Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman
As a public servant – albeit one of low grade and low salary, filling in the long, drab hours between lunch breaks at Tony Macaroni’s by propping up the mouldering edifice that is an underfunded local government – it is always interesting to see how other public servants do their job.
But the recent dispatches on this topic from America have been more interesting than most. Essentially they suggest that in the White House, many consider their job to be to obstruct and baffle the president by nicking important papers off his desk and basically preventing him setting the world on fire.
That public officials should feel they have to act in this way in order to protect us from the temper and folly of the most powerful man in the free world is terrifying. That they should have publicly admitted it is an absolute nightmare, because now elected officials here have read the piece, and sussed that I use the same tricks.
So I am now getting all sorts of awkward questions.
“Where’s my expenses claim for taking the Provost of Bulawayo to Club Tropicana?” (shredded); “Where’s that executive order I asked for, declaring war on the SFA for not rescinding Mikey Devlin’s red card? (down the back of a radiator); “Where’s my bag of award-winning Ross’s Premnay butteries?” (eaten).
Fortunately, like an ageing bulldog they are easily distracted by treats. So if you think the council’s decision-making is bad just now, just hope and pray that the John Menzies in the St Nicholas Centre never runs out of peanut M&Ms.
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit whose reds never got rescinded
My regulatory readers will know that Old Kenny has got a beer in his bonnet when it comes to the SFA beaks what handles disco plenary matters. But this week they’ve hut a new low.
I was at Pittodrie on Saturday, enjoying some corpulent hospitality, so I seen Mikey Devlin getting his jotters with the whites of my own eyes. When I seen it, I immediately says to my pal Dunter Duncan, I says “that’s never a red”, but the whistler inextricably sent the lad for the first use of the soap. I also watched the Old Firm game on the telly on Sunday, and I seen Alan McGregor sticking the boot into some lad like it was a dust up in a Weatherspoon’s carpark. Yet the ref’s kept his cards close to his chest by leaving them firmly in his pocket.
Well, my gust was well and truly flubbered when the SFA review panel decided McGregor had done nothing wrong but Devlin’s red card should stand. It made me wonder what on Earth goes on in those meetings, and if all the guide dogs get along with each other.
Why could the men in suits not have been as rubbish as that when I was playing? McGregor booted that lad in front of 60,000 fans and 10 TV cameras and got away with it. But I got my collar felt when I lamped that nwee nyaff of a winger from Rothes at Harlaw Park in front 25 people and a Westie. Harsh.
There was something to cheer in Scottish Football this week though, when the ladies’ team pulled off a stormer against the Albinos to qualify for the World Cup in 2019!
I always wondered when I’d next get to see the national side on the biggest stage, and I certainly never thought they’d all have long hair when it happened! If he takes his man-bun out, Stevie May might get a call up!
View From The Midden, with Jock Alexander of Meiklewartle Television
It’s an unimpeded wikend here in the village. Like Aberdeen, we are haein’ a special ‘Doors Open’ day here in Meiklewartle.
In the big city, placies like courts, theatres and churches allow free access to great muckle crowds of nosy fowk wi’ nithin better tae dae than tae come trachling inaboot, and Meiklewartle‘s Doors Open Day is nae different. Weel, it’s a bittie different as we hinna made the mistake of nae charging folk money. It’s quite an event, as there is an abundance o’ interesting buildings tae look at, and we mak a special effort tae dial doon wir usual levels of inabootcomer hostility fae ‘aggressive’ tae ‘surly’.
Ab’dy has entered into the spirit of the thing. Skittery Wullie’s piggery is likely tae be the biggest money spinner o’ the day as, though we’re nae charging folk tae ginig in, we div tak a cash donation tae let them oot. Wullie has thrown wide the doors for the first time in living memory, which has been a revelation tae ab’dy, (especially the Food Standards Agency) and a literal breath of fresh air for the pigs.
Feel Moira’s doors are open an a’. Of course, technically, they’re ayewiz open, on account of the fact that her hoose hisnae hid ony doors since she taen them aff tae build the Wickerman back in 1968. Coincidentally, also the last year ony’b’dy in the village got a visit fae the Taxman.
Cheerio!
