By flag-waving trolls
lent of the drunk guy on the night bus.
The last time I checked Alexander’s account there was a doctored profile picture of Sturgeon wearing a “Make Scotland Great Again” hat in the style of Donald Trump but MSGA doesn’t really work as a catchy abbreviation.
All of this nonsense came hot on the heels of more nonsense when a band of Scottish nationalists staged a protest on the A1 close to the border with England and shouted “plague carrier” at passing cars and warned people to “stay the f*** out”.
At first glance I thought the artist Bill Drummond had resurrected the seminal 90s acid-house band The KLF for one of his subversive stunts, this time involving the burning of one million pounds worth of Scottish bank notes that he couldn’t get accepted in London.
But no, it was the “usual crew” of cosplay nats wearing hazmat suits and masks, which included a dug in a Saltire jacket who was wondering what they’d done to deserve getting dragged to Berwick-upon-tweed in the pouring rain. “Walkies.”
Predictably in this silliest of silly seasons the ridiculous shenanigans became an agenda-setting news story that ran for days, with politicians of every stripe being dragged into a debate about the existence of a border between Scotland and England.
The First Minister was called on to denounce this behaviour by desperate Tory MSPS, clutching at straws and looking to link the “border ravers” to the wider nationalist movement. Something she did by saying that “the people who protested at the border did not speak for me... they were not there on my behalf ”. Was anyone surprised by that? As far as I could gather, they hardly spoke for anyone given the mumblings through the face masks.
Anyway, back to my original point and I for one now can’t wait to get back into the office.
The three months I’ve spent policing the border between Crossgates and Hill O’beath has been long enough and I feel that my work is now done.
I look forward to sharing socially distanced bits of cake with beloved colleagues, while talking about what television shows we watched during lockers, currently Cardinal in my case.
I long to meet people for oat milk flat whites and pick bits of scone out of my flowing locks while asking to speak to the manager in Waitrose at Comely Bank to have them explain why the self-service checkouts don’t take hard cash. Granted, my new uniform of shorts, white socks and trainers – think American tourist at the Edinboro Festival – might take a while to bed in as the spring/summer look for 2020.
I see that the Scottish Government has issued guidance as the country enters stage three of lockdown with indoor visits and overnight stays to be allowed in Scotland.
It’s welcome news, although I imagine most people gave up following these rules a while back, but at least we’re paying heed to the wearing of face masks and maintaining a semblance of social distancing.
The rules, for example, on a household meeting four other households of up to 15 people in total outdoors are complete gibberish and entirely unworkable – but at least the infection rate appears to be under control.
Do they think people are going to say to the members of household number five that they can’t come to the park for a picnic?
All roads lead to Wednesday 15 July when the boozers finally reopen, serving pints of hand sanitiser in plastic glasses, and the resumption of tractor driver instruction is pencilled in for a week later.
Here’s hoping you don’t get stuck behind one as you cross the border.