A translation company is advertising for “Glaswegian English” interpreters.
The advert says:
“GLASWEGIAN” Interpreters: Translation company seeks speakers of “Glaswegian English” with knowledge of vocabulary, accent, nuances, to meet interpreting needs of clients who fund it an unexpected challenge.
I expect the Scottish government will be giving out grants for “Glaswegian English” interpreters before long.
Thank god for that, Miserable Murray, the English hating jock has lost to Andy Roddick. Like I said this morning, life would be unbearable if he’d have won.
Interestingly, if you search for the phrase Anyone but Murray in Google, the top match is a post I wrote on this blog last week, relegating the BBC into second place. A Google image search for Anyone but Murray throws up the above image as the top match.
Thanks for the traffic Google, love you long time.
Technorati Tags: Anyone but Murray, Wimbledon
The cheese eating surrender monkeys last week and the sweaty socks this week. We might not have won the Six Nations but we battered both the auld enemies and that’s good enough for me.
Technorati Tags: England, Scotland, France, Rugby, Six Nations
Good news! The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that it is going to use £1.7bn of the magic money the Bank of England invented to issue new mortgages. But only in Scotland.
RBS is, I imagine, keen to reassert its Scottish credentials now that the “English” government owns most of it. How ironic that the Royal Bank of Scotland is using money from the Bank of England to finance mortgage spending exclusively in Scotland. How wrong that the Royal Bank of Scotland is using money from the Bank of England to finance mortgage spending exclusively in Scotland.
I wonder whether the Scottish Chancellor had a hand in the decision. Let’s find out shall we?
Subject: FOI Request Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:17:40 +0000 From: Stuart Parr To: public.enquiries@hm-treasury.gov.uk Hi,
Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know the following:
- What guidance or instructions have been given to banks in receipt of taxpayers money as to what percentage of that money should be targeted at:
- Scotland
- Wales
- Northern Ireland
- England
- What consideration was given to the perceived detrimental effect on the Scottish banks’ reputation from being partly or majority owned by the British government and what was the outcome of any discussions about it.
- What involvement has the Chancellor had in any decision to prioritise lending in Scotland?
I would like this information in an electronic format.
Well, I made it to Scotland (just about) and I’ve not been detained for crimes against the promised land so far!
I nearly didn’t make it – I forgot to take my passport with me for photo ID but luckily the departures people accepted my work security pass as valid ID even though it’s not got a company name, address or phone number on it. Lucky for me but worryingly easy to get on a flight without a valid form of ID.
The first thing I noticed on arrival at Edinburgh Airport was the Scottish flag – it’s everywhere. The taxi marshall’s had St Andrews Cross beanie hats, the signs all had Scottish flags on, there were adverts for all things Scottish inside and outside the airport. You’d never see a Cross of St George outside an English airport, that’s for sure.
The flight was ok, the plane was too hot though. The FlyBe executive lounge at Birmingham Airport was disappointing – there were no staff other than the person checking you were allowed in there and there was no free WiFi which I would have expected for the price of the tickets. We ended up sitting in Wetherspoons and waiting for the flight, at least there was a bit of activity.
The hotel – the Apex City – is nice. Got a room with a view of Edinburgh Castle, nice big telly and free WiFi. If you’ve got to go to Edinburgh I’d certainly recommend staying here. Will be going down for breakfast shortly – I’ll let you know what the food is like later.
Technorati Tags: Edinburgh
I know it’s hard to believe but it appears that being a Scottish bank hasn’t, as previously thought, been a good enough reason for investors to plough their life savings into a bankrupt Royal bank of Scotland. Go figure.
RBS had another bumper rights issue as part of the deal with the devil Alistair Darling to get their hands on a few billion more of our hard earned cash. The idea was that they’d get loads of money of the taxpayer and then issue a few million shares to dilute the taxpayers stake in the bank to make sure the UK Treasury was a minority shareholder. Which would have been quite clever if it wasn’t for the fact that the bank is insolvent and the shares quite obviously so high risk as to be worthless as evidenced by the fact that hardly anybody has bought any of the new shares.
The upshot of this is that the UK Treasury now owns 57.9% of “oor bank”. That should please Alex Salmond.
Liebour have won the by-election in Glenrothes, a bordering constituency to No Mandate Brown’s Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath constituency.
When John MacDougal died earlier this year (following a visit by Jonah Brown, incidently) Liebour had a majority of over 10,000. Their majority has now been reduced to 6,737 with a swing to the SNP of 5%.
The Conswervatives will be celebrating a glorious victory – they managed to knock the Illiberal Dumocrats into fourth place which, in Scotland, is no mean feat for them. UKIP will also be pleased that they didn’t come last. One day both the Conswervatives and UKIP will realise that Scotland votes for eurofederalist, supposedly socialist parties and concentrate on England where they actually achieve some success.
This is a thoroughly disappointing result to any right thinking person – the SNP were widely expected to overturn Liebour’s majority like they have done the last couple of times and there was some speculation that El Gordo might even lose his job if Liebour lost yet another by-election in their celtic heartlands. But sadly the people of Glenrothes decided to vote for a representative of the most sleaze-ridden, corrupt and illiberal British government this country has ever known.
Thanks for nothing Glenrothes.
Technorati Tags: Glenrothes, Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, UKIP, Scotland, Election
Well, what a bumper day this has been for letters.
First of all there’s this one in the Shropshire Star, in response to the council announcing that they’re going to put in average speed cameras on one of the safest roads, relatively speaking, in the borough:
Average speed trap not fair for motorists
Councillor Bentley wants average speed cameras for the A442 in Telford because they’re “fairer for motorists”? Fairer than what? There’s aren’t any speed cameras on the A442 in Telford and these new ones aren’t designed to be fair, they’re designed to catch more motorists than traditional speed cameras.
Will these speed cameras catch drivers that crawl down the outside lane at 40mph causing tailbacks and preventing other drivers from safely moving between lanes? Will it catch the drivers who undertake on cross-hatches?
Will it catch drivers who veer across from the outside lane at the last minute to exit the road? Will it catch drink drivers, erratic drivers, people weaving between lanes and cutting people up?
Like most drivers I sometimes break the speed limit and like most drivers I manage to do it without mowing down pedestrians or driving into other cars. The fact is, Telford & Wrekin Council changed the layout and speed limit of the A442 and made it more dangerous.
The number of accidents is down but the number of casualties is up which means that since they “improved” the road, the average accident is more serious and involves more people. Yet despite the best efforts of Telford & Wrekin Council, the A442 is still one of the safest roads of its type in the country.
Rather than install speed cameras at great expense to Telford taxpayers, the council should accept the fact that they made the A442 more dangerous by changing the lanes and reducing the speed limit and put it back to how it was a couple of years ago, complete with the 70mph speed limit.
Stuart Parr
Telford
Then there was this deliberately provocative letter in the Scotsman, in response to all the whinging letters about “Scottish banks being given to the English”:
If RBS and HBOS are Scottish banks and your average man on the street in Edinburgh is furious at losing “oor banks” to the English, can I respectfully suggest Scotland bails its own banks out?
It seems that when Scottish banks fail, the English end up paying to bail them out. It started with Darien and now the lion’s share of the £37 billion has gone to two Scottish banks.
We pay for your free prescriptions, your cancer treatments, and your free school meals and we pay to care for your elderly when they can’t look after themselves – all the things we supposedly can’t afford for ourselves. And what do we get in return? Anti-English bile and insulting, spurious claims that the Scottish oil industry, which English taxes paid for, even comes close to plugging the funding gap north of the Border.
If you want Scottish banks to remain Scottish then bail them out yourselves. If you don’t like the idea of relying on English money all the time, don’t take it. It’s not rocket science.
Stuart Parr
Telford, Shropshire
Finally, there’s this cheeky one in the First Post in response to some muppet who thinks the deputy editor of Prospect Magazine will be responsible for the Scots leaving the union because he upset them with an article about RBS:
Either Dave Bowen (above) has been on a really long holiday without access to news for the last decade or so or there is another country called Scotland that I was hitherto unaware of.
He says that if Scotland leaves the union then it will be because of “opinionated bigots” like Jonathan Ford. I wasn’t aware that Mr Ford had had such a long and illustrious career writing magazine articles dating back to 1934 when the seperatist Scottish National Party was launched.
I think that perhaps a generic dislike of the English and never buying into the whole “British” thing might have more to do with the Scots’ desire to leave the union. That and the belief that a few thousand barrels of oil will make Scotland the richest country this side of Saudi Arabia despite the gaping budget deficit the English plug every year.
And I did have a litle chuckle to myself when Mr Bowen said he wasn’t aware that being Scottish meant that you were automatically unsuitable for running anything more important than a chippy. If Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and the chief execs of HBOS and RBS are anything to go by then a chippy is probably asking a bit too much of them!
Stuart Parr
They should get a few people worked up. 🙂
Technorati Tags: Letters, Scotland, England, SNP, Shropshire Star, Scotsman, First Post, Speed Cameras, HBOS, RBS
I already wrote about the Glasgow East by-election result on the CEP blog this morning so I won’t do it again here except to comment on what an enormously stupid muppet Nick Clegg is for failing to lay the boot in to Gordon Brown like anyone with an ounce of political sense would do.
While David Cameron and Alex the Salmon are calling for leadership and general elections, Nick Clegg said:
[it is not] time to play politics with people’s lives […] when so many people are worried about the price of a loaf of bread, how to fill their car with a tank of petrol
Who agreed to Federal Europe’s suggestion that all diesel sold must contain a certain amount of biofuel, leading to worldwide shortages of cereal crops used to make bread (amongst other staple food stuffs) as poor farmers turn their fields over to biofuel production?
Who has refused to cut the duty on fuel, preferring to rake in countless billions of pounds extra in fuel duty to fund a pre-election spending bonanza next year instead of shielding us from rising oil prices?
Liebour and their unelected Prime Minister, that’s who. I don’t think an election which gives us an opportunity to choose who we think is best for the job of running our country is playing politics with peoples’ lives. The people running the country are directly responsible for the price of bread the price of petrol and our ability to pay for both. Could Cleggover be more worried about how the Illiberal Dumbocrats will fare in an election based on last night’s result than democracy? Do bears shit in the woods?
Liberal Democrats: making a mockery of politics since 1988
Technorati Tags: Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, Glasgow, Labour, Election
Me again. Wonko will get back from his well-earned break and wonder what he’s done giving me access to this… Still, I’m here with some good news this time: English-hating tennis hack Andy Murray has been knocked out of wimbledon.
Good riddance you lanky streak of Scottish piss. One can only hope he will never darken the borders of our nation again.
Tosser.
Technorati Tags: Andy Murray, Wimbledon, Sport
The Commons Scottish Affairs Committee of British MPs has decided that responsibility for holding ballots should not be transferred to the Scottish Parliament.
They cited the lack of faith amongst the electorate for the electronic voting system used in Scotland as a reason for keeping the responsibility with the British government’s Scottish Office.
Alex the Salmon won’t be very happy, though, he’s been pushing for this responsibility to be devolved which is the real reason why it won’t. It’s nothing to do with the voting system used in Scotland, it’s because devolving responsibility for ballots to the Scottish government would enable the SNP to hold a legitimate referendum on independence.
Turkey’s don’t vote for Christmas.
Technorati Tags: Scotland, Referendum
The Scottish government intends to do more to help Scottish fishermen cope with rising prices and unfair advantages of Spanish and French fishermen who receive state aid.
Rising fuel prices, crippling EU regulations and reduced quotas are damaging commercial fishing so the Scottish government is giving up to £400,000 towards the annual costs of maintaining lifeboats on fishing boat and £300,000 towards the cost of warranties on satellite equipment which fishermen are required to have under EU rules.
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation aren’t satisfied though and want the Scottish government to go further and provide state aid like the French and Spanish government’s do.
Meanwhile, the British government is offering nothing towards the cost of maintaining lifeboats and nothing towards the warranties on satellite equipment for English fishermen.
Technorati Tags: Federal Europe, Fishing, Scotland, Subsidies
Wendy Alexander has addressed the Scottish Liebour spring gathering and told them that she will lead them to victory in the Scottish Parliament. Yeah, right.
In a characteristic display of utter hypocrisy, she said that she “will lead by exposing the dishonesty of the SNP”. Dishonesty of the SNP? Sorry Wendy Love, just remind me who’s only just been let off with a slapped wrist for breaking electoral law.
Alexander tried desperately to paint Liebour as the party of the people and the SNP as the evil capitalists (even though they’re more left wing than Liebour) but failed miserably because I very much doubt that even the people inside the conference hall believe that Liebour is a credible party any more, let alone the average man (or woman) on the street.
Liebour are a bunch dishonest, corrupt, self-serving, British nationalist crooks. They are unelectable in England and they are hemorrhaging support in their Celtic heartlands. They are, to put it bluntly, a spent force. The only reason they still cling on to power now is because Gordon Brown is too chicken shit to call the election he knows he is going to lose. Badly.
Technorati Tags: Wendy Alexander, Scotland, Liebour, Corruption, Sleaze, Spin
Alex the Salmon, First Minister of Scotland, has proposed a referendum on the future of governance of Scotland with two questions – enhanced devolution or independence.
The Conswervative and Unionist Party, Liebour and the Illiberal Dumbocrats have all shrieked hysterically that it’s “the wild words of a panicking man” and an “attempt to drag an unwilling Scotland towards independence”. None of them is supporting the referendum.
If they’re all so sure that the referendum will result in a vote against independence then why don’t they support it? It would put Salmond and the SNP in its place and independence would be off the agenda for a good 10-20 years. If they’re so confident that the unionist agenda they are pursuing is what their constituents want then why not let their constituents confirm that in a simple referendum?
They won’t support it for the same reason they won’t support a referendum on an English Parliament – because they will lose and they will lose badly. Why else would they vote a pro-independence, nationalist government into power? Scotland wants independence and the British nationalists should let them have it.
Technorati Tags: Scotland, Independence, SNP
Tom Yeo, the Conswervative MP for Suffolk South, introduced a private members bill to get the clocks put forward one hour to save lives and energy and increase leisure and social time.
As with previous attempts by various MPs the bill failed with the usual arguments being put forward – the farmers won’t like it and more importantly, the master race won’t like it.
The Scots complain that putting the clocks forward will result in less daylight north of the border. They’re quite right too – it will mean less daylight in Scotland. But ultimately, they are only 5m people out of a population of 60m so why should the other 55m of us be put out just for them? How many children will lose their lives in England this year that would still be around if the Scots had been told to shut up and put up and the clocks had been put forward an hour?
Technorati Tags: Conswervatives, Clocks
Andy “Anyone But England” Murray has been beaten again and almost got censured for swearing.
Technorati Tags: Andy Murray
Saturday’s defeat at the hands of the mutton munchers was made slightly more palatable by yesterday’s demolition of the sweaty socks by the cheese eating surrender monkey’s.
Our friends north of the border lost by 21 points putting them firmly at the bottom of the table on points difference after the opening fixtures. Hopefully they’ll stay there for the rest of the tournament.
CEP: England victimised yet again by United Kingdom government
The Council tax in England will be going up in April by just under 5%, more than twice the limit on pay increases being imposed by the Union Government. The average Council Tax bill in England will go up by £115 per month. Meanwhile in Scotland the proposal of the Scottish Parliament under its Scottish National Party leadership is to freeze council tax, and for that the overwhelming majority of Scottish councils are fully in support.
The injustice to England since devolution just goes on and on. In addition to having itself acknowledged under the Union Government as a distinct nation enjoying Home Rule Scotland now enjoys free eye care, free dental check-ups, free access to cancer drugs, and free personal care free travel countryside for the elderly. With a Scottish Prime Minister and a Scottish Chancellor of the Exechequer Scotland is getting benefits denied to England,while it is the English taxpayer who is paying for them.
The injustice does not stop there. Despite the council tax increase local services are being cut back. The Union Government under Brown and Darling, while making more and more demands up local councils even as the cost of existing services and the council’s wage bill increase, is not increasing central government subsidy in line with increased costs.
‘Little wonder a recent Yougov poll found that the Council tax is the most unpopular tax of all. ‘67% of people in England resent it more than any other’.’, says Veronica Newman, secretary of the Campaign for an English Parliament. ‘The way England is being victimised just has to stop. The people of England cannot just be expected to pay for the benefits of devolution which Scotland is getting while getting none of them themselves and no parliament of their own either. The people of England should be able to decide for themselves how their money is to be spent. It’s time England had a patriotic government with patriotic MPs just as Scotland has.’
Technorati Tags: CEP, Press Releases, Council Tax, England, Scotland, Discrimination
… but only in England and Wales.
The Scottish Executive have ruled out a ban on Scottish prison officers going on strike saying that they have an agreement for binding arbitration in the event of a dispute with prison officers.
Jack Straw intends to ban prison officers in England and Wales from striking if a voluntary arbitration agreement can’t be reached. The Commons debate on removing prison officers’ rights totalled only 58 minutes.
The amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill has been criticised by a Liebour MP who says that it could be used to ban strikes by other public sector workers.
The Tories introduced the ban on prison officers in 1994, opposed by Liebour who said that they would repeal the ban when they got elected. They eventually did it in 2005 – six years after getting into power – and less than 3 years later are reintroducing it.
Why did both sides agree to binding arbitration in Scotland both only voluntary in England? Simple – the British government can’t be trusted by the English. Binding arbitration was ignored to cut English nurses pay rises in early 2007 and again in late 2007 with English police. The Scottish government, meanwhile, has honoured its obligations on both nurses and police pay and awarded them the pay deal that the arbitration panel ruled. If the British government ignores binding arbitration then what hope is there for police officers with only a voluntary agreement?
Yet another example of anti-English discrimination by the Brit-Scot Liebour government.
Technorati Tags: Liebour, Prisons, Discrimination
