Scottish Roundup

I still haven’t decided whether this is the first non-political roundup or simply the return of it. Whatever, welcome along and I hope you enjoy what you read and find some good posts that would have otherwise escaped your attention.

By the way, I’m looking for a better name for this thing. ‘Non-political roundup’ doesn’t cut it for me — so if you have any ideas for the name of this roundup then get suggesting in the comments!

It is August which means it’s festival time in Edinburgh. Mr Eugenides does his best to avoid the shenanigans. But Alan Sharp has done the opposite and writes about his experiences entering a stand-up comedy competition. Rather him than me.

Meanwhile, rhythmaning reviews the Steve Reich Evening. Sounds like it was great!

The other event that is rather dominant at the moment is the Olympics. In the wake of Michael Phelps’s enormous medals haul, Scott at Love and Garbage reckons he’s come up with the perfect way to rake in the medals — multiple darts events.

Inchy took a while to get into the spirit for the games, but he got there in the end. Gordon McLean is much more enthusiastic about the Olympics.

In other sport news, Alex Massie considers an historic occasion — Scotland playing the auld enemy in cricket for the first time ever. In the event though, the one-day international was disrupted too much by rain and was abandoned as a draw, which Colin Campbell predicted. I suppose Scotland should be happy with that result. As Colin notes: “Better an honourable rain assisted draw than a shellacking I say.”

Meanwhile, Big Rab defends penalty shoot-outs in football — though I wonder if he would have defended them had Dumbarton lost!

Mike Smith reflects on his school days and concludes that they were not the best days of his life. Mr Farty has fonder memories of his youth, but is not so sure it would be as good if he was young today.

Alanna considers a subject that is probably close to many of our hearts — broadband prices. Meanwhile, Robert Sharp faced a bit of an interrogation when he tried to leave TalkTalk. And Peter at Naked Blog had trouble trying to deal with Virgin.

Mr H lets it all out about the various kinds of people you find in bus shelters. Things don’t get much better when he gets on the bus because he also wants smokers banned from buses. 1st Lady has some observations of her own about buses.

Andrew Learmonth has an amusing post about giving up smoking, and seeing a naked lady in the flat opposite his.

Misssy M reflects on her days as a professional Southern Belle! She reckons that floating around this world somewhere there are around 900 photographs of her wearing a smelly green dress. Personally, I don’t think I’d want to be reminded of the experience, but she seems to want to find some of the photographs.

Big Rab has a bee in his bonnet about funny crisp flavours — and it’s all Thatcher’s fault apparently!

Jaggy had a pretty bad experience as one of those “customers”. He had trouble dealing with the used car salesman (a classic).

Ewan Spence looks at Last.fm to see who should have won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Lism bemoans the state of music at the moment, particularly all of the “landfill indie” sloshing around at the moment. She concludes that there is much better music coming out of North America at the moment.

Cameron McEwan did not like Mamma Mia. I wasn’t going to see it anyway, but at least Cameron’s review made me smile.

Jack Deighton [full disclosure: he's my dad!] liked Wall·E a bit more.

1st Lady notes that, despite all the roadworks in Edinburgh at the moment, there are still some fine views.

Finally Woken looks at that most human of traits — being unable to admit when we are wrong.

Cat has spotted a trend that she doesn’t like. Anyone else seen a lot of lovebites recently?

As a nightowl myself, I recognise what Jacq Kelly says about walking through the city at night time.

Dilligaf received an invitation that he couldn’t fail to refuse. Meanwhile, Groanin’ Jock has found some more Chinglish.

Noddy brings us a guessing game. I won’t give it away..

Craig at Craigblog notes the irony of newspapers writing about Peaches Geldof’s desperate attempts to get into the papers.

Mr Farty developed his own twist on the phonetic alphabet.

Finally, Anas has an exclusive: an interview with the pigeon in his kitchen.

So that’s it, the first non-political roundup. Hope you enjoyed it. I have to say, big thanks to Misssy M who provided me with so many great suggestions. I really enjoyed discovering some new blogs. Some of the posts have made me chuckle in an otherwise crappy week so far! Hope you have all enjoyed reading the roundup as well.

The next non-political roundup (GAH! — must get a better name for this) will be on 17 September. It was due to be written by Jacq Kelly from Salt n Sauce, but going by the information in this post that might not be happening. So I’ll see if I can arrange someone else to do it.

In the meantime, please do nominate any great posts or blogs that you know of either by using the easy form on the right of the page, or by emailing scottishroundup@gmail.com. Thanks!

Hi folks! Once again we’ve proven that there is no such thing as a silly season. August is in full swing and this week there’s been plenty for bloggers to get their teeth into.

We start in Fife, where the death of John MacDougall MP from a long illness could have massive implications for UK politics. Anseo begins, by distilling the reactions to MacDougall’s passing. But already, attention is turning to the now-forthcoming Glenrothes By-Election, and already, mud is being thrown. Scottish Unionist accuses the SNP of preparing for this poll before the late MP had even died, a claim attacked by ASWaS. And Scottish Tory Boy takes a look at some of the potential Labour candidates.

Meanwhile, View from North Britain raises some procedural points that are worth bearing in mind, there’s a post over at Political Betting on the timing of the poll, Jack Deighton considers a few tidbits of political history and Stephen Glenn looks at the Westminster picture in the Kingdom. And Adopted Domain considers some of the policy issues that may come into play.

Elsewhere, the Labour Leadership contest is in full swing, and on the whole, the blogosphere doesn’t seem to be overly impressed. Holyrood Watcher is dismayed that the candidates are all of a mind to junk the Council Tax without actually appearing to know what they’d put in its place. Calum Cashley is exasperated at Andy Kerr’s suggestion that Labour is the “natural party” for Scotland. Cyber Nat is amused that few people seem to know who the candidates are, while at Ideas of Civilisation, there’s a look at the bickering between Labour MPs and MSPs over who should call the shots. What would Voltaire have said about Scotland, if he’d been around to see that?

On the procedural aspects of the contest, Scottish Tory Boy doesn’t like the Electoral College system, while Kez produces a handy explanation of the realities behind the supportive nomination system.

And of course, there’s also the Deputy Leadership contest between Bill Butler and Johann Lamont - Scottish Tory Boy takes a look.

Meanwhile, the LibDems are filling their vacancy too: Calum Cashley takes a look at speculation that the next Leader might just be keeping the seat warm for a certain Mr. C. Kennedy, while Ross Finnie supporter Caron reviews the Leadership Hustings that took place in Dunfermline.

Still, one Leadership election has concluded: with John Mason heading to Westminster, there was contest to replace him as Leader of the SNP on Glasgow City Council, and David McDonald reports on the outcome: a clear win for James Dornan. David goes on to trail the upcoming Baillieston By-Election.

Elsewhere, Jeff thinks that Alex Salmond might want to consider staying on as MP for Banff & Buchan beyond 2010.

And an opinion poll by YouGov appears to put the SNP in a strong position: Anthony Wells and ASWaS take a look, while Jeff has spotted that on a performance like the one forecast, all three of the Labour Leadership contenders could find themselves out of Holyrood in 2011.

And the result prompts Jeff to ask if the SNP ought to seek some sort of arrangement with the Greens for the Regional Vote, and idea that Two Doctors promotes. This discussion gets an analysis going atIdeas of Civilisation about the rise and fall of smaller parties since 1999.

Meanwhile, much of the focus has been on the Caucasus, with Georgia moving into South Ossetia to put down an uprising, and Russia moving into Georgia in reply. Niall is cynical about the conflict, in a post broadly echoed by Robert Sharp who suggests that it’s not so easy to pick out who’s “right” and “wrong” in the conflict. In another post, he looks at the patchwork of nationalities in the area, while Malc in the Burgh compares the situation in South Ossetia with the recent history of Kosovo, and notes the double standards at work. Ewan Watt is just relieved that Georgia wasn’t admitted into NATO.

Across the Atlantic now, and with the US Election just two and a half months away, Ewan takes a look at who the Vice-Presidential candidates could be, while Alex Massie takes a look at Obama’s latest attack ad on John McCain.

Oh, and there’s also the small matter of the Beijing Olympics. Gordon McLean is enthralled, Mr. Eugenides is appalled that a display in the Opening Ceremony designed to celebrate China’s ethnic diversity featured people from only one of many ethnicities in the country, while Michael Greenwell is baffled that the BBC should remember Deng Xiaoping more for presiding over a resurgence of table tennis in China, than for presiding over the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Back closer to home, there’s stunned reaction at Ideas of Civilisation and Better Oot Than In to the Policy Exchange’s plan to treat the North of England as some form of post-apocalyptic wasteland and allow anyone north of Birmingham with a bit of cash to flee to the South. They must have carried out their research in Chorley. However, Boxthejack reckons that there are some good points in the report.

Meanwhile, the NHS gets a look-in: IoC looks at the story of a dead patient being left in a hospital bed all day, while Julie McAnulty wonders if Vale of Leven Hospital is being left to wither on the vine.

Richard Havers calls into question Gordon Brown’s success as an author, while Shuggy is stunned that Brown’s latest book is being attacked by the SNP for identity politics.

Bishop Hill’s post on studies into climate change is worth a read, but not for the faint of heart or the short of time.

Alasdair is glad that he doesn’t get his news from CBBC Newsround. So are we, I suppose.

Stephen Glenn takes Tom Harris MP to task for his attack on PR.

Richard Havers takes a look at how wind turbines aren’t necessarily great news for the Scottish economy.

Alasdair looks at the decreasing relevance of Westminster.

Two Doctors launches an attack on the CyberNats.

Cabalamat is in favour of eugenics.

Anastasia Beaumont-Bott has a thoughtful post about how rape is dealt with in the justice system, following the overturning of a decision to cut a rape victim’s compensation on the grounds that she was drunk.

From Clairwil we have a tale that could go in an ITV documentary called “When Junkets Go Wrong”!

And finally, Duncan discusses being a contrarian, and concludes that it’s dangerous for everyone to agree. He’s right, you know.

That’s your lot for this week. Suggestions can, as always, be e-mailed to us, or you can fill out the snazzydoodah on the right. Duncan’s here on Wednesday with the first in our new series of non-political Roundups, and he’s back on Sunday with our 100th Roundup Special. But from me, it’s bye-de-bye!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s roundup!

I simply have to start with Clairwil’s mammoth but excellent post on the subject of poverty and education. Well worth a read.

SNP councillor Jahangir Hanif was suspended by his party this week after the Evening Times published photographs of him firing a Kalashnikov while holidaying in Pakistan. Boxologies failed to see what the fuss was about. Jeff Breslin also felt that the SNP overreacted by suspending Councillor Hanif. But Labour MP Tom Harris was not so sympathetic towards Councillor Hanif’s plight.

Ideas of Civilisation drew a parallel with Mike Watson and noted that such incidents will hit all political parties from time to time.

Louise thinks the only foolish and inappropriate thing that’s happened is the SNP’s decision to suspend him. But for Jim Millar, “Councillor Kalashnikov’s” actions demonstrated a shocking lack of judgement.

Mr Smith puts the blame on the electoral reform for diminishing the calibre of Scotland’s councillors and says he should be forced to resign by the SNP.

It looks as though the SNP are making moves to try and get the support of the Liberal Democrats by making their local income tax proposals more palatable. Here is the Lib Dem take from Lib Dem Voice.

This all happens at a time when Vince Cable appears to be moving the federal party away from LIT. Here is James from Two Doctors with his take on it all.

Meanwhile, Adopted Domain wonders if the SNP would be better off adopting Land Value Tax (as well as considering the SNP’s stances on oil and trams). But ASWAS is not so keen on LVT. Jeff looks at how the numbers add up in Parliament.

Just in case last week’s stooshie over the Saltire appearing on trains wasn’t enough for you, this week a new flag controversy has emerged. The bridge between the two issues is provided by Alasdair.

Jamie Hepburn spotted that the Saltire will be banned from the Beijing Olympics as a result of the Beijing ‘House Rules’ which ban all flags that do not represent an Olympic member.

Scottish Unionist wasn’t too surprised that the SNP latched on to this, but nonetheless felt that the IOC rule is too rigid. Malc in the Burgh is no fan of the rule either. Stephen Glenn pointed out the myriad of different flags he has competed under.

But Political Dissuasion thought it was “one for the CyberNats to go over-the-top on”.

Meanwhile, Anseo has spotted that Scottish Labour leadership candidate Iain Gray is also apparently trying to brainwash people into favouring independence!

While we’re on the Scottish Labour leadership campaign, does Andy Kerr really think that it is the worst job in Scotland as North Britain noticed?

Councillor Ewan Aitken has stood up and said what everyone outside the Labour Party has already realised — they need to face up to the reality and be prepared to change.

Will Patterson asks, where are the websites of the leadership candidates for Labour and the Lib Dems?

David Farrer saw Gordon Brown at the Edinburgh Book Festival. He noted that the PM appears to be much more comfortable and better looking than he is on television!

Over at Open Democracy, David from Britology Watch wonders if the whole of Britain ought to have a say in any referendum on Scottish independence.

North Britain and Alex Massie consider the current state of affairs in South Ossetia. Meanwhile, Cabalamat rounds up commentary on South Ossetia from the blogosphere as a whole.

This week a lecturer suggested that common misspellings should be accepted. Neither Colin Campbell nor Ideas of Civilisation were impressed.

Mr Eugenides did not like what he heard from Michael Gove on the subject of Nuts And / Or Zoo Magazine.

Finally, it’s sad to see another blog shutting down, but it’s time to say goodbye to Alastair’s Heart Monitor.

That’s your lot for this week. Will Patterson is in the hot seat next week, so get those nominations in! You can use the box on the right, or the email address as always which is scottishroundup@gmail.com. Don’t forget that in a couple of weeks we’ll have the first non-political roundup, so if any non-political posts have caught your eye then do please let us know so that they can be included!