Nessie on Scottish Independence


The vote's drawing near.
It's 2014.
Yes, no or mibbe?
Ah'm still in between.

Taking o'er the news,
Morning an' night,
Are opinions an' views
That ne'er seem right.

Economic deliberations:
Wit have they planned?
And wit does it matter
When ye don't live on land.

Industry an' jobs
An' gas fae the sea,
But naw wan single
Mention o' me.

In ma wee little loch,
Ah've been aw left behind.
How am ah meant
Tae make up ma mind?

But, Salmond an' Sturgeon.
They've heard ma wish:
We've got politicians
That are named after fish!

The vote's drawing near.
It's 2014.
Yes, no or mibbe?
Ah'm still in between.

Ah'll go off on holiday,
Down tae some lake.
Leave the decision behind me
An' doubt in ma wake.

Stop the Press

MAN DOES NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Central Glasgow was rife with absolute normality yesterday after an unidentified man — who can't be identified for unidentifiable reasons — proceeded to go about his daily business with complete unremarkableness.

As ever, our journalistic instinct as sophisticated as the adverts we cram into every spare inch of our paper, we leaped tactfully onto the case and amassed all those gory details that you readers just LOVE to soak up in all their size-72-font resplendence.

In a wholly unprecedented chain of events, nothing unprecedented happened whatsoever. The unidentified man — whose unidentifiableness we previously identified as unidentifiable, and who will now be referred to as Mr. U. — proceeded about his daily business, acting it out with such realistic regularity that one might be led to believe that there actually was nothing scandalous going on at all — therein lies the scandal.

We spoke to a certain Ms Wallace, shopkeeper of thirty five years:

Aye, he comes in tae ma shop every mairning - a'ways five minits 'fore nine, wi'oot fail - an' buys nae much... A pockit of crisps fur the mairning munchies ah spose. Yesterday was nae different, the day was nae different an' the morra'll be the same. I'm naw wan fur gettin' friendly wi' ma customers but come oan: the only thing ah ever say tae him describes a quantity of change in the region of fifty pee. Wance it was sixty, yous shid be daeing a story oan that—

[And if that's not enough to satisfy your insatiable apetite for worthless gossip, you can read the rest of the interview online.]

After pouring over more hours of CCTV than there are episodes of Taggart we were forced to come to the scandalously unexciting conclusion that in fact, yes, a single man in the whole of the second biggest city in Scotland leads a life less eventful than a re-airing of an episode of Taggart.

They Two Wee Dots



Ah prefer words.

Ah just want tae write.

Naw symbols or fancy:

They’re a load of pure—


Wit tae use?

It’s gi’n me grief.

Ah cannae choose

Twixt sans an’ serif.


A hyphen or a dash:

Wit’s the difference?

Och, ah’ll just dae a slash.

Punctuation’s a hindrance.


Wit can ah dae

Tae finish ma clause?

A : a ; a - a... Eh?

Sae many ways of creatin’ a pause.


Ah can cope with the basics:

Italics an’ bold.

But wit are Asciis

an’ wit’s aw this code.


Full stops only.

Short and sweet.

Anything but

an’ ah’m pure beat.


Adapt they keyboards. That’s wit ah need.

Get rid of the rubbish.

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm

Is fine fur me.

Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll - Weedgified Edition

Pure brillig, an' they slithy toves

Did aw o' nae much in the wabe:

Aw mehmsy were they borogoves,

An' the mome ra's ootgrabe.



"Ken aye the Jabberwock, laddie!

They jaws tha' bite, they claws tha' catch!

Ken aye yer Jubjub bird, an' shun

Yer frumious Bandersnatch!"

An' tak'is vorpal piece tae haund:

Lang time the manxome foe he socht --

rested he by the Tumtum tree an' aw,

An' stan't awheel in thocht.

An', a' in uffish thocht he stan't,

The Jabberwock, wi' eyes o' flame,

Came hai-tearing thro' the tulgey wid,

An' burbled as it came!

Wan, tae! Wan, tae! An' thro' an' thro'

The vorpal piece gaed pure mental!

He leeft it deid, and wi' its heid

He gaed galumphing back.

"And, ha' ye killt the Jabberwock?

Come to ma arms, ma beamish bairn!

Aw frabjous day! An' aw! An' ay!"

He chortled in 'is seil.


Pure brillig, an' they slithy toves

Did aw o' nae much in the wabe:

Aw mehmsy were they borogoves,

An' the mome ra's ootgrabe.




Big cheers gae tae the man himseel, Lewis Carroll. Sairie fur ruining yer poem an' aw mate.

Post-it™ Notes: What They Really Are

 



I've had it. I'm at breaking point. Why do people continually insist on a Post-it™ as the only medium for taking a quick note? Why anyone would consider such lurid™ and pathetically small squares of paper™ to be suitable as a vessel for anything - coffee cup and externalised moment of epiphanic thought alike - I just don't know.


Look, if you're Einstein and you've just come up with your theory of relativity and the only nearby fibrous and two-dimensional object suitable for channeling your intellect into the real world is a Post-it™ stack then by all means go for it: quantify and explain all of time and space on a single Post-it™. (As long as it's not a pink one™: it's perfectly acceptable to blind the world with your genius, but Post-it™ colour is an entirely different matter.)


You're Einstein. You're pretty smart. Explaining all of time and space on a single Post-it™ is all very well and good, but I'd gladly bet all the stationery in my house that you can't explain the relevance of a certain aforementioned vivid abomination™ in our universe.


Note taking, to-do lists and scribbled calculations are all great things to use a piece of paper for, but when anything is written on a Post-it™ it seems to lose all meaning; overpowered by a field of undiluted fashion fad™ that emanates from the ghastly core™ of matter: brighter than a thousand suns™, and more dense too.


Writing on a Post-it™ condones extreme brevity. Unless you're the sort of person who wears a monocle and writes with a pen that has a nib manufactured from a single strand of spider silk, they're just not suited to sentence writing. Skipping punctuation, using bullet points, condensing complicated thoughts into a single word followed by etc™, et cetera: people nowadays will jump at any opportunity to save time and increase productivity, even if it means the death of language™:


Ah well, no sad loss. Better schedule a meeting etc next week just in case.


Why is it that a product which is meant to be all about increasing productivity does exactly the opposite. I shudder to think of how many work-hours have been wasted in schools and workplaces by people contorting their hands and cricking their necks as they lean over those dreaded plinths™ and attempt to inscribe™. Unless you're nearing the end of a block - and I'm astonished if you are - to avoid covering up the writing surface you somehow have to hover your hand above the paper and then chase it round the table with pen strokes. Even the most gifted writer with flawlessly flowing copperplate will be forced to sacrifice joined up writing™ and go back to finger spaces™.


Trying to write something on a Post-it™ note is so infuriating that, even if I had attempted it in the first place, I'd soon give up and buy a proper notepad™ instead.


There are so many better alternatives out there. Alternatives that don't fall off the edge of a computer monitor at the merest suggestion of sticking them there; that you can look at directly without eye protection and that, most importantly, you can carry around to your hearts content without ever being introduced to strangers as Joseph and His Technicolour Post-it notes™.


If you really don’t want to waste your money™ just get a scrap of paper™ and stick it up with a piece of sellotape™.