What next?

Two things 'they' never told us when the trams were being given parliamentary backing:

1. From today's Scotsman (here):

TWO of Edinburgh's busiest streets could be closed to cars under plans being considered by city leaders.
As part of the blueprint for the new trams network, it is understood that Shandwick Place would only be open to trams, taxis and buses, while Constitution Street in Leith would be used only by trams.

2. From last Saturday's Scotsman (here):

COUNCIL tax payers could be left to pay for a shortfall in funding for Edinburgh's tram scheme, the city's deputy leader claimed yesterday.
Steve Cardownie predicted a gap in the £45 million pledged by the council because of the lack of business contributions to the project.

Is there anything else we should know? I mean, before we get too deeply into this mess? And don't you think we might have been told before Parliament gave its final approval to the scheme?


Update:

My question is already answered. The Evening News reveals that what's next is that the city streetscapes are to be littered with 32 dirty great, bright red, freestanding ticket machines to dispense tram and bus tickets. As if our main city highways were not already sufficiently cluttered with street furniture.

I am beginning to get hacked off about the trams ...

There's a wee surprise ...

Does the following sentence seem familiar? It is taken from Alan Cochrane's article in today's Telegraph and concerns Jack McConnell.

But as he contemplates his future, and his golf swing, at his own particular Colombey les Deux Eglises - in this case the Isle of Arran - his party's cause isn't really being helped by the vacuum at the top.

Compare and contrast this extract from my post of two days ago on this blog:

The sense of drift while Mr McConnell contemplates his options and tampers with his golf swing at Lamlash-Les-Deux-Eglises becomes more palpable by the day.

Probably just a coincidence?

The footie season starts this weekend coming ...

The Evening News reports:

HEARTS have ended months of speculation over their managerial structure by appointing Anatoli Korobochka and Stephen Frail as the club's permanent coaching team.

Hearts' permanent coaching team? Now there's an oxymoron for you.

An irony-free zone

Do you ever wonder about the military mindset? I don't.

The BBC reports:

Nato is considering the use of smaller bombs in Afghanistan to try to curb the rising number of civilians killed during operations against the Taleban.
Commanders have also ordered troops to hold off attacking militants in some situations where civilians are at risk.

Oh well, that's all right then. I'll stop weeping.

Worse things happen at sea ...

Children all over the country are rejoicing at this report in The Scotsman:

THE floods that ravaged parts of England could also leave their mark on the Christmas dinner plate, a new report warns.
The trade magazine the Grocer says shortages in the wake of the recent floods could last until the end of the year with the British crop of brussels sprouts badly hit.
Torrential rain across much of the country has added to the woes of growers and threatened availability levels in supermarkets. Up to half of the UK's brussels sprout crop has been lost, fuelling fears of Christmas Day shortages, producers have warned.

Besides, if you have not already put the sprouts on the boil, you are probably too late for Christmas 2007.

Jack the pothead - allegedly

I find it difficult to become worked up about the association (as reported in The Sunday Herald) which Mr McConnell may or may not have had with a student guidebook advocating the merits of smoking cannabis while he was at Stirling University 27 years ago. We all did stupid things at university; that is one of the reasons that universities exist.

But we are now almost three months on from the elections. It is time that the Scottish Labour Party pulled itself together and decided who will lead it into the future. The sense of drift while Mr McConnell contemplates his options and tampers with his golf swing at Lamlash-Les-Deux-Eglises becomes more palpable by the day.

Like the encouragement formerly offered to some of the lesser (and occasionally the greater) footballing teams in this wonderful wee country of ours, my advice to Mr McConnell is straightforward:

Dae Sumthin!

The PM as Hugh Grant

Gordon's 'Love, Actually' moment here. Unfortunately, it's a fantasy. Shame, really.

More babies?

The Herald goes to town on the strength of a slight revival in the number of births last year:

Scotland's public services could face a major shake-up in health and education policies, increasing hospital and school provision after years of decline because of an unexpected baby boom across the nation.
Official figures released yesterday confirmed there were more births in Scotland last year than deaths, bringing the first rise in the nation's natural population for more than a decade.
The statistics dashed years of official doom-mongering that has prompted authorities - from NHS boards to councils - to plan for historic decline in numbers at everything from maternities to schools.
Now those same authorities are gearing up to cope with an increase in population thanks to a healthy birth rate and a continued influx of people from the rest of the UK and eastern Europe.

I wouldn't get too excited - yet - about this "new baby boom". The graph here shows that the 2006 figure of 55,690 births represents a welcome halt to the decline in birth numbers, even if it does not prove to be sustained in the longer term. But 55,690 is still well below the 65,000-70,000 achieved in the 1980s, as well as substantially below the 90,000 to 100,000 in the 1950s. In other words, the long term trend is still of decline.

I know that The Herald has to fill its newspaper but let us calm down, please.

Definitely not mince

I can only admire the poetic talent of Mr Eugenides. This is his wonderful valediction for Shambo:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy T-bone,
Silence the tambourines and with muffled drums
Bring out the burger buns, let the ketchup come.

Let cattle trucks circle moaning round the barn
Scribbling in the dirt the message, Shambo Is Dead,
Put mournful garlands round the white necks of the temple monks,
Let the government veterinarians wear black rubber gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My midweek sandwich and my Sunday lunch,
My stir-fry, my fillet, my stock, my chop;
I thought that leftovers would last for ever: I was wrong.

The barbeques are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the mustard and dismantle the grill;
Pour away the gravy and sweep up the wood.
For no meal now will ever be as good.

Great stuff!

The politics of physicality

Well, it's a theory, I suppose. The New Statesman embraces the idea that the Tories are -literally - carrying too much baggage:

One rising star of the party, still looking for a seat at the next election, says: "We are too fat and too rich and we look like we don't give a shit." There are even whispers within the party that Cameron himself is looking too chubby, despite all the cycling. "We don't look like we want it. We are quite literally not hungry enough," the source said. The same younger Tories have been forced to recognise the talent of Brown's phalanx of young lieutenants. Man for man, pound for pound, they say, the shadow cabinet is roughly five years older and half a stone heavier.

While more exercise would probably benefit the Tory shadow cabinet, it is unlikely to be enough. In any case, it is worth bearing in mind that the removal of Mr Prescott was bound to lead to a sharp decline in the average weight of the Labour cabinet. And it remains to be seen if the boy Milliband and wee Dougie are actually up to the jobs they have been allocated, regardless of their no doubt admirable physical condition.

Besides, a little - we are being generous here - excess avoirdupois does not seem to have done Mr Salmond any harm.

The demon booze

Here is the conclusion of a handwringing essay in The Guardian on the subject of booze:

The problem, I would argue, is not 24-hour drinking, much less the fact that lager companies sponsor football trophies and tennis tournaments. We could talk for hours about how we change what officialspeak terms "attitudes to drinking" and make very little progress. So, try this: booze is far too cheap, and the case for a tax hike, along with action on supermarket discounting, therefore seems pretty much unanswerable. But faced with a titanic alliance of retail giants, brewers and pub chains - not to mention an electorate drinking for Britain - would any government dare make a move?

Though this conclusion is rather undermined by the previous paragraph which admits that there is a problem even in those areas where cheap booze is not available.


The article entirely neglects the fact - well known to the Treasury - that a tax hike on booze merely increases the huge flow into the UK of significantly cheaper booze acquired legitimately or illegitimately on the continent. I don't know what the answer is to the problem of excessive drinking but I doubt if increasing tax by 7 pence on a pint of beer and by 70 pence on a bottle of spirits will make a significant difference.

Most unbelievable proposition of the week

... is offered by The Edinburgh Evening News:

THIERRY GATHEUSSI today revealed how Hibs' growing reputation in France for playing classy football convinced him Easter Road was the place for him.

Oh yeah. I just bet that the guys are sitting around in cafes, from Auxerre to Lyon to Marseille, sucking on their gauloises and saying "Vous savez, les Hibs, aujourd'hui ils jouent le foot d'un ton tres élevé".

As if.

Silly man

An unnecessarily vicious review by art critic Adrian Searle in The Guardian of the new Beryl Cook exhibition:

Beryl Cook: a homely, round name for a woman we imagine is also round and jolly and homely. Her art depresses me. I thought I would be able to summon some sort of enthusiasm for its Englishness, its playfulness, its sauciness. But I can't. The best that can be said is that Cook celebrates ordinariness - large women with large appetites, broad-shouldered men, hen parties, booze-ups, dances, dinners, shopping, sunbathing, a bit of slap and tickle. At least ordinariness in Cook's art is more various than one might think: the bloke next door is a shoe fetishist, and even Saga members like a bit of kinky sex. All the girls, and some of the boys, like a sailor. Cook's is an art without any pretentions other than to please.
...
I suppose the word for Cook's work is "affirmative". Another word would be "cliched": Cubans smoke cigars and drive wrecked 1950s cars. Argentinians like to tango. There are sleazy bars and prostitutes at the harbour end of the Ramblas in Barcelona. Cats like fish. Women sometimes get riotously drunk and bawdy. We know because Cook's paintings show us. We knew anyway, and so feel comforted in our view of the world. It is all as cloying as a cup of Ovaltine.

I don't know what Ms Cook has done to offend Mr Searle. Perhaps it is because, as well as being a great and original artist, she is popular. Or perhaps it is that the exhibition is in Gateshead, far from the usual metropolitan stamping ground.

Baaah!

What can you say? 'Thoughtful' sums it up:

PRINCE Charles surprised his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, with an unusual gift of two sheep as they celebrated her 60th birthday with a glitzy party.
Camilla is said to be "delighted" with the rare breed ram and ewe, which cost the heir to the throne about £300 each.
"The Royal Family have so much already that they don't actually give wildly extravagant presents," said a source close to Camilla. "Their gifts tend to be more thoughtful."

I may not have been the most 'thoughtful' husband in the world, but I rather doubt that my ex-wife would have welcomed the gift of two sheep.

Blowing smoke

If Scotland on Sunday is going to run scare stories, it would be helpful if they got the facts right. This nonsense for instance:

And just as worrying as the soaring production rates is the fact that the cannabis is today around seven times stronger than the era when many top politicians were smoking it.

Well, no, it's not. According to The Independent (here)

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which examined the issue 18 months ago, will be asked to do so again. It concluded in its report in December 2005 that the strength of cannabis resin (hash) had changed little over 30 years and was about 5 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Skunk, it found was 10 to 15 per cent THC - two to three times as strong...

There is something of a difference between seven times as strong and two to three times as strong.

Scotland on Sunday also produces this absurd non-sequitur:

DETECTIVES are shutting down at least one cannabis factory a week in their battle to contain an illegal industry created by reclassification of the drug.

So the introduction of cannabis factories was 'created' by the reclassification of the drug. Any evidence for this statement? Does anyone believe that a reverse of reclassification would wipe out cannabis factories?

Drugs are a serious problem in society. It does nobody any good for newspapers to get over-excited.

The narrative truth

Quote of the day - Matthew Parris:

Satan might nip back to Tory HQ to advise the new leader on how best to make the change, be the change. And what he most assuredly does not say is: “Here’s a nifty stunt: fly to Rwanda and make like you’re doing NGO stuff with some starving Africans. Voters will think you care, ha-ha.”
He says: “Look, David, you do care. But you need to show it or you’ll never be prime minister and put your principles into action. We both know – and for Pete’s sake, the voters know – that a few days in Rwanda surrounded by cameras can’t achieve useful fieldwork; but your visit works on deeper levels. It’s a metaphor, David. It says ‘I care’; it says ‘Tories care’; it says ‘the issue matters’. It says ‘The Conservative Party has changed’. It’s the narrative, David, and the moral of the story is true, even if the story itself is a bit . . . er, constructed.

Constructed? It's a stunt. And there is no moral to the story.

Am I bovvered?

Hey, it's no big deal. The Guardian reports:

There are blogs that are popular, with thousands of hits every day; there are plenty more that are not so hot, lucky to get 10 page views a week. Then there is Xu Jinglei's blog, which can pull in visitors at a rate of more than 100 every second.
The Chinese actor-director has been declared the world's most widely read blogger, with more than 100m page views in less than two years.

But I bet she doesn't write about Scottish politics.

I should reach 100m page views in about 2324 ...

Playing games

It's all a bit pointless. The Guardian reports:

Russia yesterday expelled four British diplomats and banned its officials from travelling to the UK in a move denounced as "completely unjustifiable" by Britain.
In a tit-for-tat response over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Russia's foreign ministry announced that four UK diplomats had been declared persona non grata. They had 10 days to leave, it said.

Which achieves? Well, nothing really. Does anybody win in this game of tit for tat? Childish ...

My confession

So, the Home Secretary once smoked cannabis.

I have to confess that I have not. It's not a question of morality. It's just that, when I was at university in the late 1960s, I didn't move in the right circles. Well, OK, I was a wee swot. And the opportunity never came my way.

But it doesn't mean that I am a bad person. Does it?

Anthing goes - or maybe not

I sometimes wonder if the attractions of modern life are on the wane. The Independent reports:

In olden days, according to Cole Porter, a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something shocking. Today, however, the garment's main shock value seems to reside in its rarity rather than its ability to titillate.
A new report has suggested that when it comes to a choice of legwear ­ in public at least ­anything other than stockings goes.
The slide of the stocking, which has been under attack since the invention of the pantyhose in 1959, is part of a more general trend, it was claimed. According to the market analyst Mintel, total UK hosiery sales slipped last year to £272m ­ down from £319m in 2002. But stocking sales were worst hit, plummeting 50 per cent ­ from £10m in 2002 to £5m last year, making up just 2 per cent of all hosiery sales.
Once the epitome of big screen glamour, immortalised by movie sirens such as Anne Bancroft as the carnivorous Mrs Robinson in The Graduate, modern generations consider stockings to be quite simply inconvenient.
Younger women it seems are more likely to buy hold-ups or footless tights ...

Not sure that I know what 'hold-ups' are - which probably defines my ignorance of young women today.