Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Killer Xmas

I'm disappointed with Nicola Sturgeon.

Actually, I'm apoplectic at another unusually rare example of her less than common sense based thinking.

Why in the name of all that is holy at Xmas time have she, Mark Drakeford and the unholy alliance across in the northern tip of the island of Ireland agreed to go along with the edict of the populist buffoon that is Boris Johnson regarding mixed households for the Winterval period?

After an extended period of variously enforced and structured restraint, why for goodness sakes are we to let loose the virus into our own homes and exponentially the greater community?

One (1) fecked up Xmas versus a very long deadly January when the inevitable strikes home and cripples the SNHS. 

I hear the repeated argument, if you can call it that, that folk were not going to pay any attention to the rules anyway.  Well that has been well and truly countenanced now.  Conversely, I had absolutely no intention of relaxing my guard and would have hoped sensible compassionate citizens would have done likewise.  There is hope on the horizon with the vaccine.  That is the best present we could all have wished for.  

Patience seems to have been ditched for rapacious celebration.  Of what exactly?  Will many of you cast a second's thought about what Christmas is really about? 

I hear those saying criticising the sainted FM is unfair.  In my view this is her third failure in judgement on an otherwise faultless trajectory of suppression of the virus and the psychology of the masses.  There is time, on this occasion, to reverse this poor decision though.  Keep to the current restrictions until vaccines take effect and the individual regional Levels subside through adherence to FACTS.  For those wondering, her previous errors were the failure not to dismiss CMO Catherine Calderwood immediately, but more significant, and more relevant to the current decision, was the decision to enter into a UK wide approach at the outset and most notably with issues surrounding care homes.  Lessons clearly weren't learnt completely that there should not, quite rightly, be a one size fits all approach. 

And then we have Hogmanay...

Seasons greetings nonetheless. 
Ca cannie.
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BTW - Trident renewal is an anachronistic and abhorrent aberration. 

Saor Alba.

© McNoddy 
Published by Toy Town™ Times

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Today I will be mainly drinking...

I'm hoping my reader follows me on Bookface.  If they do, they will know I often post a wee selfie of my occasional tipple there with the heading as above. 

I'm told folk are amazed by my alcoholism varied choice of refreshment on offer for consideration.

To be fair, I am particularly lucky to live in a country now blessed with numerous craft ale producers.  Perhaps the biggest newbie of them all being the very local BrewDog.  Since well after I started this blog this company has mushroomed to the point that Toy Townhas no less than 3 outlets.  I've managed to drop in to do a bit of quality control at their Edinburgh Airport outlet and their city outlets in Berlin and Barcelona. Never disappointed.

However, my favourite Scots craft brewery are Williams Brothers.  From the early days in Tyndrum and heather ale, they now produce a number of stunners.  My personal favourite being the intriguingly named 7 giraffes.  

I'm also blessed to be in walking distance of the world's only adult sweetie shop based in a filling station.  If you haven't visited this place in person or virtually you are missing something special.  Did I mention it's not just beer in there.  There's a richt collieshangie of treats in store.

Something that struck me sampling ales has been the prominence, and in my own top five, of beers from across the pond.  In days of yore I had palpitations at the mention of the poor imitation that was Budweiser and other similar tainted water from Coors, Schlitz etc.  Two of my absolute favourites are Death by Coconut, by the Oskar Blues Company (Think Bounty Bar and stout mix - hold that thought.  It really is way better than even that!).  Then there's the incomparable concoction that is the 2018 brew of Dragon's Milk Banana Coconut.  It blows you away with so many notes you feel there is an orchestra playing in your gob.  If I ever get allowed to fly over to the USofA then I am making a beeline straight for Holland in Michigan to sample some, or preferably all, of the flavours in the Dragon's Den.  I'm also somewhat disheartened to hear that the makers of the above pictured tipple are out of business.  Not that I really wanted to go to Reno.

Whilst I am on it, so to speak, can I give an honourable mention to these three non-beer tipples.  Even Tesco sell them.  Lots of ice and a BBQ helps. 

1 - Crabbies Raspberry Ginger Beer
2 - Crabbies Rhubarb Ginger Beer
3 - Angioletti Italian Cider 

Tomorrow I will mainly be hanging a haveover.  Hic. 


BTW - Trident renewal is an anachronistic and abhorrent aberration. 

Saor Alba. 

© McNoddy
Published by Toy Town™ Times

Thursday, August 20, 2020

I left...

...but I'm back.

My reader may have noted my absence from this site lately.  Twitter seems to have captured folk's imagination, but there are times when its enforced brevity and the need to unroll lengthy threads just fails to reach the mark.  Sometimes you have things you need to get off your chest and rambling on suits a blog. You will not be disappointed in that respect!

My post's header is a signpost to something I did earlier this torrid year.  I used to exhort my reader to join the Scottish National Party.  I'd still ask you to vote for them as the only viable carriage on the independence train.  But endorsing each and every of their actions is beyond me now.  I feel the need to explain.

Firstly, and somewhat cackhandedly, the final straw for me was the Calderwood scandal.  I have very deep personal reasons to have found her actions baffling and inexcusable.  I also found our First Minister's initial support for her mindboggling and worrying in respect of decision making.  Let me say at this juncture that other than the understandable, but regrettable decision to participate in a four-nation approach to dealing with Covid-19 at the outset, her stewardship of the response to the crisis has been exemplary and rightly acknowledged.  It should be noted that I took an equally robust approach to the Cummings debacle and still do.  Not moving on and all that. 

Secondly, it became apparent that there is a seemingly growing and uncontrolled woke element in the party, who despite THEIR best intentions are doing immeasurable damage to the party and thus to the greater independence movement. 

I rarely, actually never, comment on gender issues.  Largely because it is structurally unsolvable.  I am at a loss to understand the desire to create fissures in the party and wider independence movement over what is essentially people being what they are, diverse.  I find the system of classification pointless.  You are either male or female and all that entails. Those who have made/making the undoubtedly difficult but desired medically approved trajectory to changing their sex should be accepted as the sex they feel they should be.  At the end of the day it makes them happy and in all other respects it has no direct effect on me.  They are the exception.  I have less understanding of those who feel they can call themselves something they clearly aren't, and even less for those that abuse that situation.  Just because you're spaced out it does not make you a Martian!

Then there was the much maligned sectarian laws.  A bùrach from start to finish.  I failed, whilst a Copper, to understand why this only applied at football matches, where its prevalence amongst those from the Central Belt was undoubted but in practical terms virtually impossible to Police.  I'm not saying it shouldn't have existed, but it should have been part of a wider society policy and formulated in realistic terms.   Conversely, those calling for its end rarely spoke in favour of it being widened to cover other archaic demonstrations of this tribal nonsense.  The SNP's dogged resistance to criticism in this area was poorly focussed.

Secrecy.  I sadly have to say that the SNP seem to be seriously hashing up things in this respect even if they have the best of intentions.  I'll say nowt further in great detail, but the inability to defend clearly and robustly what appear to the usual critics to be systems designed to obfuscate, delay and hinder reasonable interrogation of policy making is derisory and damaging.

I've more I'd like to say, but my reader is already reaching for their cocoa.  But I will have the last word.  Joanna Cherry?  What is she playing at?  Undoubtedly exceptionally capable.  But what possesses her to destabilise the current positive groundswell for Independence?  Nicola ain't perfect, as I've already suggested, but she's head and shoulders above all other politicians in this country and the wider UK State.  I say to her and her supporters, "Eye on the prize folks."  Once again the hierarchy of the Party seem unable to get a consensual approach to doing what matters to win Independence rather than petty personal power politics. 

Finally, I said this on Twitter.  I still hold to it, however marvellous our FM has been regarding the single most important issue of the day. 


BTW - Trident renewal is an anachronistic and abhorrent aberration. 
Saor Alba.

© McNoddy

Published by Toy Town™ Times

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Lie in the Sky


Sometimes the British media need called out for their collective lies.  Scotland needs to tell these shysters that we are no longer on our knees and that their allegations are well known to be false and manufactured. 

Not one word of truth uttered.  Just bile.

 




© McNoddy 
Published by Toy Town™ Times

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Bide at Hame

Two messages...




 




© McNoddy
Published by Toy Town™ Times