GlasGAY 2008

A rainbow over the streets of Glasgow

I am pretty gutted that due to a rehearsal tomorrow I am missing this year's gay pride rally and march. I am sure it will be to the mutual relief and forgiveness of the gay community to know that I am in fact missing it because of a rehearsal for a musical. Seriously. And if we can't trigger social, cultural and political change through the median of musical dramatics then how can can we?

I did find it mildly amusing to learn that this year Glasgow and Edinburgh are holding their rallies seperately, due to a feud between the two coasts' organisers... (Now I'm not saying anything, but I bet the popular Republican fundraising annual Texas beard and moustache competition doesn't have to put up with that kind of shit...)

*I jest I jest*

But I do think it's a shame they're not doing it together. Seriously!

So for all you wanting to stand up and speak out with pride and with I am sure a few laughs and good music, they will be meeting...

BLYSTHWOOD SQUARE

Glasgow

11.30 am

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will be a guest speaker

Have a great time everybody!

And the winner is...

YES!

The good people of the blogosphere have spoken, and by a knife- edge win have sent the message that it is healthy that Scotland's political debate is of nothing other than independence.

I love polls. Thank you to all 22 people who took part. 54% of you voted yes, with 45% voting no.

I of course win either way.

- Either people vote 'no' and then I write about how unhealthy it is and how the people don't want it

- Or you, as you did, vote 'yes' and I write an article about how biased this proves the blogosphere to be.

This is obviously means I have to write the second one, but I'll not waste your time...

***Insert rant here***

Are you a man of God, Mr Salmond?

It seems strange that despite his increasing popularity and his infinite praise for not only his party but himself, we know very little about our First Minister.

While we know that he likes curry, enjoys racing and playing golf, we are yet to find out what his substantial political opinions are. The USA (always good for examples on how NOT to run a country) has issues such as abortion, the death penalty and same sex marriage make up a crucial part of its political debate.

The politics of its society balances out with the sociology of its politics.

But anyway, Mr Salmond has kept his mouth very shut over these crucial issues. I pray that our political arena doesn't become about the above issues (but then again I would never have believed it would become just about independence). However, we know very little about a man who claims to understand us as Scots so much.

Tony Blair, David Cameron, along with half the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet have been expected to answer to calls of if they've smoked marijuana, if they believe it's OK that some kids have two mummies or two daddies and have had to answer to calls for killers and if those who stole Maddie should be hanged.

But it is not only his views which have been unquestioned by the public- his policies have as well.

Following an FOI request, 5 out of 23 local authorities have made direct cuts to services dedicated to reducing suicide, despite the fact that 800 Scots took their own lives last year, and that that figure is on the increase.

From 2001-2007, investment into support services managed to steadily reduce the suicide rate year on year, in contrast to the SNP, who have cut funding for suicide prevention by a third to NHS Highland, who has one of the highest suicide rates in the UK.

Are you a man of God, Mr Salmond? Because this political game you're playing has a real effect on other people's lives.

I couldn't tell you one thing about the person 'Alex Salmond', but I think there are parts of him I am getting to know too well.

Birthday Boy

This is me enjoying my birthday surprise

Well, that's it, I'm no longer a teenager. It's official. 20 years old today. I do however wish to thank Jacq, who phoned me to wish me a happy birthday this morning, and mentioned that according to the EU I still have 6 more years of being considered a 'young person', which was to my private relief.

I remember consoling a friend whose boyfriend had dumped her over msn (classy, eh...?) the previous evening, when she said to me, "I just never would have believed a 19 year old could regret so much". She was talking about herself that night, but I never forgot what she said, because however people see the youth of today, some of the problems young people face, and the emotions of which they have to deal with, are just as bitter and harsh as anyone else's.

As young as I know I am inside, I can't help but feel that I've learnt a fair bit in my time on this earth, and so I thought I would share some of it with you.

20 Things I've Learnt in the Last 20 Years

1) Your mother is always right

2) Anything goes with vodka

3) Except milk

4) Going out 9 nights in a row makes you feel dodgy

5) If it's how you feel, then it can't be wrong

6) If you're in love with your stunning girlfriend, don't chuck her for someone who resembles a horse

7) If you're really tired and hungover in the morning, still try your best to remember to put on your pants

8) Don't get too involved with politics

9) If you ever go to an organ recital, bring a book

10) If you've gone through life being really talented at the thing you love, for God's sake just do it at uni

11) Social work makes really simple things really complicated

12) Try to keep romances with flatmates to a minimum

13) Any drink can be fizzed in a soda stream

14) Except milk

15) If you think people are wrong, speak up, because they probably are

16) The kind of people who complain about things complain about anything, so what's the point.

17) If you're good at a subject, take it, and don't set yourself a challenge in something you're not good at. You don't get anymore UCAS points

18) Elvis really is the king

19) Don't buy a tux on the way to a club

20) Bad things in life are OK, because without the darkness, we would never see the stars

SNP Running on Oil

I wouldn't build an entire country's economy on one commodity which fluctuates as much as oil, and nor on which would I choose my government.

After much consideration and also a bit of wishful thinking from my good self, I have come to the conclusion that Labour worrying about the next election is the last thing we should be doing.

I took the liberty of looking up some stats on the SNP's success in recent years. Obviously the most recent breakthrough in the polls has been the fact that voting intentions indicated an SNP lead over Labour (YouGov for Daily Telegraph, 33% to 29%). While it was rather... emm.... 'annoying'... it also did just remind me how short term polls can be. Labour were of course ahead in Scottish Westminster voting intentions a year ago (YouGov for Sunday Times, 40% to 31%), and we had strong long-term sustainable policies which weren't as 'headline grabbing'. They were tougher and less glamorous, and were not strategically put in place to serve another purpose.

This boom and potential bust of the polls made me feel this was symbolic of the politics each party represents.

SNP= like a pop song- catchy, cheap and cheerful. Like your sister's Spice Girls CD you listen to when she's not in. (Or is that just me...?)

Labour= we actually built schools and hospitals. It wasn't as catchy and took longer, but we did it because we didn't just have one political aim. Social justice is like walking around the world- you never come to the end, even if you have to go back to the beginning.

The polls are up for the SNP, but their politics is like the commodity they talk too much about- oil. It is finite and is completely unsustainable. I wouldn't rest a whole economy on any one thing as unstable as oil, in the same way I wouldn't leave a pop song on repeat, even if it's good to listen to once in a while.

Yesterday my friend Carla had a moan to me about no schools being rebuilt.

The political stagnation we're living in will catch up with the SNP sooner or later. The boom and bust politics will make way for a renewed Labour Party of stability and growth.

I just pray that day comes before a referendum on independence.

Social Work Don't Work for Me

I have promised a good friend of mine (and an even better friend of my good friend Pies, if you know what I mean...) that I would blog about something I went through life never knowing enough about. "Everything" I hear you cry? Well, no, just social work.

I was, like we all were, a person who left school wanting to get stuck right into the very heart of people, and the very heart of society. I had always loved working with vulnerable people, and studying social work at university seemed like a good idea at the time. The truth was, and continues to be, that I always wanted to study music, but I was told that as a singer my voice wasn't mature enough. Well, now I can hardly sing a note without it hurting, and I haven't performed for 2 years. I would have thought that social work required more maturity.

It's quite remarkable how little attention social work and care gets by governments and the press. Whatever happens to the NHS or the slightest change in the routine of our schools manages to grasp the public's attention, but as with most things, and sadly more so over the last year of SNP cuts, the most vulnerable people within our society have been cleared to make way for the middle-class masses.

It didn't take long for me to realise that I was very small for the world of social work. On placement I would sit in a secure room facing a drug addicted father with an illegitimate child who couldn't afford the bus fare home, and I was the one, I, that public school 18 year old boy from Edinburgh, who had to pretend I understood his situation, and that I could in some way represent him in the path that lay ahead.

One of the things that angers me so much about nationalism, is that I feel it has adopted our public debate, when the real line of politics lies between charity or justice.

Conservatives believe that acts of good will are to made on a charitable basis, while Labour believe that acts of ensuring people have health care, equal opportunities and representation are acts of justice.

Maybe the reasons I chose social work were too selfish. I thought I would be good at it would see the light in dark situations, but I never did, because so often there was no light or goodness to be seen.

Society is sometimes like me at the gym- I spend a lot of time on the weights and machines that I'm good at because it makes me feel good and that I am achieving, when actually I should be training on the machines which I find hardest, because that makes me stronger. Maybe social work for me was just too hard a machine.

I think our country needs to turn its head an awkward angle, and start to pay attention to the world of social work and front line care.

Salmond Sits Out

Linda Fabiani was the last hope at filling the seat from a Scottish Minister, but she declined hours before the curtains parted

The opening of the International Edinburgh Festival at the Usher Hall, the Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, was all set to be an outstanding event, with millions of pounds worth of tickets for the Festival having been sold in advance.

However, the Director of the Festival, Jonathan Milne, received a cancellation from an important guest so late that he couldn't find a replacement, despite desperate last-minute calls to other Scottish Cabinet members. First Minister Salmond, whose seat lay empty for the show which featured the RSNO, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and musicians and actors from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, apparently called Mr Milne late on Thursday afternoon, with no notable excuse, despite appearances from Cabinet member Des Browne and ex Lord Provost Lesley Hinds among others.

Among some of the more senior guests, Salmond's absence was described as "shocking".

This seemed to go against Salmond's claim to love Scottish arts and culture, and raises questions over his enthusiasm for Scottish events which are not purely his own.

His lack of presence certainly didn't stop the other guests from having a good night, and as long as we don't have to see him in a leotard and tights then I think I'll be OK...

The Politics of Politics

The Trojan Horse was given as a gift from the Greeks to the city of Troy, but it was full of Greek soldiers who invaded the city, and is known as one of the worst tales of deception of all time

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of politics there is within life itself. Far from the narrow corridors of claustrophobic Holyrood, and the often inward looking people who breed within them, lies a world engulfed in more depth in its politics than any parliament could ever hold.

The recent news of the SNP government giving an additional £190 000 to an organisation set up and run by an SNP candidate and former researcher to Salmond, in addition to the £210 000 given to them in March, didn't really come to me as a surprise.

People talk of conspiracy and lying, and while they are absolutely true, I can't help myself but avoid using those terms, because labelling people in those ways almost gives them too much credibility. It makes people think there must be great minds behind the political machine that they are, when actually that's wrong, because the party, from the supporters to the Councillors and MSPs, clearly don't have that great minds behind them, because if they did then they wouldn't support independence. Or maybe I'm mistaken, because according to them not all of them do support independence, right...?

There are so many times the Labour Party criticise the SNP for nothing other than the sake of conflict, and I don't believe we should be doing that, because it discredits the times we complain with real validity, like now.

If you cry foul every time somebody says something you don't agree with, or further than that, says something that you don't want other people to like, then it takes the pack out of the punch you throw when things really are wrong and you do find yourself on the side of justice.

Let's see the defence of the SNP, shall we?

-It's George Foulkes wasting more taxpayers' money.

(I'll blog some of the fabulous motions the SNP put round the Parliament if you want to see them, and then they can argue who wastes tax payers' money)

-Another cheap attack by Labour??

That's about it.

This one, I think folkes, is justified. Fuelling your own interest groups is an absolute disgrace.

One Muslim SNP supporter said, "The Government should be supporting many other organisations who are also vying for the Government's attention... People are very upset about it."

I think this proves why the SNP can't be trusted. They exist for no other reason than the cause of independence, and it is becoming increasingly clear that they will do anything to get it.

The politics of politics is more pathetic than the SNP's existence itself, and I am so sorry that the Labour Party has allowed this to be the centre of Scotland's political debate.

We All Have Our Shadows

Heath Ledger as 'the Joker' was inspiring and stunning

I noticed that Scottish Tory Boy reviewed the recent Batman film on his blog, and after him and several others being particularly impressed by it I felt compelled to go and see it yesterday. I should probably apologise to Emma, Carla and Lara, me and Pies' good girlfriends who after our dinner got dragged to Batman without 'Angus, Thongs and Snogging' even being given so much as a consideration. (Lara also stated she was considering a career in social work, something which I promised her I would blog about and which I intend to do).

The part of Two- Face who only appeared late into the film and whose character sadly lay undeveloped, was clear symbolism of a character which lies within every one of us. The film's dark depth carried with it the undercurrent of the lives of the people who watched it. The film was centered around a man's fight for justice in a city ridden with criminals and poisoned by conspiracy. But when he loses the thing closest to him, he realises that he either must 'die a hero or live long enough to become the villain'.

For those of us involved in politics we often find ourselves in moral dilemmas along the path of what we can only believe to be social justice. Two- Face had a coin he tossed. Both sides heads, but one shiny and one dark and scarred. He judged people's fate by tossing the coin. A strange concept of which to decide whether a person should live or die within a civilised society, but for Two-Face it was real justice. He gave people the same chance that he had been given in his life. 50-50.

Although perhaps the biggest irony and the real Two-Face of the film is Heath Ledger, who plays the Joker with outstanding concentration and depth. Just weeks before he died he spoke in interviews of being physically exhausted due to the energies he put into the character. This forced him to take the medication which in the end killed him. An ironic situation in which the thing that made him most alive cost him his life, and further than that, the Joker was his shadow. He didn't look to others for his character of the Joker, but looked deep within himself. That was the beauty of his part, and the beauty of an absolutely stunning film.

Google Analytics

Me and Pies installing Google Analytics

Today I am delighted to announce that I have installed yet another computer programme I can't spell.

I have heard that 'Google Analytics' allows you to see how many people go onto your site and where in the world they have come from, which I think is pretty interesting. It also displays how long people spend on your site, and so it should give me an idea as to what people enjoy reading etc.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my friend Pies, who helped me 'source and edit the code' (**WTF**?!) I needed to install this.

My line graph has informed me that no fewer than 9 whole people have visited my site today, each spending almost 3 minutes on my site. That's almost half an hour of reading time, which is longer than Rangers spent in the European Cup, so I don't think I'm doing too badly.

Happy Birthday Credit Crunch!

The Credit Crunch has forced us all to scale back on cake

It's important that we as human beings ask ourselves, that with all of our technological and financial advance, have we as people really improved?


There are certainly arguments to say we have. Our health care for example is greatly improved by new medicines and greater knowledge of the body, and our awareness of events around the world is aided by television and greater transparency. However, for as long as I can remember we as people have been advancing advancing advancing. My ipod's gotten smaller, and my computer faster. I expect for my standard of living to improve with that expectation, and can't envisage a situation in which one of them is left behind.


But the problem with the 'credit crunch' is that that very growth, that very improvement, is not by any means stopping, but is just slowing down a bit. Our lives are not getting worse, but our pace of getting better and bigger and more and more is slowing, and by our very nature we see this as a complete disaster.


I just wanted to send a message to ya'll on the anniversary of what has been reported more than the genocide taking place in the world, to not worry, because it remains that being British and being in the economic situation that we're in, remains a fantastic blessing and wonderful stroke of luck.

Scouting for Boys (ahh... a classic...)

Me in my younger Scouting days

Well I got back from Scout camp on Saturday, so haven't done any posts recently. Not that it's a huge issue, because to be honest I haven't had a lot to say... I also want to clarify that I am actually a leader, and not 9, or indeed a Girl Guide. I was on this thing called Festival Camp, which was made up of about 700 people from all around the world, and each sub-site was a famous festival (ie Christmas and St Patrick's Day). It was strange meeting people who'd never even heard of Alex Salmond. It highlighted to me how little Scotland really is in the big wide world, and how unionism makes us stronger. (OK, it didn't, but I just felt like I should say something political. I actually just thought about sleep and hot meals.)

I really did surprise myself by how much I got emotionally involved in Glasgow East. I didn't think I cared as much as I ended up caring, and after last Thursday I think spending a week in a field without so much as a Metro in sight was a really good thing for me. Sometimes it takes something exceptional and out of the ordinary to put life in a very real and brutally simple perspective. The bitter truth is that feeling distant from politics was a good thing. This week, this year?- I don't know, but it felt like a cool summer breeze.

Sometimes we are too busy looking ahead, focusing on worry and concern for the future, that we miss the things right in front of us.

The Labour Party needs something new to promise people. The SNP ran a whole campaign on change and 'sending a message to Westminster' which always goes down with voters, especially at by- elections, but which doesn't actually do society any good. What struck me this week is that we as political geeks spend more time arguing amongst ourselves than trying to help the people we claim to want to represent.

Instead of Labour trying desperately to keep its head above the water, I wish we could just take a deep breath and go under to try and untie some of the knots that are keeping us there.

Panic and fear release very unhealthy parts within people, which is so ironic, because it is at times like these in which we need most to work together.

This isn't about Alex Salmond or David Cameron, it's about us.

That's another thing I missed, apparently there's some leadership contest thing going on. Sounds very exciting... Haven't decided who I'll support yet. Is Tony standing...???