The breakfast any self-respecting dog would reject
The Smith Commission report has 28 pages, but in fact the meat of it is precisely half that: fourteen pages cover the 'three pillars' of its recommendations. That's four pillars, by my arithmetic, short of wisdom.
The pillars are, in brief
Proposal for a Rural Policy meeting/workshop this winter
The Scottish Rural Parliament was an interesting event, but it — necessarily and desirably — was a meeting of people from all strands of Scottish rural life, so it wasn't an ideal situation for wild-eyed radicals to get together and plot. The Radical Independence Conference was invigorating and inspiring, but it was too big, effectively, for any real discussion of detailed policy.
We have, coming up in parliament now, three very important issues. The first is Community Empowerment, which is before parliament now and unless we get our act together quickly we'll effectively miss. The second is Land Reform, which will be before parliament soon. The third is Local Government Reorganisation, for which there are no clear proposals yet, but which everyone knows has to be addressed.
Policy making is a conversation. The law is, at best, a lagging indicator of the popular consensus of what is just, and that consensus can be moved (as we saw during the referendum campaign). If we want the law to move even a little in a radical direction, we need to have concrete proposals from a very radical position to balance the very reactionary proposals which will undoubtedly come from Scottish Land and Estates and their allies.
A worm, and a firmament of stars
David Torrance is a journalist who irritates me more than he ought. Not that that's his problem; it's mine entirely, I ought not to allow myself to become so annoyed. But he is, for me, the exemplar of Scotland's tall poppy syndrome: see anyone talented, competent, able beyond what Torrance believes to be their deserts, and he will attack. His attacks are subtle: he uses innuendo, faint praise, dismissive reference, imputation of ill motives; never, as far as I'm aware, outright verifiable falsehood. I suspect he checks his facts carefully — indeed he must do so, since if he did not he would surely find himself before the courts on a regular basis. He's also — viciously — tribal. His detestation of the Scottish National Party bleeds through every piece he writes; his praise for the Labour right is lavish and unstinting. At least it could never be said of him that he pretends to balance.
Instead, he pretends to erudition. In today's scrawling in the Herald, he casts himself somewhat incongruously as a bible-thumper, making heavy reference to Deuteronomy; and, in case his audience is so unlairit as not fully to appreciate his facile cleverness, when he quotes from the Gospel according to Luke, he very helpfully cites chapter and verse.
Credit where credit's due: Russell Brown MP
So this evening I fired of yet another of my intemperate emails to my MP. I say 'my' MP. He's the MP for my home. But since I'm still legally homeless, I'm actually currently registered to vote in Glasgow. I've literally no idea who the MP where my vote is registered in Glasgow actually is, although I think my MSP may just have become First Minister. But I think of Russell Brown as my MP, because he's the MP for where I actually live.
I have very mixed feelings about Russell Brown. As a human being I think he's a very decent one. I like him. I've seen him attending events for mad people — people with mental illness — where there was no possible publicity benefit from doing so. And, furthermore, treating us with dignity and respect, as equal citizens. Which of course we are, but it still impressed me positively. I've seen him turn up in person at anti-Nazi rallies. He's also, I'm told, a 'good constituency MP' — which is to say the social worker of last resort for those defeated by the bureaucracy. Which is a good and honourable role, and someone has to do it.
Bigbale: scaling up the Winter Palace to family size
The Winter Palace was built for less than £5,500, because that was all I had. But that figure included the stove and its chimney, the plumbing, and quarter of a mile of water pipe in a trench over a metre deep. The front glass cost another £1,400, and the roof lining cost an unbudgetted extra £200; so I always quote a figure of £7,000 for the whole building. It's a building of 30 square metres floor area, so its cost is about £233 per square metre. And those figures are inclusive of VAT, because while someone self-building a legal house can reclaim their VAT, someone building an illegal house cannot.
However, a dwelling with twice the usable volume does not need to consume twice the materials. 'Bigbale' was a design exercise to see how one would build family sized house using what I've learned from the Winter Palace.