If there is one thread running through all the wacky political plot lines playing out in London just now it is this: a fundamental misunderstanding of Scotland.
It was the moment I had been dreading.
Dad is crouching down about a metre from the television, his fists poised to punch the air.
Each summer I have a little list of things I’d love to do, and this year it’s to take the sleeper from England to Scotland, stay in a castle and visit a car show.
Stealing handbags from grannies in their 60s is a shocking crime, but easy money for greedy opportunists.
Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman
View From the Midden – rural affairs with Jock Alexander
The BBC lucked out with the scheduling of their documentary series about Margaret Thatcher
Love or loathe Boris Johnson, the fact is this Marmite politician is now the firm favourite to replace Theresa May after the Tory party's European election drubbing at the hands of Nigel Farage.
J Fergus Lamont, arts critic and author of Highway To Helensburgh – On The Road With The Singing Kettle
“World progress needs entrepreneurs,” said legendary investor Sir John Templeton, succinctly encapsulating the essence and purpose of capitalism.
Mrs X has always loved the Eurovision Song Contest, from the days when you could win by just having an easy-to-remember name like Lulu or Dana or Dana International.
Polling must be the one industry where practitioners consistently fail to do their jobs properly, and yet customers queue up to throw more money at them.
I am now a has-been. I have become an “ex”.
Highland League champions Cove Rangers can look forward to life in the SPFL next season after demolishing Berwick Rangers 7-0 over two legs in the pyramid play-off final.
I only ever dipped into The Jeremy Kyle Show by accident, but I always felt a mixture of morbid fascination – as you do when passing a road crash – and an uneasy feeling about its mix of stage-managed misery and character assassination.
Davinia Smythe-Barratt, ordinary mum
The First Minister has declared a global climate emergency. The evidence is irrefutable and the science is compelling. People are clear, they expect action and the world needs to act now, not least for future generations.
May is fast turning into another busy month on the farm, at school and on the home front.
It is always so disconcerting to see a man get on in life when his shoe size is bigger than his IQ.
I was at the Scottish Ramblers Gathering in Melrose last week which is an annual three-day celebration of social walking. That is, walking in a group.
Last week some friends came north to Scotland for a break. They stayed in a bed and breakfast where the highlight for them was the “full Scottish breakfast”.
As the wedding party slipped into the second day, folk were losing their grip on sanity.Twenty-four hours of drinking and dancing and talk had left people’s minds at a midnight setting.
When Nicola Sturgeon stood up at the SNP conference and declared a “climate emergency”, she was met with an enthusiastic response from her supporters.
The other day I commanded Mrs X to make me one of my favourite meals – meatballs Italian-style.
One of my favourite stories as a child was LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
Government reforms of off-payroll working rules (known as IR35) are forcing many contractors operating personal service companies to review their options when it comes to covering the most basic need of all – protection*.
View From The Midden – rural affairs with Jock Alexander
It seems hardly a week goes by without agriculture, and especially modern livestock farming, being attacked in the media for causing climate change, biodiversity loss and destroying the environment.
Scotland has got it right when it comes to “smart” motorways – there aren’t many of them. Just one, in fact, on a small section of the M90.
View from The Midden – Rural Affairs with Jock Alexander
There is a new and pernicious form of social exclusion in the UK today – that is, people like me who haven’t seen a single second of Game of Thrones.