The latest topical insights from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman
As a communications specialist for a local authority, I know what it’s like to be called upon to clean up the mess left by an elected official whose talents might be, let’s say, less than starry. So I can’t help but feel for the poor overworked Tory spin doctoring team.
Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, has been in the news this week for claiming to have had a lovely chat with Marcus Rashford. Nothing wrong with that, you might think; but it has subsequently emerged that Williamson’s Zoom meeting was not with Rashford, but with Maro Itoje.
Now there are many points of difference between the two men. Itoje stands about a foot taller and five stone heavier than Rashford and plays a game that uses a differently shaped ball. But there are some similarities too. Both are keenly interested in social justice, both are black, and both are twice the man that Williamson will ever be.
Williamson never fails to amaze. The minister for education who can’t remember what his own qualifications are; he somehow manages to carve out new lows in a career already comprised entirely of lows. So low has he now gone he is locatable only with the use of cutting-edge geophysical equipment.
It can only be a matter of time before he becomes the first British politician to break through the Earth’s crust. But none of it is surprising.
Of course the man sacked as Defence Secretary for leaking State Secrets is going to fail to take responsibility. Of course the man who used to keep a tarantula in his office in a juvenile attempt to intimidate is going to giggle and shrug when a mortifying error is pointed out to him. When stand up comedians show more interest in atonement and apology than cabinet ministers you suspect you are living in strange times.
When the best news you have read this week is that Fray Bentos have introduced an all-day breakfast pie, you know it.
The Number 10 press team must be pining for the glory days of last week, when all they had to worry about was the fall of Kabul and Michael Gove doing the funky chicken.
View from the Midden, rural affairs with Jock Alexander
It’s been a bioaccumalative wik in the village. Though we hiv spent maist o’t plotting in fit proximity tae Skittery Willie confirms is the hettest September in 115 years, there hiv been ither issues wafting’ aboot on the breeze, wi’ the distinctive sweet aroma some may recognise fae student days or hinging aboot at een o yon pop festivals fit the young eens ging till.
I am spikken aboot the current trials being cerried oot by north-east fairmers fa hiv swapped cattle for cannabis. Or tae be mair exact, hemp.
A year syne only twa fairms in the hale country wis allowed tae grow the stuff, but noo there’s 10 in the north-east alane.
Noo dinna panic, we dinna expect tae see locals staggering aboot the place and spikken gibberish. Nae ony mair than usual onywye. This is a variety o’ cannabis fit disnae hae the stuff in it fit pits ye awa wi’ the fairies.
Richt noo it’s jist the seeds fit are being grown tae get hemp seed ile, fit can mak yer salad dressings ging wi a zing. But plans are afoot tae grow mair of the plunt, fit gies ye oil fae the leaves and fiber fae the stems, fit in turn gies ye paper, clothes, rope, building materials, and a’ sorts. They can even mak shoes fae it. I’m assuming ‘at’s fit they mean by high heels, ken? …Ach, suit yersels.
Mind you, it’s nae wi’oot it’s difficulties, there is still a stigma tae the plunt in question, and there’s a helluva lot o’ paperwork needed tae prove yer nae growing’ nithin dodgy. It his the distinctive spiky-leafed shape weel kent fae the posters on students’ wa’s and back street shoppies wi’ the Jamaican flag up ahin the til, so it’s best tae mak sure it’s in fields awa fae the main road so’s ye dinna have take keep shoo-in’ awa pests like aphids, craws, and folk fa look like Shaggy fae Scooby Do
Diversification is a’ important these days, though, agriculturally-spikkin, so I am considering haein a shottie masel. I jist need tae figure oot a wye tae stop my beef cattle fae munching’ on’t. That wid mean high steaks indeed! And efter a’, I dinna wint tae mak a hash o’t!
Cheerio!
Read more by The Flying Pigs:
- A pedestrianised Union Street is great for chucking out and chucking up time
- Vision and action needed to give us dark, foreboding Union Terrace Gardens of our youth
- The tyranny of souvenir shop workers has held Scotland in thrall for too long
