Salt n Vinegar

I keep hearing that Brexit is "done". Presumably this is one of those "except for viewers in Northern Ireland" situations?

Just as well it's only from the waist up. If it was full sized, some weirdos would never leave the house . Too far?

I think I'll spend part of the sycophancy festival watching "Stranger Things" on Netflix, the old and new episodes. There can't be many "stranger things" than sane folk in the 21st century going off their collective trolley over an unelected head of state whose only claim to the role is the order in which they and their siblings were the biological outcomes of their parents' "bonking". Meanwhile, at a food bank...

Cost of living crisis? What cost of living crisis? Clearly the "some folk have more money than sense" notion still applies... "From street parties to collectables, the nation is set spend millions on royal memorabilia to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee." (source - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61594319) Folk who have money for that garbage ought to donate their new financial support to food banks or similar organisations, IMO. They can't honestly claim that they need it.

Memo to those of a Tory mindset... sometimes, taking money from business and the taxes paid by the general population and using it to help folk who are struggling is a good thing. The Chancer of the Exchequer seems to be getting praise for that wee outbreak of something that could be described as socialism. Also, although I can't say I'm enjoying paying higher energy costs, at present we are not exactly starving. For those who are already working full-time and whose outgoings were already at or near their total income it might not be particularly helpful to talk about personal responsibility in the face of food and energy inflation. In hard times, folk cut back, that's pretty clear, but it's harder to cut back on food and energy use if these are the household's major outgoings.

I think the American comedian George Carlin put it quite well... “Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!” Fair summary, IMO.

Nope, I was going to games at Ibrox with my dad well before I was 12. Being an atheist made me realise that the whole Ireland, Masons, Sash, "National" (actually, Royalty) Anthem, stuff so beloved by some of the fans, is so utterly ridiculous. Trust me, it IS possible to be a Rangers fan without all that nonsense. On the shootings in America, I saw on the news that there have been the usual "thoughts and prayers" gatherings. I suppose holding these events is easier than actually DOING something.

Labour voters in Edinburgh must be delighted to reunite with the other cheek of the arse. "Labour in Edinburgh - helping Tory councillors into office when the voters voted for eight fewer of them."

It's remarkable, isn't it? My Dad was an Elder in the church. I've never killed anyone despite the fact that I stopped going to Sunday School when I was about 12 or thereby when I realised that it was horseshit. Failure to be religious doesn't appear to have turned me into a raging psycho. I have no idea how reliable the stats are, but one report I found this morning gives the percentage of the US prison population that were atheists. It was estimated in a USA Today 2014 report to be between 0.07% and 0.2%. (article at https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/25/atheists-prison-outreach/4797469/) Maybe what the USA needs is a bit less churchgoing and a bit more rationality.

We can beat around the bush as much as we like, but it's not a terribly hard situation to explain. Every election presents voters with a shopping list of policies and ideas. For elections going back years, voters have looked at the 2 main parties' offerings and decided that they will return a majority of senators whose policies and ideas oppose gun control. The grim, tragic truth is that America has the gun laws its people appear to want, or at least don't oppose strongly enough to make them decide to change how they vote. The answer is in their hands at every election. It is hard for me not to get angry about the gun situation in the US. I have a nephew who lives in Austin. He has a primary school age kid.

Give it a go, I say. Will nobody think of the children? As a society we must do all we can to help our precious youth avoid such wicked influences!

I might humorously suggest that "it would be worth a try" but some git would probably accuse me of initiating violence, so I won't. Ooops.

Be nice if it was true, but unfortunately each shareholder doesn't receive £1.5bn. My next dividend will be about £35 which won't even make a dent in one month's increased Direct Debit. I know you'll be gutted for me, but I thought I ought to set the record straight.

Maybe some bright journalist could ask the bleedin' obvious questions. During lockdown, was everyone in the country who left a job entitled to have a leaving do at their place of work and would their colleagues be fully justified in attending? Would everyone who did have to work in their offices, shops, factories etc have been entitled to attend a drinks session every Friday afternoon at 4.00pm? The Prime Minister appears to think that attending staff leaving event is ok - part of the job - and the senior staff apparently thought that weekly bevvy sessions were fine too. Well, if they were ok in Downing Street, they would surely have been fine everywhere else.

If that had been a video of a partygate event, the slimy b@stard would have claimed if was a Star Wars themed musical exercise session to help the hard working staff maintain excellent physical fitness during their hard working efforts, working hard to deliver vaccines in a very hard working manner.

At least Thatcher had an ideology. BoJo's only ideology is BoJo.

Indeed so, an indication of him taking things very very very seriously.

You would have hoped that all these expensively-educated politicians and civil servants would have realised that maybe something wasn't right, when the jannie was shaking his head at them. Maybe the jannie should be PM.

"No, no, it wasn't a party... Errr, emmm, it was a panel pulled together to errrr emmm select refreshments and nibbles for future governmental hospitality events... Aye, that's it, see - it was a work event." - "Party" Spokesperson Anne Norma Smith.

Looking forward to the next wad of BoJo social gathering photos. What about the timing though. For top banter value, maybe 10.45am on Wednesday, to give him an hour and a quarter to prepare for PMQs?

Ah, nice to see the old classic rear its head "Britannia waves the rules".

Doesn't wash his hands after going to the lavvy? Who knows... I mean, you can't even see the germs, can you? All this health advice... Huh!

Nice to see someone trying to give Scottish football a lift and the stats are interesting. Equally, we can't really ignore the timescale issue. After all, if you only look at bare numbers, the team behind Celtic (40) and Rangers (34) in the number of Scottish Cup wins is Queen's Park (10). I don't think that's much of a guide to future performance. Having said that, I have no problem bringing out positive stories about our game. For the national side, we'll know soon enough - in the FIFA rankings we are at 39, Ukraine are at 27 and if we get to Wales, they are at 18. Get through these and the national side ranking will improve. For club sides, setting aside the tribalism and rivalry for 5 minutes, it would be brilliant to see more sides do well in European competitions next season.

Boris probably doesn't think any of these things were social gatherings because at his type of social gatherings he expects pole dancers and/or a pig's head. Maybe the blurred out faces belong to the "entertainment"?

Which players do folk think it wouldn't be a disaster to lose in the transfer window, and who is a "must keep, ffs!"?