing rooms, clean toilets, offices, corridors, etc. There are windows to wash, drains to unblock, doors to paint. And then there's security. There are government ministers to be paid and transported. And it all has to be heated and lit. (A lot of them are elderly and need lots of warmth...)


I dunno...£ 1/2 billion...£ 3/4 billion? More?


So... whatever it costs, if, as Mr Clegg tells us, it is necessary for the smooth running of our democracy, why is it that when the government suffers defeats, such as it has over the last few days because various sections of the Welfare Reform Bill have been voted out by their noblenesses, the aforementioned government can simply overturn aforementioned defeats the next day in the Commons, as if nothing had happened.

You see, I reckon that we don't need the Lords. Well, that goes without saying. Ermine collars, red gowns, coronets, together with titles like Duke, Viscount, Marquis, Earl, Baron, and styles like "your grace" and "my lord" seem to me to be completely out of touch with the reality of today. (I'm not, of course, saying that the reality of today has a great deal to recommend it, however, at least our parliamentarians should be living in it the same as we are forced to.) 


But I don't think we even need a Senate. Surely one chamber, with good committees, real debates (without the disruptions of the wearing of top hats and cries of "I spy strangers"), and with sensible a good chairmanship (not pompous overblown little pip squeaks), should suffice to get the job done.

It's not as if having a second house has saved the UK, and England in particular, from some incredibly inept legislation, which can be, and is, challenged in courts, usually in London, but sometimes in Europe.


Every time I hear the government of the day saying that it will overturn the votes of the second chamber, I ask myself if the half or three-quarters of a billion pounds or more per annum, wouldn't be better spent on something useful.


******
I see that Fred Goodwin is just that, Fred Goodwin...now that they have taken away his 'Sirness'.


Against titles as I am, it's a matter of complete indifference to me whether he has (or had) one or not. Like the titles in the Lords it all belongs to another day, another society, even more class ridden and riven than the one we live in. But that aside doesn't the whole "removal" thing have the smell of an exercise in futile populism by Cameron? That's how it seems to me, anyway.

Fred was, probably still is, a greedy bounder, who is as clever as clever can be at making money, and behind whom all these MPs were standing cheering when he was making that obscene money for the RBS Group, and of course for the UK. But he, like every other gambler, was bound to back the wrong horse sometime.


And he did. Big time. But he wasn't the only one. Goodwin didn't bring down the UK economy single handed. Oh no. There were many others. The City of London is teaming with them. Goodwin was just the best known. And Cameron wants to look tough with the bankers.


Fail...again. It all just looks as silly as giving him the daft title in the first place.

From Backstage... NYC. Petula continues, in her 70th year in show business, to sell out...

Petula Clark at Feinstein's at Loews Regency Reviewed by Erik Haagensen JANUARY 25, 2012 Photo by Stephen Sorokoff Back in the mid-1960s I had a brief but passionate boy crush on English pop singer and film actor Petula Clark. She knocked out a string of hit singles penned by composer Tony Hatch in a vibrantly distinctive belt voice, including "I Know a Place," "Don't Sleep in the Subway," "My Love," and, of course, the mother of them all, "Downtown," for which she won her first Grammy Award. But what really cemented my fandom were her marvelous performances in the film musicals "Finian's Rainbow" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." Then the diminutive star segued to a long career as an international concert singer, with occasional stops in West End musicals. Well, she's back, appearing at Feinstein's at Loews Regency with just a four-piece band. It's a rare appearance in an intimate venue, and for anyone who cares about great singing, it is not to be missed. Clark turns 80 this year, but you'd never know it from the lithe and limber, boundlessly energetic, agelessly beautiful woman onstage. My eyes went from wide to wider to positively popping as she flung out hit after hit in its original key, with fully held top notes, burnished tone, and complete control of those wonderfully unique vocal stylings that are always enhancing and seem to emanate from the center of her soul. All the above-mentioned tunes get an airing, as well as a flirty, playful medley of "Who Am I?" and "Color My World" (both by Hatch and Jackie Trent), a liquid "This Is My Song" (Charlie Chaplin, which Clark introduced on the soundtrack of his final film, "A Countess From Hong Kong"), and a spot-on country reinvention of Hatch and Trent's "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love" that featured a dynamic drum solo from Dan Gross and an intense, whip-up-the-crowd finish from Clark. Representing her work in musicals, we get a meltingly simple "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" (Burton Lane–E.Y. Harburg) from "Finian's" and a glowing "You and I," the centerpiece of Leslie Bricusse's criminally undervalued score for "Chips." A haughty and flashing "With One Look" (Andrew Lloyd Webber—Don Black—Christopher Hampton), from "Sunset Boulevard," suggests that Clark was a Norma Desmond to be reckoned with (she played the show in the West End and on tour). In her sharp and witty patter, Clark confesses to a teenage desire to be cool and sophisticated that expressed itself in an affinity for Peggy Lee and Cole Porter. She shows off those predilections with a driving, percussive take on Porter's "I Concentrate on You," in an inventive arrangement flecked with electronic guitar, and a swinging, ballsy interpretation of the great songwriter's comic lament "Miss Otis Regrets." Both are utterly untraditional yet so compelling that I can't believe Porter wouldn't have loved them (and they are executed flawlessly by musical director Grant Sturiale and the tight band, which also includes Courtney Sappington on guitar and Jason Di Matteo on bass). Clark is also a writer herself, a talent she showcases in the pensive "Starting All Over Again" (music by David Hadzis) and in a tart, well-observed poem about life in the theater she recites that includes the interesting observation that when she gets too angry she sings, something that perhaps accounts for the intensity of emotion with which she can invest a song. And yet there's always a lightness and a sexy buoyancy to her work, no doubt springing from her impish sense of humor, which she deftly displays on a smart comic parody of "Downtown" written by Barry Kleinbort. More than anything, though, Clark is a skilled musician, something most apparent in two magical moments when she simply sits at the piano and accompanies herself while singing a soulful "Someone to Watch Over Me" (George and Ira Gershwin) and a shimmering, dramatically acute "La Vie en Rose" (Edith Piaf–Louis Guglielmi, English lyric by Mack David), which the multilingual chanteuse, who saw Piaf perform live, delivers in perfectly accented French. Clark, who was an English music hall star at age 9, distills 70 years worth of performing experience in her work while still in great physical and vocal shape. It's an unusual and unbeatable combination that makes for a highly memorable evening. Presented by and at Feinstein's at Loews Regency, 540 Park Ave., NYC. Jan. 24–Feb. 4.Tue.–Thu., 8 p.m.; Fri. and Sat., 8 and 10:30 p.m. (212) 339-4095 orwww.feinsteinsattheregency.com.

WHERE'S THE TORY PARTY MANIFESTO PLEDGE ON BANKERS' BONUSES?

Even if Stephen Hester still hasn’t got the message that as a Civil Servant he should not be entitled to a bonus of £900,000, it seems his boss, Philip Hampton is a bit quicker on the uptake (or more sensitive), for he has said that he will not take his £1.4 million bonus as it is not justified. Well, you’re right there mate.

 On the subject of city salaries and bonuses, why does Cameron claim that he will do something about them, when he knows full well that companies are companies; they can pay whomsoever they wish whatsoever they wish. So then he says that major shareholders should take action to avert these disproportionate rewards, but as the custodian of the shares that we have in the Royal Bank (over 80% and you don’t get much more major than that) he does nothing about Hester’s bonus. The probably reason is that he's been tipped the wink that if he did, Hester would resign, so would half the board and the whole thing would go BANG, with all our money.

My advice to him would be to listen to Labour peer, Meghnad Desai who, unlike his populist leader, Ed Miliband, seems to have a handle on the situation.

Stop posturing for the cameras. You just look stupid and impotent. It would be best to admit that they have you over a barrel; that way you’ll still look totally impotent, but at least you’ll look as if you have the measure of the situation, thus not so terminally stupid.

After all, Cameron gets bent out of shape with the EU, making enemies across Europe, telling them to get their hands off the competitive edge of London’s financial centre; that their idea of introducing regulations and a code of conduct is not going to happen. After all, it’s all the UK has between it and bankruptcy. (If you can call running a deficit of £1 trillion NOT being bankrupt).  

Having thus appeased his right wing, he tries to appease "ordinary decent hard-working families up and down the country" by making it look like he’s going to do the one thing that will send the bankers off to Mumbai or Dubai faster than you can say “quantitative easing” (or inflation... they are the same thing)... namely reducing said bankers ability to stuff billions in bonuses into their pinstriped pockets. There won’t be much of a competitive edge if all yer actual bankers have fled the coup, will there, Dave?

Desai’s only haver, as far as I could tell on the news on Friday night, was that he insisted that these people deserved the money for all the work they do, the risks they take, the stress of it all.  Maybe they do work hard; maybe it is stressful; maybe the chairman of Lloyds Bank has just been claiming sickness benefits for 10 weeks because of it.

But I’d just say, to the his nobly lordliness... brain surgeons (average £250,000)... firemen fighting blazes (average £25,000)... troops in combat in Afghanistan...(less than minimum wage)?  If stress is the factor that shoves the payments up to millions, why are these life savers left so incredibly far behind...

INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM: OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE YOUR SAY

I've been tardy (so what's new, I hear you ask), in bringing to people's attention the independence referendum consultation paper launched by the Scottish government. My thanks, as ever, to Cynical Highlander for reminding me.


In a way I'm glad I am late, because James has produced another corker of a set of answers to the questions, to which I can have the pleasure of directing you!


I think it's important that we complete this consultation, regardless of what side of the argument we are on, with the best answers we can give.


I have never made any secret of the fact that I thought that the consultation into our country's future, launched by David Cameron, was no more than 'an exercise in having a consultation', but I think that this one is likely to be a genuine attempt to find the mood of the country, particularly with regard to the "second question". Some have said that the possible inclusion of a 'devo max' option on the ballot paper is a cop out for the SNP. 


But given that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that option to have massive support, it would surely be anti democratic to allow no official discussion of it (on the basis that we want to discover what the people of Scotland actually want, as opposed to what the leaders in Scotland or London prefer for them, or for their careers).


In the Tory referendum of last year about constitutional change in the UK (voting systems), it seemed to me that the choice that most people wanted was left off the ballot paper, possibly exactly because it was the choice that most people would have voted for. (Unscientific assertion there, based on my personal questioning of anyone and everyone I could ask, across a wide range of contacts.) 


I think Cameron banked on the fact that, although many (most?) people  didn't think much of the FPTP system, the only alternative offered was very much more complicated, not much better, likely to produce the same biased results, and had, only months before, been disparaged and ridiculed by its main supporter in the campaign, namely the UK's deputy prime minister. 


It was a "devil you know" situation, as both options would allow some MPs to go on with their "jobs for life" on a minority of votes.

For us Scots this decision is vastly more important than how we elect our representatives. It's our whole entity, our way of life, our future in the world, which could be changed... in my opinion for the better; in the opinion of others for the worse.


I genuinely believe that the government will listen to what we have to say: how we feel about the actual question; whether there should be a second option; the design of the ballot; its clarity, possible bias (or lack thereof); what we feel about the extension of the electorate to include all adults in Scotland (rather than accept the English legal definition of adult), and the timetable allocated to the referendum by the government.


This consultation in and of itself is not the most important decision we will ever make, but it is part of a process that (apart from our very personal decisions) may well be.

DAVE SURELY DOESN'T THINK US LITTLE PEOPLE WOULD AVOID TAX?

HMCR chief Dave Hartnett (you remember him, don’t you?),  says that it is the public's duty not to pay tradesmen cash in hand, otherwise said tradesmen may be tempted (look away if you are of a sensitive disposition) to 'evade paying their fair share of tax.' (Shock, horror.)

And, if you do not act as tax collectors (unpaid), and they do "forget" to declare all their earnings, this might result in even deeper government cuts to public services. (More shock and horror!!)

Now, would this be the same Dave Hartnett who, having allowed himself to be bought, on over 100 occasions, incredibly expensive meals, arranged multi-billion pound tax avoidance schemes with the Goldman Sachs and Vodafone...who, by strange co-incidence, had picked up the tabs for these "fine dining experiences"?

And did this multi-billion pound drop in tax revenue not in some way result in the government having less money to spend?

Some people might be tempted to think  that Dave was saying that there was one rule for him, and one rule for the rest of us.

But we all know that none of our (the public) servants would ever do anything like that...

Olympics: Another Day, Another Laugh

Because the transport system in London is at breaking point anyway, without the additional 3 million journeys a day anticipated to be made by the 800,000 spectators and 55,000 competitors and officials and VIPs, the Olympics minister, Hugh Something or Other, and the English Department of Transport have decreed that Londoners should try to... "think creatively and adjust travelling patterns, try different routes, stagger journey times, work remotely, walk or cycle to work" during next summer to avoid hold-ups during the Olympics.


Erm, it's just a thought, but, when they were bidding for this expensive extravaganza, did no one in London, like maybe Mayor Ken Livingston, or in the Westminster government, maybe Minister Tessa Jowell, or in the Olympics organisation like the head blokey, Coe, ever give a thought to the fact that there were people in London who had to get to work, school, to airports, to railway stations.... Did it never occur to anyone at all that the transport system just couldn't cope?


And what half wit came up with this advice;


to "try alternative routes"? If you've been going to work at a certain place for a fair amount of time, the likelihood is that you have already worked out the best route for you. Why would you change it;

to "stagger journey times"? So, how would that work if you're a shop worker, or a doctor, or policeman, a teacher, a train driver, or indeed most employed in the majority of jobs?


to "work remotely"? Yeah that will work with a lot of jobs, won't it? "I'd like two coffees and a rock bun, please"..."Well could you pop out to Epping. That's where the waitress is."


to "walk or cycle to work"? What if it's raining? What if you have bad feet or have to spend all day walking about? In any case, are there THAT many people that live so close to central London that they could reasonably walk?


I see that there is to be a trial for civil servants working from home to see if all the computers and networks are in place. I wonder how much that is costing us, and what budget it is coming out of? And what do we do if we want to speak to a member of staff in one of the Whitehall Departments? Phone them at home?

Not only that, but it's the first of three trials which is to take place before the actual event! What are they planning for? Nuclear war?


Another complete foul up in a fouled up set of arrangements for a fouled up games, after which I have no doubt Jowell will go to the House of Lords and Coe will...well, what can we do with him..? Make him Queen?


*****


Talking of Olympics and Fiasco, have you ever heard of anything as completely daft as this? Isn't a rather weird thing to do to take a baby to an event where you can't guarantee, for example not to be in a draft, or direct sunlight, where there maybe a lot of noise, or where absolute silence may have to be observed? But if people insist on doing it, surely they can't be expected to pay for a seat for someone who is going to sleep on their knee throughout.


*****

COME DINE WITH US...

Sickened as I am by the quality of debate on the independence question, I have looked elsewhere for a subject to post on... and I didn't have to look far.


As each and every one of us "ordinary, decent, hard working families up and down the land" (don't they realise how patronising that is) cuts and trims their budgets, it appears that, despite calls for them to, and their promises that they will, cut the cost of bars and restaurants in Westminster, the subsidy we pay these 650 members has, according to the Telegraph, risen to an unbelievable £5.8 million. (£8,923.08 per person per year.) For every £10 an MP spends on lunch now, the public contributes £7.60; last year the sum was £6.90.

 The menus are mouth watering, I warn you in advance, so be prepared:

Artichoke and tomato salad with truffle dressing: £2.05;

Seared breast of pigeon with aubergine purée and spiced couscous: £4.15;

Spinach, ricotta and sundried tomato pizza with a rocket salad: £2.75;

Roasted half spring chicken with stuffing: £2.95;

Risotto of pea and broad bean with goat’s cheese: £2.40;

Char-grilled rib-eye steak with hand-cut chips and béarnaise sauce: £7.80;

Green tea and white chocolate brûlée: £2.05;

Cheese board: £3.10.

And Pugin Room bar prices include a glass of malt whisky, Cointreau liqueur or Grand Marnier: £2.55; Glasses of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc or 2010 Merlot: £2.35.

And at these prices, our brave representatives do a power of drinking. They spent £1.33 million in the last financial year in the bars (£2.046.15 each). Given the subsidy, imagine what that would have been in real prices. 

But Holyrood cannot claim much superiority here. The Edinburgh parliament restaurant was subsidised by £80,000 in the last year (£620 per member).

The meal prices are equally mind blowing with smoked salmon and beetroot lax with potato blini, herb cream cheese capers and spring onions at £1.40.

and seared salmon with herb crème fraiche potatoes, braised celery and soy cucumber relish a mere £4.80.

Any restaurant on the Royal Mile would laugh at these prices. And with bar prices at less than £3 for a malt whisky, the bar is being subsidised at around £130 per member.

On average MPs are paid around £66,000 and MSPs around £52,000 per annum. With average salaries around the £25,000 mark, no one could say that they are not reasonably well paid. Surely it is unnecessary for the public to subsidise their eating, and absolutely unnecessary to subsidise their drinking! Something to think about if we are really "all in it together".

However, the laugh of the week has to be our favourite nut job, the Sarah Palin of English politics, Nadine Dorries, who tweeted about the state of the Westminster restaurants:

"Mice running all over dining room..disgusting been that way for six years I have been here.*shudders* shld be paying us to eat here"

Erm, we are, you silly old sausage!

HA HA HA...

I'm sorry about another page of jokes. I'm up to my neck in work at the moment, but I promise a proper post soon!

*****

A guy has a talking dog. He takes it to a talent scout. 

"This dog can speak English," he claims to the unimpressed agent. 

The guy says to the dog, "What's on the top of a house?" "Roof!" the dog replies. 

"Oh, come on..." the talent agent responds. “All dogs go 'roof'." 

"No, wait," the guy says. 

He asks the dog, "What does sandpaper feel like?" "Rough!" the dog answers. 

The talent agent gives a condescending stare. He is losing his patience.

"No, hang on," the guy says. "This one will amaze you." 

He turns and asks the dog: "Who, in your opinion, was the greatest baseball player of all time?"

"Ruth!" barks the dog. 

And the talent scout, having seen enough, boots them out of his office onto the street.

The dog then turns to the guy and says, "Maybe I should said DiMaggio?"

*****

One day, a priest was walking through a forest, when he came upon a pond. On the pond was a lily-pad, and on the lily-pad was the saddest frog the priest had ever seen! 

"Dear frog" the priest asked, "what is the matter? Why are you so sad?" 

"Well," said the frog, "I was not always a frog." 

"Tell me more" said the priest. 

"One day, I was walking through these woods when I came upon a wicked witch. 'Stand aside witch' I said to her. But alas, she called me a nasty cheeky boy and turned me into a frog." 

"But that's terrible! Isn't there anything that can be done to reverse the spell?" asked the priest. 

"Well" said the frog, "if a kind person were to take me home for the night, feed me and put me to sleep on their pillow, I am sure I would wake up human again." 

"Well, this is your lucky day!" said the priest. 

So he took the frog home, fed him and put him to sleep on his pillow. And lo and behold, when he woke up the next morning, there was a 10 year old choir boy in his bed!

"And that, Your Honour, is the case for the Defence!"

BRAND NEW, FULL COLOUR TABLOID...SAME OLD BIAS

Today we get the first edition of the new tabloid-sized Dundee "Courier", which they euphemistically term “compact”. I would like to say that it’s a welcome, fresh and new face to the Scottish media scene but unfortunately, I can’t. The best I can do is say that it is shockingly partisan and riddled with mistakes. So no change there then!


I would have thought that it would be impossible for as paper as pro-Tory and pro-Union as the "Courier" to be more biased, but with its re-launch it has somehow managed it. 


Political Editor, David Clegg, launches the new paper with an interview with David Cameron, which is continued and fleshed out on page 10 under the headline “Leafy town key to fate of Union”. 

The leafy town in question is David Cameron’s constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire. What follows is one of the most pro-Union, pro-Tory puffs I have ever had the misfortune to waste ten minutes of my life on. You can just picture David Clegg simpering and drooling over the PM and failing to ask a single hard hitting question.


If DC Thomson wanted to increase the circulation of the "Courier", instead of tinkering with its format and rumoured price hike of a whopping 25% to 60p, a good way might have been to cater for the political aspirations of its potential readers. 


And that might have been indicated to them by observing the voting patterns of the folk in Dundee, Angus, Perth and Fife, which are most certainly not Conservative!

Instead DCT prefers to continue to frustrate them with this nauseating interview with the UK prime minister in which “Call Me” is allowed to expound the virtues of the Union and repeat ad nauseam that he “cares deeply” for it an that he “profoundly hopes” that people will vote for it.


Additionally, whilst in Witney, Mr Clegg conducted a vox pop of a supposed cross section of folk that he met. All, strangely, seem to agree with their leader. 


Clegg tells us that the majority of people he spoke to wanted Scotland to remain in the Union, which is a little odd considering that every poll conducted in England shows a majority for Scots leaving the Union. 


Is he trying to tell us that people in Witney in Oxfordshire are in inverse proportion to the rest of England? Or did he search out his respondents carefully before asking the question in an attempt to portray the English as dewy eyed lovers of all things Scots? (Instead of what they really think, which is mostly that Scots are a bunch of drunk, drug addicted, moaning spongers and subsidy junkies. 


Really, David (Clegg), if you are going to try that kind of thing, it might be a good idea to at least try to keep it within the bounds of reality and not in the most far flung realms of cloud cuckoo land where the sky is a bluer Tory blue and the birds sing out for England and St George.

Now on the paper itself. One would have expected that with the re-launch all the stops would have been pulled out to avoid the perennial "Courier" blunders. (For those of you who don’t read it, the "Courier" is hilariously badly proof read, in fact I don’t think it is proof read at all. Apart from the usual typos, repeat words, spelling mistakes and grammatical snafus, stories end, mid sentence, on a word like “and” with whole sections missing, and even worse, sometimes an entire story is repeated verbatim later in paper.) 


In the new paper I did not spot a mistake until page three, where we get the following “...Mr Hutchison said told the 'Courier'...”. Clearly Mr Hutchison at one point had 'said' something and later it was edited to him 'telling the Courier' but the word 'said' was left in. There are several more mistakes of a similar nature throughout the paper that are the result of sloppy editing and poor proof reading.


So all in all, not much change then... oh, except for the tabloid format and anticipated price hike of 25%.

LIGHTEN UP...IT'S THE WEEKEND

I'm sorry about the lack to postings over the last few days. I've been having some work done on the flat and it's involved a shed load of clearing up. I've now got a load of decorating to do. I hope in the meantime you enjoy these American funny stories...

A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline and his Personal Psychic Advisor tells him: "You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you."

The frog is thrilled, "This is great! Will I meet her at a party?" "No," says his Advisor, "in her biology class."

****

A sixteen year-old boy came home with a new Chevrolet Avalanche and his parents began to yell and scream, "Where did you get that truck???!!!"

He calmly told them, "I bought it today." 

"With what money?" demanded his parents.

"Well," said the boy, "this one cost me just fifteen dollars."

 So the parents began to yell even louder. "Who would sell a truck like that for fifteen dollars?" they said. 

"It was the lady up the street," said the boy. I don"t know her name - they just moved in. She saw me ride past on my bike and asked me if I wanted to buy a Chevrolet Avalanche for fifteen dollars." 

"Oh my Goodness!," moaned the mother, "she must be a child abuser. Who knows what she will do next? John, you go right up there and see what’s going on." So the boy’s father walked up the street to the house where the lady lived and found her out in the yard calmly planting petunias! 

He introduced himself as the father of the boy to whom she had sold a new Chevrolet Avalanche for fifteen dollars and demanded to know why she did it. 

"Well," she said, "this morning I got a phone call from my husband. (I thought he was on a business trip, but learned from a friend he had run off to Hawaii with his mistress and really doesn’t intend to come back).  He claimed he was stranded and needed cash, and asked me to sell his new Chevrolet Avalanche and send him the money.  So I did."

****

A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months,  yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day.

One day when he came to, he motioned for her to come nearer.
 
As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, 'You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times.

 When I got fired, you were there to support me.

 When my business failed, you were there.

 When I got shot, you were by my side.

 When we lost the house, you stayed right here.

 When my health started failing, you were still by my side...

 You know what Martha?'

 'What dear?' she gently asked, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth. 

 'I'm beginning to think you're bloody bad luck.... 

****

A tough looking group of bikers were riding when they saw a girl about to jump off a bridge, so they stopped.
The leader, a big burly man, gets off his bike and says, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to commit suicide," she says.

While he didn’t want to appear insensitive, he didn't want to miss an opportunity so he asked... "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?"

So she did... And it was a long, deep, lingering kiss.

After she's finished, the biker says, "Wow! That was the best kiss I have ever had! That's a real talent you are wasting. You could be famous. Why are you committing suicide?"

"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl"

****

This will choke you up... it really will.

We're in a recession (almost undoubtedly); everything costs more than we reckon we should spend; it's getting worse; unemployment is rising by the day and may reach 3 million; almost no one feels secure (except the chairman of Barclays who is heading for a £10 million bonus); the roads are dangerously full of potholes (drivers spend more time trying to dodge the worst ones instead of looking where they are going); Willie Hague has warned us he hasn't ruled out war in Iran (why not, it's Muslim, doesn't like us, and has a lot of oil); our sick are just about to be thrown on to a massive dole queue and ordered to find work that doesn't exist....

...But not to worry. Mr Gove, the House Elf who also doubles as England's Education Secretary (despite being Scottish), has the answer to all our woes. This will cheer us up no end, he reckons. Why not spend £60 million on a new yacht for the Queen?


Why not indeed, Mr Gove? It would cheer us all up immensely, especially those of us called Windsor and lord knows they have had it worse than most of us. They deserve a break..

What is this man doing in government? Does he have any idea what it's like down here on Earth?


What a silly little dip stick.

NO POLITICIANS, NO EXCEPTIONS, NO APOSTROPHES

It seems to me that some places in small town New Hampshire (is there any other kind of New Hampshire, I wonder) have it about right.

Danny sent me this picture a week or so ago when the first primary of the season was under way. 


Politicians, it seems, find it easier to get to people when they're out and about, rather than go knocking on doors. One of the best places to "nab" someone is a café or restaurant (which Americans use far more than we do), where the poor soul is captive until such time as he or she has managed to gulp his food and coffee and make a hasty exit. 


So much so that café owners have  got round to the idea that to attract more customers, even if it means shutting out the man who who might just be the next president, the best idea is to bar the politicos!

Not a bad idea really, is it? 


It occurred to me as I read the notice that America restaurateurs must be better schooled than our equivalents. Without a doubt we at best would have had: "No Politician's No Exception's"