Stupid

I woke up this morning, dear reader, and got out of bed from the wrong side. With my first footfall, I scowled, tutted and sighed.

I was beginning the day in a world where Carole or Gerry are the likely evictees in tonight's Big Brother. Why I let such trivia upset me or even register in my mind is sometimes baffling (to me and to others) though I face facts and accept that Big Brother does seem to play a large rôle in my life during the Summer months.

But why?

Perhaps because my life is so shallow and empty. I don't know. And the only antidote to that is to engross myself in the lives of other people. People who will, whether they want to or not, let me in. Few do.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how Brian is the favourite to win and the twins are second favourite. After the racism debacle in the Big Brother house at the beginning of the year and the perpetrator's fall from grace, I thought we UK citizens had lost our appetite to watch and our admiration for the stupid.

Brian has no concept of who or what Shakespeare is.

The twins do not know how to spell taxes, who their Prime Minister is and describe the world as pink. Do UK universities not include a spelling test in their endevours to sort the wheat from the chaf? If not, shouldn't they?

Ingnorance and stupidity are not the same thing, but they are common bedfellows. Not knowing how to spell or how many UK PMs there have been since Robert Walpole became the first in 1721 is ignorance and could be blamed on any number of contributing factors. But lacking any understanding of who's in charge of the country is an example of pure stupidity, exposing a lack of interest in anything above the puerile.

Yes, the twins (Sam and Amanda) are kind, polite and inoffensive but with their vanilla harmlessness, they display themselves as empty vessels, bereft of opinion. Air-head idiots.

I'm reminded, here, of a similar numpty. Fiona Hyslop is our Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. When I lived in Armadale, I was blessed with her as one of my regional MSPs and wrote to her about the same sex marriage/partnership/civil union debate. Twice. Did she bother to reply? Did she hell. And when, perturbed by being ignored, I contacted her office, I was told she held no opinion on the matter.

Aye, right.

No opinion, my arse. She held an opinion, I'm sure. She just didn't want to share it. With anyone. Which is worrying. If she didn't have an opinion, she should have come to one. An MSP without an opinion is like a Christmas dinner without turkey. She should have an opinion, an opinion on her constituents, their lives and the things that affect them.

But, really, what else should one expect from a ridiculous party like the SNP headed by a sly old dog like Alex Salmond? The man who can be blamed for an unprecedented number of spoiled ballot papers in a Scottish election by asserting that one of the choices was for First Minister. Yes. The SNP box was daubed with Alex Salmond for First Minister. Any idiot knows that in a parliamentary democracy, by vote or convention, the leader of the largest party is elected to the post by their fellows in the chamber and appointed by the monarch. The electorate at large do not elect him or her. But obviously, Alex Salmond did take us for fools. And perhaps we were in splattering his box with our mark.

Having said that, perhaps Scotland will soon wake from its lunacy. Salmond's honeymoon is over. Wendy Alexander (the hottie Douglas' sister) is coming to rock our First Minister's dingy. She'll not sink to his vulgar level. She will not fool the electorate, she will not lie and she will not come across as an arrogant and fat pig. And she'll have plenty of ammunition:

Whilst earmarking twenty two schools for closure, our illustrious SNP/Lib Dem council is spending God only knows how much money on refreshing its logo. How strange for the SNP to put themselves before the education of Edinburgh's children. Who'd have thought it?

Edinburgh Council workers vote to strike in a bid to stop their masters from implementing a programme of cuts. To me, that means losing education staff, home helps and social workers.

Alex Salmond's national conversation on the dissolution of the union is not only a waste of money, but propaganda at the nation's expense. He should remember that he has no moral majority. Only forty seven out of the one hundred and twenty nine seats in the Scottish Parliament (ONLY one more than Scottish Labour) and opinion polls suggest the mood of the country is not for independence at all.

Salmond's been calling for broadcasting to be an issue devolved from Westminster to Holyrood. It's obvious why. Not only does Mr Salmond want to get his grubby mitts on the issue, but also on the power that goes with it. Mr Salmond is not satisfied with the title of First Minister. He also wants to see the word Editor on his door.

You see, dear reader, similarities between that infamous Channel 4 programme and Alex Salmond are profound. We adore the stupid and Alex's desperate to be a Scottish Big Brother.

Scary, isn't it!

He who sups with the devil should use a long spoon. Sadly, no spoon is long enough, in my opinion, for the poor people who have to work with our current First Minister, though, thankfully, no political party in the parliament will agree to work with him. He doesn't care, himself, with whom he sups.

The SNP's election victory was paid for by Brian Souter and should have been a taster for things to come.

So yes, I'm scared.

No Jew would have voted for a political party in the pay of Adolf Hitler and I could never bring myself to vote for a party in the pay of a vulgar wee homophobe, but I am scared to see that so many people in Scotland did. Again, similarities are frightening. The Nazi Party, too, were a homophobic body. Contrary to popular belief, they, just like the SNP were not brought to power by war or a coup d'état, but by the electorate. They made homosexuals stateless. The SNP want to make me a foreigner in my own country.

What a bunch of cunts.

I'm still scowling. Even a breakfast of cheesecake and rooibos has, alarmingly, had no impact on my mood.

Suggestions are, as always, more than welcome.