Have a good weekend!

It was only when my sister said "I'm off on Monday" that I remembered this is a bank holiday weekend. These big events mean nothing to retired people. For us, every day, every weekend is a holiday.

But have a good one, people, whatever you decide to do!

If you're going away, could you take the politicians with you, please? You know who I mean: Gove, Johnston, Osborne, Cameron. As awful a bunch of human beings as you could wish to meet in a day's walk. And shameless: prepared to lie and lie again in support of their side in the EU referendum. I almost wish for Brexit, just so I could see the plagues of toads and boils that we are promised by the Remain lot. And vice versa.

A weekend without them would be excellent.

My big problem is that I don't think any of these these people are acting in the UK's best interests - except, of course, that people like Gove and Johnston think everything that's in their best interests must be good for the rest of us.

This is a Tory fight. And the bad news is, no matter how the vote goes on 23 June, it won't be over: the Tories will continue to rip themselves apart right through the summer. The rest of us, of course, will just have to soldier on with failed policies like austerity, watching the Welfare State being dismantled, the NHS collapsing and industry disappearing.

But, in the meantime, have a good weekend. Keep the telly off, except when the kids want to watch the Frozen video or Toy Story or ET, which are bound to be running on a loop on ITV2. Have a barbecue or a take-away. Open the Prosecco.

And forget the politicians I named above because you can be sure they will forget you as soon as you stop being useful to them. Round about June 24, I reckon.

Mon dieu - mon garagiste!

I have just been patronised by a car salesman. And not for the first time either.

Can it be that car dealerships, not golf clubs, are the last bastion of the male chauvinist pig?

I've bought many cars in the 37 years that I've been driving: 3 Polos, 2 Golfs, 3 Beetles (old style), a Mazda 3, a Renault Megane, a Rover. All of them were sold to me by men. All of these men managed to patronise me, even as I handed over large amounts of money for my cars.

John MacKenzie (Port Charlotte) was the least insulting but he sent me off alone on a test drive with a Polo coupé, looking worried and saying: 'Remember, if you bend it, you buy it!' On reflection, John always looked worried. I didn't bend it but I bought the Polo coupé and looked after it very well for years.

After I bought the Rover, I phoned the dealer in East Kilbride to arrange a service (in those days, I was clocking up big mileage in Argyll & Bute and so had my car serviced every six months). The guy on the phone was a bit shocked that I wanted to book the car in for a service 2 weeks in advance: 'Phone us next week, dear,' he said. I never saw him again but I hope his ears are still burning from the customer evaluation I left on their phone line. I am nobody's 'dear.'

The Megane developed a problem with the catalytic converter (well, they all did) but while other Megane drivers were dropping their cars off to be fixed every other day, it took me weeks of smelling rotten eggs to get mine booked in. It only reached the top of the heap when I phoned and left a message that I was planning to hire a replacement car (to be charged to them) and leave mine on their forecourt with a big notice reading 'Another Disappointed Customer.'

I bought a Polo at the end of September last year. I like it a lot. It's supposed to be nippy, cheap to run and look good. Sadly, it has already needed a new clutch after less than 600 miles. The dealership is keen to keep my custom, and given the number of Volkswagens I've bought in my time (see above) so they should but no one is prepared to admit the sad fact that this car is a dud. If there are problems, it's my fault: apparently, I have abused the clutch. 37 years of trouble-free driving and suddenly, I have started driving like a moron.

Yesterday I took the car (with the new clutch) down to the dealership, having told them that - again - I wasn't happy with how it handles. Frankly, it's like driving a cow. If you've ever been behind a herd of coos in the west of Scotland, you'll know what I mean: ungainly, pretty slow to react and quite noisy. It also smells.

They sent me out on a test drive - in my own car - with a guy from the dealership. I pootled along Haggs Road and, before long, the garagiste was concerned. I drive too fast, he said. I go up the gears too quickly. I seem to think I'm still in an 1800cc car. He told me a story about how people, (that seemed to mean 'women') as they get older tend to get into bad driving habits, and they abuse the clutch. I found it hard to take all this in. Well, I was driving, ffs. But then he took the wheel. I promise you there was no difference between my driving and his, except that he drove very, very s-l-o-w-l-y. I got very quiet then, thanked the man back at the dealership and drove off thinking - yet again - he would never dare to talk to a man like that.

I haven't changed my driving habits since I got this Polo. I was taught to drive by Archie Gillespie on Islay - the man who turned up one day for my lesson with a screwdriver in his hand saying: 'If you don't use the rear view mirror, I'll just unscrew it.' 37 years later, I still use the rear view mirror.

This isn't over.

Opportunists R US

Last time I worked in a secondary school in the 1990s, most of the management team were men. One man in particular used to make some female members of staff wonder how some of these men ever got promoted. Despite being an arts graduate and a history teacher, this guy only ever read the Daily Record and the only subject he had an opinion on was football. He had a slightly edgy relationship with the women he worked with: he either flirted with them (if they were lower in the school pecking order) or patronised them (if they were promoted).

And did I mention lazy?! His laziness really got to one of my colleagues, who was the person who organised the German home-to-home exchanges. She worked her socks off doing this. This man was allegedly her 'link' person on the management team but she only ever saw him the day before she left on a 36 hour bus journey with the kids, when he would tell her to bring bring him back something nice. One year, she looked him straight in the eye and said: 'What would you like? I could get you a German helmet?' To this day, I doubt if he has understood what she meant.

And yet...and yet...at every staff night out, there he would be with a younger woman draped over him. Notice I wrote 'younger', not young. He (early 50s and divorced) seemed to attract women around the 40 mark. All good-looking, well maintained and working at professional jobs but never promoted to the same level as him. Mostly they had been round the roundabout a couple of times relationship-wise, but they never stayed the course with him and last I heard he never re-married. I can see why they thought he was a goer to begin with but I can also see why they gave up on him. And I'm glad none of them ever took him on as a life partner. He was, as my father used to say, an opportunist.

I've been reading today about rumpy-pumpy by men in the upper reaches of the SNP. I'm not going to fall into the trap of suggesting all men are alike, thinking with the little brain in their trousers, having too little to do in their spare time when they're away from home and being, o heaven help us, just a wee bit naive when it comes to the ways of the Big Smoke. But maybe their media training at Westminster (which we know they get because Mhairi Black told us so on the telly - now there's one that knows how to use the media) should have included: how to look at offers of sex and work out if an offer is too good to be true.

Did either of the MPs who got into 'relationships' with Serena Cowdy google her name? They would have seen links to her blog and realised she's been (briefly) an actor and is now a journalist and is indiscreet about her lovers. Serena is another opportunist and her opportunities are for her and don't include any mugs she comes across in her working life.

I would suggest to Stewart Hosie that a woman who posts details of your underwear on her blog is not entirely trustworthy. And I would further suggest the next time you look around, she'll be off with someone else. The only people who will suffer here are you and your soon-to-be-ex-wife. So was it worth it?

I'm annoyed at these men for the pain they've caused. I don't support the SNP but I am disappointed that some of them turn out to be excellent MPs and MSPs (Mhairi Black, Philippa Whitford, Kirsten Oswald, Fiona Hyslop, Nicola Sturgeon) while others let us down. Surely these guys must know people are watching them? That the UK and Scottish press are anti-SNP and will use any excuse to do down the party.

And how boring for the rest of us - how utterly fkn boring - to see apparently intelligent people
paraded in front of the cameras and made to put in print how sorry they are that they have let so many people down. Not that these apologies work, really. I'm still struggling with the mental picture of Stewart Hosie stripped down to his glasses, socks and tighty-whities...

The Special One

I try to watch Sky News's press review. As I always say, you need to know what the enemy are saying.

They have some real heid-the-baw commentators but also a few very interesting people and here's one:

This is Matthew Syed who writes for the Times. On Saturday night he was commenting on the forthcoming appointment of Jose Mourinho as manager of Man United. You know Jose. Even I know Jose, the Special One:

Matthew Syed described Mourinho's management style. He's a narcissist: everything is about him. He doesn't inspire players so much as give them the notion that the whole world is against them - and against him. So a siege mentality sets in. The team, coaches, physios - everyone rallies round and forms a solid wall against the outside world. The press and TV reporters become the enemy.

Sir Alex operated in a different way:

Matthew Syed described interviewing people who had worked for Sir Alex and years after they left or retired they still talked out 'we', 'us', 'the team' - as if they were still part of the big family that was Aberdeen or Man U. While Mourinho demands loyalty to him, Sir Alex wants and gets loyalty to the family that is the club. I don't remember Sir Alex ever having a major bust-up with the press or TV people. That was not his style. Where Sir Alex was a shouter once in a while (but only in the dressing room), Mourinho is a sulker. He broods. He looks unhappy - and his players also become unhappy. 

Mourinho gets big jobs but he doesn't last because eventually the team and the club get sick of feeling they are under attack. Nobody can relax. Everything's a problem. 

The most amazing part of Matthew Syed's wee talk (and it only lasted a couple of minutes) was the silence and attention he got from the host and his fellow reviewer. I know nothing about football and nothing about Matthew Syed, but I felt where Mourinho was concerned he had nailed it. It'll be interesting to see what happens at Man U in the months to come. 

My Independent Think Tank

I love stuff like this.

I've been looking at the Reform Scotland education think tank: it appears to be self-appointed. It's a charity but then lots of things in the UK are registered charities, like private schools. I'd love to know where RS's cash comes from but that doesn't appear on their website.

It claims to be trying to achieve:
• Better and more accountable government
• Greater devolution within a federal UK
• Shared prosperity based on a dynamic economy
• Stronger local communities
• Modern, high quality infrastructure
• Effective and responsive public services

The only things that I've noticed being reported in the press are their education reports. The Herald loves them. Well, the reports all predict doom and gloom and blame the Scottish Government so the Herald is bound to love them. There are other documents on their website but none that matter to me, frankly. If their other reports resemble their education reports, RS has no more credibility in educational terms than the lollipop lady outside our local primary school. And I'd go so far as to suggest RS is a lot less useful to the community.

There are 17 people involved in RS, as staff or trustees or on their advisory board. 5 of the 17 are women, which is a fairly unrepresentative sample of public life in Scotland. There are quite a few finance people and lawyers involved in RS, but there only seems to be one person involved in their education 'commission', a retired director of education from Clackmannanshire, where I believe he was in charge of 3 secondary schools, 3 nurseries, 1 special school and 18 primaries. This is not exactly representative of Scottish education in gender terms either, given that well over 50% of education personnel in Scotland are female.

So I am going to suggest that those of us who care about Scottish education, especially Scottish state education, and above all about keeping state education out of the grasping hands of private enterprise, should set up our own wee think tanks. We don't need to do research (RS doesn't). We just need to have opinions. We can manage that. We can give ourselves titles.

I'm going to be a Director of Policy in my think tank. I'm going to advocate radical approaches to Scottish state education:
- we're going to rescue Scottish education from the dead hand of HMIe, with a final realisation that testing and examining are just two minor facets of a successful education system
- we're going to study what's done in other countries to motivate poor learners in order to close the attainment gap between them and their more successful peers
- we're going to rescue the teaching profession from Curriculum for Excellence
- and we're going to refuse to publish any more school league tables or PISA findings until PISA and other agencies starts comparing like with like across education systems.

That should keep my think tank busy for about 10 years. By that time, my great nieces and nephews will be just about through secondary education. Successfully, I hope.

I look forward to reading other people's ideas for think tanks. Just not RS's.

Real life?

When my aunt was dying, she told me she had always hoped her husband would die first because he would never manage on his own. She was right. He died less than a year after her. Despite her attempts to warn him of what was to come: having to remember to pay the bills (which she had always done), taking care of the house and garden (ditto) and, worst of all, doing everything on his own, he wasn't prepared for widowhood. He set the house on fire a couple of times preparing food, drank too much and then had a heart attack. But it was the loss of his wife that killed him.

I was once told by a friend who had lost her husband very young that marriage, the state of two, was the ideal situation. I'm not sure how she knew that, although she obviously realised that our society regards coupledom and, these days, serial coupledom as the norm. I wondered at the time if her reliance on marriage as the perfect state made being on her own as a young widow with children even more difficult.

To me, the most frightening thing about losing a spouse for my generation of baby boomers is that they seemed to marry straight from their parents' houses, so they never had to stand on their own two feet or depend on their own resources or manage money or get used to being on their own. Losing a spouse (or partner, as I should probably say these days) has to come as a terrible blow for these people.

I've been told by a married friend from this generation (with two salaries coming in over a period of 30-odd years) that ideally everyone needs to have 'a couple of thou' in the bank for emergencies. That to me just sums up the arrogance of the couple world: single people (standing on their own feet, depending on their own resources, managing their money and living on their own) don't have that luxury. We struggle to meet the mortgage payments and to keep the car on the road (the one we need to get to the job we probably don't enjoy).

I'm convinced that us single people are the ones who keep the economy moving, not couples.

I've never been involved in a marriage/partnership but I've found myself wondering about what I consider this state of co-dependency. Do couples at some point sit down and talk about what will happen if one of them dies? I'm single and always have been but I've made my will, appointed a couple of nephews to make sure I'm not left in a vegetative state and written out my funeral arrangements. Do married people do that?

Or do they live as if they will always be alive and together?

And still 5 weeks to go

It's not that I'm not interested in politics. I care very much about what our future is and try hard to keep up with the news. I'm just not interested in the EU referendum.

The Tory party got suckered into holding this referendum when UKIP were on the rise and Tory party managers were trying to stop MPs defecting. UKIP now seem to have fallen back a lot in England and Scotland (although for who knows what reason they have done well in the elections for the Welsh Assembly - did ex-Labour voters really think UKIP was an alternative to Labour?) And still we're stuck with this referendum campaign which seems to have been running for months and still has a long way to go.

Can you imagine how much it's costing to run campaigns for the two sides? Not to mention organising the voting. And if you have kids at school, you're going to have to arrange childcare for another polling day. You can bet your last pound, it's us, the tax-payers, who will be paying for it one way or another.

So what do we get for our money? Two sets of posh, middle-aged, white Tory men slugging it out for control of the Tory party. The Labour party haven't even joined in the argument yet. And if they did, they'd be lucky to get a mention in the newspapers or on TV. Despite all the Tory nonsense about wanting what's best for the hard-working people of Britain, these Tory guys are not interested in what we think. They're not really talking to the voters. They're talking to each other. This is about who's going to lead the Tory party after Cameron moves on.

I keep thinking of all the big problems we have in the UK: massive levels of inequality; runaway house prices in the south-east fuelled by the Tory failure to build houses; high unemployment in the north-east and north-west of England, in the West Midlands and large areas of Wales caused by the collapse of industry; the punishment of the sick and disabled through the so-called 'welfare' system; a national debt that's completely out of control; tax evasion and avoidance on a huge scale by multi-national companies; a minimum wage that no one can live on so it has to be subsidised by  - yes! - the tax-payer. And so on. None of this is being dealt with right now because the Tory government has a referendum to run.

If the Union still exists come the next general election, we could find ourselves fighting over a corpse.

I'll vote, of course - too many women gave their freedom and even their lives for me to refuse to cast my vote - but I suspect I'm not the only one looking at what's going on in this referendum campaign and thinking this is possibly worse than Thatcher's era: Thatcher and her merry men had an ideology behind their ideas. This lot are playing with the country.

I swear by what?

The question of the oath that MSPs had to take the other day has got me slightly agitated.

Usually I ignore the royal family. They are an irrelevance in the 21st century: a bastion of inherited power and wealth in a country that claims to be a democracy. That won't change any time soon, as long as there are sycophants in all walks of life lining up to get their gongs and hang their 'by appointment' shields over their shop doors, not to mention the British Establishment viewing the royals as a reminder that Britannia is still great.

I saw something in the media not long ago about getting the population out to 'clean for the queen' and I thought: Aye, right. Let her pay the wages of some street sweepers and then we'll be in business. There have been parades of royals too, mostly sporting (unearned) medals and I have sometimes wondered when a member of that family last joined the army, got sent to Northern Ireland or Iraq and came back missing limbs or in a coffin.

But since I value my nice normal blood pressure, when the royals come on the telly, I mute the sound or change channels.

But the oath at Holyrood is too much even for me. This is a parliament that owes nothing to the royal family or to the British Establishment or Westminster, so why would any elected member be required to swear allegiance to 'the queen, her heirs and successors.' I'm certainly for putting as much clear water between Holyrood and Westminster as we can. A new oath is needed and it needs to identify the allegiance of MSPs as being to us, the people who elected them.

I see discussion on Facebook and Twitter about Scotland having its own elected head of state and awarding its own honours and I regard these matters as purely a distraction from the important work that needs to be done. Once we've reduced inequality and the attainment gap in education, eradicated poverty, improved our economy - and many other issues - then and only then can we start dealing with the other stuff.

Meanwhile, I'll keep my hand on the remote control for the telly

Heritage

This is Ross Greer. He's 21 and has just been elected to the Scottish Parliament. He's the youngest MSP ever. He has given up his degree course to pursue his political ambitions but I imagine he'll go back to university sooner or later. After all, he won't want to end up as a degree-less wonder. Like - oh, I don't know - Jim Murphy?

I've noticed a few snide comments about Ross's youth since he got elected and all from SNP colleagues. Maybe Ross needs his nappy changed? Will he be able to take the oath or will someone have to read it out to him? 

Can you imagine how outraged these people would have been if remarks like that had been made about Mhairi Black, who was even younger than Ross when she took her seat in Westminster last year? 

There are a couple of serious points to this blog spot, rather than just a moan from me about youth-ism, as opposed to ageism. 

Do we or do we not want young people to get involved in politics? If you have a look at Westminster and Holyrood, the seats are occupied by mainly grey folk (and mainly men - 65%, I believe) in their 40s and 50s.  I can't think of any other way to describe Mhairi Black and Ross Greer except brilliant role models for young Scots. And I can only hope that other political parties will encourage young people like them to get involved in politics. It would certainly shake up the legislature if people their age were there to represent the view of the next generation in Scotland whose taxes will have to provide for us all and who could be in charge for 30 or 40 years to come. 

Besides that, these young people are not so far 'tainted' by the touch of old-fashioned party politics. What else can I call what the Tories, LibDems and Labour do except in those terms? In the past, I've been amazed at how fast people with ambition learned to follow the party line: people with great ideas suddenly realised that wasn't how they would get a nomination for their party - and man o man, they wanted to be nominated. Picking the party that reflects your own view of the country's future is to be encouraged and jumping ship to get into a party that reflects your view likewise.

I come from solid working class stock, people who voted Labour (and before that, ILP or Communist). I went from Labour to Green in about a year, and I'd like to see more people do the same, maybe several times over, in a variety of directions, with each jump to a different party being a judgement on whether the party they voted for looked like delivering the kind of government they wanted. 

I have a few relatives of Mhairi and Ross's generation that I can see in a political role in Edinburgh and London. I'll leave it to them to work out who they are. But you too should look around you and ask who do you want to represent you in the future? 

Cameron

I couldn't find a photo of DC with his foot in his mouth.

I'd love to be able to dislike David Cameron but he's starting to make me laugh. How can you not laugh at a Master of the Universe, Supreme Tory and all-round Entitled Toff when he keeps putting his foot in it?

He's a PR man, for gawdssake, who can't do PR. He clyped on the queen for purring over the result of the Scottish referendum, failed to get a good 'settlement' form the EU and got himself forced into an EU referendum and he now hums and haws over whether he wants to take part in a TV debate on it. He lays into Jeremy Corbyn at every opportunity in a way that would be ruled 'offside' in any secondary school debating society. He also presides over the worst set of economic results the UK has had for 40 years. And finally he complains about corruption in other countries at the very time his own political party is being investigated for - yes, corruption in the last general election.

When he first appeared on the UK stage, I thought Cameron had been put up as a joke candidate and that someone more credible would emerge. But no, it looks like he's the best they've got. The choice we seem to have as PM is Cameron, his mate George (wtf is he on?) Osborne or someone often referred to as 'that buffoon Boris Johnston'.

Boris is another Entitled Toff - and he's not a buffoon. I heard a voter say on TV last week: 'You have to smile when Boris comes on the telly.' Fair enough. I smile when cats appear on my Facebook page. But that's no reason to make them PM.

I think Angus Robertson is doing a good job as the unofficial opposition spokesman in Westminster. He comes over as a sincere and thoughtful Church of Scotland minister and Cameron clearly finds him hard to deal with. But it's time for the official opposition to step up. Where the hell is the Labour Party? You've got an open goal here! Even if you hate Corbyn, rally round him and go for Cameron. The SNP (not my party) will back you up. You can sort your differences out later on.

Social f****** Media

I know t'internet is meant to be a free for all, but it would be good if we could all agree a basic code of good practice.

Some basic rules:

- Don't slag people off for how they look or for their sexual orientation or their clothes - try to behave like a grown-up

- People's opinions are fair game

- Remember there are people out there seeing what you write who will disagree with you

- If you don't want people to disagree with you, either get off social media or adjust your privacy settings so that only your nearest and dearest can see your posts

- Some of the people reading what you write may not like swearing so DON'T DO IT if you can help it - anyway swearing doesn't really advance your arguments

- Do a google search before you share certain posts: a lot of people will take exception to you posting stuff from Britain First. I will. If you still feel the need to share this garbage, expect a reaction

- If you find a 'shock-horror' story, don't pass it on until you've checked it out on Hoaxslayer. 'Facebook to start charging you for the service.' This is never true. It says so on the front page, ffs

- 'How many likes can this war veteran/disfigured child/dying baby get?' From me, none, because I know it's a scam

- Avoid arguments with wazzocks - I've got a few conspiracy theory folk on my list - you'll never persuade them their views are wrong but they are still entitled to live

- Post lots of photos of cats and some of dogs and cute children - you don't have to be radical but you do have to be entertaining.

Adapt or die, guys!

At a party, I heard a gynaecologist - a man - say that the best time for a woman to have a baby was when she was 15. The female body was just right for childbirth at that age. How we all laughed. I asked him if he realised that in order to give birth at the age of 15, a girl (you're not a woman at 15) probably had to conceive at the age of 14, and these days in many countries the law considers impregnating girls of that age a crime. He laughed again and assured me he was talking theoretically. Well, that's all right then.

But I did wonder what kind of man would want to be a gynaecologist. When I had a wee gyne procedure at the tail end of last year, there was only one guy in the operating theatre and I so wanted to ask him but I never saw him after my lump was removed.

Sadly, that gynaecologist's view is one that still prevails in many societies: women and their productivity remain a problem. In the UK if they're not sleeping around and getting pregnant and then demanding (non-existent) council houses and state benefits, they're delaying having children for so long that they need the help of the health services to conceive. Almost every month, there's a warning in the press or on TV about the dangers of women waiting too long to have children as if (1) women have a choice, (2) it's only women who make these decisions and (3) they get pregnant at 35-40 to inconvenience society.

Talking theoretically is wonderful. But in the western world, the reality is that women can now be in education until they are maybe 23 or even 26 or older. It can take them a lot longer to get a job and establish themselves in it, find the right partner and get on the housing ladder. So they are quite often well into their 30s before the idea of having a child becomes a reality for a lot of women.

There's nothing wrong with being an 'older' mother, In fact, there's a lot that's right about it: more mature women have lived a bit, learned a bit, travelled a bit and, although they are more knackered, they enjoy the experience of having and raising children more.

But I regret that the odds are stacked against women in a lot of countries. I've never for a nanosecond had any desire to give birth, but I have noticed that, while male reproductive problems can be solved by - say - the development of a wee blue pill, for women the expectation is that they will somehow find a way to change their behaviour and arrange to have children in their teens or twenties, reduce their expectations in life or just give up all thought of having children.

And frankly, the current postcode lottery for in vitro fertilisation in the UK is obscene.

Our attitude to reproduction is not healthy (sorry) and western societies are suffering from a falling birthrate as a result. In Scotland, we need young people to come and live and work here to support us pensioners and we need them to have children so we know our future is secure. Are the women who come to live here getting help to finance their productivity?

And, most importantly, is someone somewhere doing research into how to make it possible for women to save their eggs or otherwise delay pregnancy so they can have children later? Because that's what's needed.

BBC and PBS

There's a station on Sky telly called PBS. Every time I look at the schedule - I've never been tempted to stay and watch a programme - I find myself thinking: this cannot be all there is to public broadcasting in the USA. Frankly, it's pathetic, a waste of air time. It's all documentaries devoted to American heroes like Billy the Kid or to ancient - very ancient - themes like dinosaurs. Not that great quality as documentaries go. And definitely not controversial.

Surely there must be a real PBS station - or more than one station - broadcasting in the USA? And in fact a quick google search throws up quite a lot of PBS stuff. They do documentaries, news and drama. I believe there are no adverts. That's good news: I've tried watching US telly and found it impossible to follow any programme since the ads seem to come on every 10 minutes, although I admit I was often distracted by ads for medication that ended with 'Ask your attending physician about these drugs.' The ads explain why so many US cop shows have a 'previously on...' section, sometimes in the middle of the show.

PBS dramas, or at least the most popular programmes, all seem to be imported from the UK. If you've seen it here on ITV or BBC - Call the Midwife, Grantchester - it's also on PBS.

But PBS is not a public broadcaster in the way that the BBC is. It lacks the depth and scale of the BBC.

Why do I mention PBS at all? Because at the weekend, I heard and read that the BBC is to be prevented by Westminster from rivalling commercial companies by scheduling, for example, a reality show against one being shown on ITV. How things have changed! Ten years ago or so, we were being told the BBC had to compete with commercial companies. And they did: out went BBC productions and in came 'outsourcing,' which - in my opinion - probably drove the price of drama productions through the roof. Well, everybody had to get a share of the profits, didn't they, rather than a salary?

And I'm not a fan of BBC Scotland. I think a lot of its documentaries are lame and tame. Its news output is frankly embarrassing. Last week we had a 7 minute report on the teatime news about how to ventilate your home. Apparently, you have to open a window. As for the political content, it concerns me that the only stand-alone profile of a Scottish politician I've ever seen on BBC Scotland was of Nicola Sturgeon. There's also no depth to political interviews. It's all about giving every representative of every party the chance to witter on about their party's principles with gey little real questioning of those principles.

In UK terms, the BBC is now no different from ITV and Sky: totally fixated on London and the south-east. Even C4 News, otherwise excellent, has a bit of bother getting its journalists north of Watford. Tonight they were in Leicester and laughing cheerfully at American broadcasters who couldn't pronounce the name of the city or find it on a map. Pots and kettles, eh folks?

Tory attempts to de-claw the BBC by banning competition are hypocritical. The Tories are supposed to be all about choice, so I have to ask why Tory politicians are so keen to stop competition between the BBC and other broadcasters.

It's well known the Tories hate the BBC, which they claim is full of left-wing, sandal-wearing, muesli munchers. I suspect this ban on competing with commercial companies might be part of a plan to reduce the reach of the BBC. Cut it back, in other words, so that it starts to resemble PBS: a niche market, rather than a national broadcaster.

I don't want to abolish the BBC or hobble it so that it can't rival commercial companies. I want to reform the BBC so that it truly represents the people who pay the TV licence. I want fewer Clarksons and Dimblebys soaking up BBC funding and more time and effort spent on representing what is happening in areas outside London.

If you think I'm exaggerating, ask yourself this: when was the last time we saw a report on UK news from Northern Ireland or Wales or the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man? Or from the north east or north west of England for that matter, unless it had to do with bad news like factories closing and jobs being lost?

But we give up our national broadcaster at our peril. Then we will be at the mercy of a US-style TV set-up. And the Kardashians will have won.