Dear First Minister. I feel your pain. Those stiletto heels.
Uh! You must have calf muscles like a Scottish country dancer. But never mind that.
The current turmoil as you cope – some might say successfully, on occasion – with the Covid crisis would be too taxing for the toughest of politicians.
Winter will soon be upon us – it’s already a bit nippy up here in Aberdeen – and the thought of an increasing number of us catching the dreaded virus is deeply worrying.
I have as much interest in going to the boozer as having my ear wax removed by Nurse Ratched at my GP surgery, though please don’t tell her I call her that.
It is pleasing, however, that you have delayed the curfew until tomorrow night, offering the virus plenty of opportunity to spread before last orders are called up and down the land and drinkers have to say farewell to their favourite barmaid.
Who’d have thought we would return to a 10pm closing time for a bar, especially as we had been so successful in guiding our nation’s drinkers towards the sophistication of consuming gallons of bevvy until the wee small hours without becoming blootered and then viewing the back of an ambulance from a lying position.
The guys in A&E like this reduction in weekend attendees.
And, since my desire to eat out waned many years ago when over-priced burgers and pizzas became the principal inhabitants of the menus of many eateries, the closure of a restaurant at 10pm has me coming over all ambivalent.
It is also completely sensible to ban people from visiting other homes, although you, First Minister, have wisely discounted tradesmen as people. You say, for example, that my plumber can enter my casa to fix my boiler, in between long spells on his mobile phone of course.
So, if I can’t welcome friends from other households to sample a few bottles of Gilfeather IPA, I can at least meet them down the pub.
That’s what you’re saying, Ms Sturgeon. Isn’t it?
As long as we’re out by 10 o’clock, of course.
Who will be first to get off their knee?
Several weeks ago in this column I called for an end to footballers “taking the knee” before games.
The gesture, part of the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, may have been appropriate for a period, but its influence has passed.
Now Les Ferdinand, pictured above, once an exceptional centre forward and currently director of football at Queen’s Park Rangers, reckons its message is lost and that it’s time it was phased out, which is why his club will stop it.
Before the kick-off at the Premiership game between Aberdeen and Motherwell at Pittodrie on Sunday, players “took the knee” for all of eight seconds, pictured right.
I timed it, then I wondered: Why bother?
With “Clap for Carers” – remember that? – biting the dust a while back, we wait and wonder which Scottish club will be first to opt out of the mass genuflection.
Callous outlook, even for a politician
Angus Robertson, a former MP now bidding to become an MSP, appears to have a death wish, though not for himself.
Robertson mentioned that with a plethora of 16-year-old independence supporters being added to the electorate and No voters ready to snuff it, it was a net gain for the SNP’s bid for “freeeedom”.
What kind of person thinks in such a cold, calculating and callous way?
A politician of course.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.
