P&J Column for 29.9.14
The Queen didn’t really ‘purr’ down the phone to David Cameron. That was just the sound when she hung up on him.
Struan Metcalfe, Conservative MSP for Aberdeenshire North – an apology (from someone else, for a change. Woop!)
Is it too soon after the Referendum vote to proclaim how glad I am that HRH Queen Elizabeth II remains our monarch? I know Mr Salmon insisted that even with a ‘Yes’ vote she would have been retained as Head of State, but that’s jolly odd if you ask me. It’s a bit like if a husband and wife divorce, divide their assets, agree who gets the kids and then the husband takes his Mother In Law as a lodger.
Be that as it may, Super Dave got himself into a pickle this week by gassing to some Yank about the details of a private conversation with Her Maj regarding the result of the Referendum. Now, I am in no position to judge Super Dave on indiscretions. Even one as big as saying that giving Lizzie the news of the “No” vote made her purr like a cat (Doesnt seem likely to me; suerly they’ve got a telly at Balmoral? Why would she have been waiting for Super Dave’s call to find out the result when she could get it from Adam Boulton on Sky? I reckon it’s a misunderstanding and the ‘purring’ noise was simply Her Maj hanging up on him. I’d have done the same, at 5 am!). But he’s got to go apologise to HRH in person. Cripes, talk about being summoned to the Headmistresses Office! It’ll be the paddle for Cameron D., mark my words.
And he’s not the only Tory getting their just deserts at the mo. Brooks Newmark, the Minister for Civil Society, has had to stand down after ‘sexting’ a reporter. So I dread to think what Mark Reckless, MP for Rochestor and Strood, must have done that’s so bad that he has to not just resign from the party, but join UKIP!
Tanya Soutar, lifestyle guru
I dinna ken aboot yous, but I’ve had a total nightmare wi’ technology and my bairns this wik!
Jordin, my eldest, is fitba daft. So fan FIFA 15 wis released on Friday morning I obviously had nae choice but to let him tak a sickie so he could play it aa day. He’s fly fer a 10-year aul. Fan I threatened to mak him ging to school he said he’d jist bite somebdy so he’d get excluded. Fit can ye dae? At least I ken he’s getting some, exercise playing fitba. Weel, his thumbs is, onywye.
The middle een, Tyler, isnae quite as fitba mad is his brither, but he is affa fer gettin jealous o’ ither folk’s possessions. If Kenzie Hay doon i road gets a new pair o’ Nikes, Tyler his to hae them. And then I hiv to hae a square go wi’ Kenzie’s ma ’cause Tyler’s awa wi’ Kenzie’s trainers. Ye ken fit like. So to stop him fae fighting wi’ Jordin I hid to get him his ane copy o’ FIFA. And an XBox. Thank god my pal Big Sonya’s lad works in the stock room at Curry’s.
Thankfully, the video games kept the loons awa fae the telly lang enough to miss the news that the iPhone 6 wis oot. But my wee girl Beyoncé-Shanice seen it, so she jist hid to get een! Some folk say a 6-year aul disnae need a smartphone, but I think it’s important that she can contact me in an emergency, like fan I’m needing an extra life on Candy Crush. So doon to Union Square I gings, and queues up wi’ aa the spoons to get her a new phone. Imagine my horror fan she come hame fae school wi’ it aa bent! “Come here ye little vratch! I’ll teach ye to be careless wi’ stuff!” I screamed. But then I seen on the telly it wis happening to lots o’ folk. And that meant the two sweetest words in the English language – full refund!
Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman
Aberdeen, like the rest of Scotland, has undergone a fractious time of late, with the Referendum debate pitting brother against brother, friend against friend, and Alex Salmond against what appeared to be a waxwork of Alistair Darling. Even now, division still rankles, with the defeated ‘Yes’s protesting their loyalty to the cause and the ‘No’s finding success by so narrow a margin less comforting than they had hoped.
What is needed is something that can bring the people together, so that they stand united, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, and, speaking in one voice, rediscover the fellow feeling that has been so absent in recent times.
It is with this aim in mind that we, the Council of this fair city, have decided that now is the time to renew the proposal to put a great muckle roof over the city centre.
This plan is not without political risk, but, as individual sniggers about the town gradually turn into a collective guffaw, as we hear the previously divided people choke back tears of laughter and in one voice cry out “What the hell are they smoking in the town house?” We know that our gambit has paid off.
It’s Embassy Regal kingsize, by the way. And the pipe of peace.