IN this month of our energy apocalypse an assortment of right-wing voices are prescribing exotic means of avoiding death this winter without stiffing the energy companies.
My favourite of the year so far comes from the people behind the reactionary right-wing blogger, Effie Deans who makes Douglas Ross look sound like Arthur Scargill.
“If people in Scotland could live in crannogs and brochs without heating we can all live without central heating,” Deans recently declared. The new UK Chancellor Kami-Kwasi Kwarteng is now believed to be looking closely at this idea.
I feel though, that we all ought to explore this concept further. I’d be in favour of regional heats based on old television game-shows like It’s a Knockout and Supermarket Sweep and combine them with something more modern like the Hunger Games.
Villages and towns in the UK’s most impoverished areas could nominate teams of young champions to represent them in increasingly dangerous challenges to win a month’s supply of gas and electricity for the neighbourhood. Squads of older citizens could participate in national heats of Supermarket Sweep for healthy and sustainable supplies of comestibles for their local communities.
And, as the working-classes are always banging on about class unity and taking united action, let’s see them put their money where their mouths are.
We’re all being warned that martial law may need to be imposed as the winter bites and tempers become somewhat frayed.
I’d be in favour of a don’t-pay-everyone-pays approach favoured by the Sheriff of Nottingham in 11th century England. Thus, if anyone defaults on their energy payments the entire street has to go without for a month and we can get to blame it all on the gypsies and the Roma, helped by the Times and the Daily Express.
BRITAIN’S permanently prodded and endangered bird species are also trying to come to terms with the consequences of the pandemic. Sadly, their problems are the reverse of ours.
While humankind was restricted to all but the most necessary of travel the birds and lots of other of our most kenspeckle wild beasties were all having parties.
Many of them had been waiting for these carefree days of Covid freedom for many years.
For the first time that many of them could remember they weren’t being accosted by bearded conservationists in their brown cagoules as they tried to sleep or get jiggy together in dwellings specifically built to keep Landward and Nature Watch presenters out.
Now, the Covid party’s over for our wild creatures and normality has returned. Last week it was a family of poor Scottish Goshawks getting cameras shoved up their beaks. There the chicks were waiting patiently on their parents to bring back the dinner. Next thing, some old fool is scaling their tree and poking his nose camera right into their wee faces. Then he grabs a couple of them and sticks them in a holdall before zipping it up.
We’re told it’s for the “conservation” of the species. But at what price?
We’re all expected to take this on trust, but is there no concern for these creatures’ mental health. No one will convince me that these grand birds don’t suffer a degree of trauma at Farquhar and Penelope invading their home, kidnapping them and then sticking them in places where the sun don’t shine. Even if it’s just for a little while. It’s not normal.
NEWS from the niche magazines. This month’s Classic Rock carries an interview with Blackie Lawless, frontman of W.A.S.P., the brilliant-but-mental heavy shock rockers.
Lawless is a reformed character these days and has now renounced songs like Animal (F**k Like a Beast). His interviewer displays a high tolerance threshold for what he considers “mature”, saluting Lawless for “wrong-footing his critics with 1989’s grown-up, shock-free The Headless Children.
It has a certain something to it. And it can’t be worse than The Kidnapped Goshawks.
MANY current and former staff at The Herald were saddened to learn of the death of Alison Brady, the long-time and much loved personal assistant to several editors.
You learned not to take any liberties with Alison, but her kindness touched many colleagues. Once, not long after I’d joined the paper as a relatively inexperienced executive I unwisely opted to intercept a call to Alison’s phone while she was on her lunch-break.
The call, from an irate reader, rapidly turned sour. Profanities were traded in a heated exchange before Alison appeared and called a halt by telling me: “Kevin McKenna! You must never speak to our readers in that way, no matter what the provocation.”
Duly chastened, I retreated into my office. The following day there were flowers on my desk and a card which read: “… but thank you for standing up for us.”
Alison will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved her.
