Young people today

You know how young people are supposed to be wicked, knife-carrying perverts, good-for-nothings with no respect for the rest of us?

I was sitting in my local cafe having my lunch when I spotted something happening in the street outside. A very elderly man, a wee bit unsteady on his pins, was making his way back to his car from the newsagent's. A boy in a maroon blazer, about 15 maybe, took his arm and led him across the street. By the time he had helped him into the car, I was worried the old guy probably wasn't fit to drive. It was a few minutes before I realised this act of kindness by a young person was something we don't see or hear much of.

Till the other day.

I was in Whole Foods having my lunch. As my faithful readers know I'm not too well these days. It wasn't a very exciting - or heavy - lunch. Just coffee and a croissant - butter - no jam. As I went to lift my tray, a young man in a maroon blazer said:

- Can I get that for you?

I was so surprised, I couldn't give my normal answer, probably something crushing like: What? Do I look feeble?

Instead, I let him carry my tray over to the table I wanted to sit at and thanked him as he walked away.

After the first incident, I wrote to the headteacher of the school - St Ninian's High School. Fair dos. Young people are often criticised, so it’s good to be able to give some praise where it’s due.

I don't feel I should write again, although I could. I told my sister about my wee incident and she reminded me that this has always happened: 20 years ago, her boy and his friend saw an elderly woman fall in the street. Her shopping fell all over the street. They picked her and her shopping up and saw her safely home. She too wrote to their school to thank them: that was Woodfarm High. 

I could deliver a wee homily now about how people are basically good, etc. But I won't. I'm sure everyone has come across random acts of kindness by young people. 

But it would be good if all of us made sure parents and teachers know when these things happen. Schools and families must be doing something right. 

Today's Holyrood Debate

Okay. Today's rant.

I'll come clean. I hate Tories. All of them.

From 1948 on, I was brought up to detest and despise Tories. Working class Tories were the worst people imaginable to my very political Communist/Socialist Glasgow family - we didn't make any distinction between the two ideologies. Working class Tories were not so much poor confused souls as class enemies with a long history of betraying their own people. I've tried over the years to forgive them but they remain my main hate group.

And as today's Tories move further and further to the right, attacking trade unions and the poor and disabled, espousing free market economics of a kind never before seen in Europe but quite common in the minds if not the lives of American politicians, I find myself horrified by what I see and hear in Holyrood and in Westminster.

I'm not even going to mention UKIP, who are also Tories but a different kind.

The Conservative party to me have characteristics that I find deeply offensive: they are greedy, the kind of people who know the cost of everything (especially in places like the Home Counties - why am I the only person who finds that title annoying?) but the value of nothing. They are frankly out for themselves. Arrogant. More than a little bit stupid.

I was going to attach a few names to these adjectives: greedy - George Osborne. Cost of everything/value of nothing - Michael Gove. Arrogant - David Cameron, David Davis, Boris Johnson.Well, let me be honest: just about any of them. Stupid - what can I say? David Cameron, David Davis, Boris Johnson...

But today in Holyrood saw us reaching a new low in Conservative politics. The Tory leader in Scotland's parliament, a woman whose abilities have I think been over-estimated, argued with the First Minister and at one point told her to 'sit down' because she wasn't going to 'cede the floor' to her. The words who the f*** do you think you are? came to my mind unbidden.

Now. I was taught the rules of debating by some very smart teachers at Crookston Castle Secondary School in Glasgow in the 1960s. A lot of them were active in the Labour Party and some among the Liberals, although I'm not sure any ever owned up to being Tories. I learned, for example, that you should have your arguments properly laid out and you should give way gracefully if your ideas are challenged - and have your answers ready.

I'm not too bothered about Nicola Sturgeon being upset by Ruth Davidson's comments. She's a tough cookie and will survive, but I would like Davidson to apologise for her rudeness to the office of First Minister. I can't imagine her ever speaking to Donald Dewar or Jack McConnell or Jim Wallace like that. And she should be ashamed for speaking to Nicola Sturgeon in this way.

Bogofs be gone!

I've just been reading that the supermarket bogof - buy one get one free - offer is now thought to be one of the causes of childhood obesity and is to be no more. Great news.

Well, it's good news for people like me who end up taking a lettuce + a free one and have the pleasure of watching (and smelling) the second lettuce rot in the fridge. Not just lettuce: green beans, melons, cabbages. And not just veg: crisps, ready meals, breakfast cereal, chocolate, tins of soup.

Well, there is only me in my house. And so long as I have problems with my gut, there's a limit to how much I can consume. I also don't have the space to store bogofs. It's not the first time I've had to phone a relative to come and take away a bag or two of food I can't use that's approaching its sell-by date. Once, when I realised I was overwhelmed by bogofs, I spoke to the woman ahead of me in the Sainsbury queue. Would she like to take my extra lettuce and a melon? She looked as if I was trying to sell her class A drugs.

O no! she said. We don't eat fresh fruit and veg in our house!

Really?

No! Only frozen stuff. My boys just won't look at fresh veg. They prefer things like Nutella.

Nutella. That's a food?

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask: Have you ever heard of soup? Generations of boys in my family have been conned into eating their veg by a plate of their mammy's lentil/chicken/carrot & rice soup. But I didn't. I also tried very hard to stop my eyebrows disappearing into my hairline.

Forget the obesity. Think of the waste. Any time Sainsbury fails to deliver what I've asked for (even if they do manage to make a suitable substitution) they send me a free gift. One week they had no beef in black bean sauce so I got 2 bottles of Palmolive liquid soap as well as a perfectly ok substitute for the ready meal. Another time, I didn't get the Ayrshire bacon I wanted and they sent me some perfectly ok bacon plus 2 packets of hygienic hand wipes. I'm still trying to sort that lot out in my head. Right now in my kitchen there are quite a few bottles of Peroni beer which I bought at Majestic Wine at the New Year in a two-for-one offer waiting for a new home. Don't all rush!

Gaelic in the era of Fake News

I don't know who started this. Was it the Conservatives in Scotland, who seem to be capable of telling any kind of lie? (Scottish education is failing, the NHS is failing, the SNP doesn't have a majority, etc.) Or was it some anonymous group of anti-independence people? Whoever it was, the story is going round that Gaelic - language and culture - is part of the SNP's project to turn Scotland into some sort of Celtic nationalist Brigadoon.

In the past month or so I've read that Nicola Sturgeon (isn't it odd how she is always mentioned by name - almost as if she's a hate figure - while Theresa May is never singled out as the person responsible for the things the Tories do at Westminster, where she and her cabinet are just lumped together as 'the government'?). As I say, it seems Nicola Sturgeon is going to use Gaelic to turn Scotland into some sort of Celtic twilight zone. Gaelic will become Scotland's main language and we'll all be forced to learn the language.

Gaelic it seems being forced on the Scottish people, even in areas where Gaelic was never spoken. Hint: there are no places in Scotland where Gaelic was never spoken. You only have to study place names on the map to realise that at one time in our history - and in some cases, our quite recent history - Gaelic was the main language of the region. It may have had a different name - Brythonic - but it was Gaelic or Welsh or Cornish or Manx - and it was spoken in every area of Great Britain. (Can I digress again and point out that Great Britain doesn't refer to how great the British are but to the largest of a group of islands off the coast of Europe? In other words, it's just a description, not a comment.)

It seems public bodies like the police, fire service, EMS, Education Scotland, the Scottish Parliament, etc will all have to produce a plan that will allow Gaelic to take over the country. And it will cost a fortune. New road signs seem to get people very agitated, as do Gaelic names on the side of police cars and helicopters. The Scottish government - aka Nicola Sturgeon - is even forcing local authorities to adopt Gaelic language plans. There were - I think - 15 local authorities offering Gaelic education when I retired in 2008 - about half. We already had a plan. Worked on it together. The plan was always to take a gradual approach and keep costs to a minimum.

I'm sorry if you get the impression I think this whole issue is mince. But it is. Writing as a former languages teacher with experience of learning French, Russian, German, Spanish and Gaelic, I'd love to know how exactly 'Nicola' is going to make everyone speak Gaelic. We had 45 years in the EU and couldn't even agree that everyone in the UK should speak and understand at least one language in common use among our neighbours. How the hell we're going to get everybody working on a minority language I don't know.

But I digress. The SNP has never been keen to endorse Gaelic. I'm not too sure if I can say why: it has to do with religion and sometimes with sectarianism. Anyway, the SNP wasn't in a position to encourage the language till fairly recently (2011). Even then, they more or less had to be talked into it.

The people who got Gaelic registered as a lesser used language in the EU were the Labour Party.

That happened in 2009. Check on Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

There are responsibilities attached to having what's called 'co-official' status for a language. There has to be a national plan and public bodies have to buy into it. But there is EU funding available to encourage this. Scotland now has the Bòrd na Gàidhlig which drew up the plan. The national plan for Gaelic always - I promise you, always - understood that Gaelic plans for local authorities and public bodies would be phased in gradually and costs would be kept to a minimum.

The latest hoo-ha in Moray (where Gaelic was widely spoken till fairly recently) about the cost of a Gaelic plan suggested the plan would cost £40,000 and the Aberdeen P&J which reported this didn't bother to say that the cost was spread over 5 years and there were grants the council could apply for but went right ahead and quoted a couple of councillors who described Gaelic activists as the 'Gestapo.' I'm told the cost to the council tax payers of Moray is 0.004% of the budget.

The Moray fiasco isn't mischief-making. It is downright sinister. I hate the idea that the development of Gaelic education (from 25 kids in 1985 to almost 4,000 in 2015) could be hijacked by politicians with their own agenda. I don't care if this is being punted by Conservatives in Scotland or by some other anti-independence group. This is people's kids we're talking about.

The anti-Gaelic folk - and newspapers like the Herald and the Scotsman - just how do they sleep at night, knowing they have spent time trying to damage a very fragile group in our community? Or maybe my very question suggests they don't give a toss about our community. They're working on their own agenda.

Maisie

Do you know the expression 'that took the wind oot wur sails?'

A and I arrived at the library today for our fortnightly run. It used to be a weekly run but we've gone from 14 to 5 clients in the last couple of years so we've cut back our visits. The moment we walked into the library we were told that one of our clients had died.

That was Maisie.

It was a shock. We saw her two weeks ago and she wasn't well - too thin, A said, on antibiotics for an infection and her son had come up from England because he was worried about her. Looking back on that last visit, I realise that the son's knowing looks directed at A and me were a warning that Maisie was a lot more ill than we thought.

A has been delivering to the homebound in the south of Glasgow far longer than me, but I reckon I'd known Maisie for about 7 years. She loved reading. She liked a mixture of books. As soon as we worked out she was Andy Murray's biggest fan (that was easy: she had his picture up on the wall of her retirement flat), we started looking out for books about or by him. She also loved Tartan Noir, especially by women writers like Caro Ramsay, Lin Anderson and Denise Mina. Biographies and autobiographies also went down well with her.

Almost the first thing she told me about herself was that she'd been married twice. The first marriage, I gathered, was a disaster but in widowhood Maisie met the man she'd always dreamed of and married him and had a few years of real happiness before he, too, died. She wasn't a remarkable woman, our Maisie, just a decent wumman in the Glasgow style. Adored her sons and grandchildren. Had their photos all over her flat. Worried about them and just loved to see them when they came to visit which, I'm glad to say, they did regularly.

Today A and I sat in the car park of her sheltered housing complex and noticed that her flat was empty. As was the flat where Archie used to live. Archie was the client who died before Maisie.

It's happening too often. And although there is no family bond between us and our library clients, there's a terrible sense of loss.

Extremism

The other night, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown was on the Sky News Preview and she made a telling point: call them what we like, the lone-wolf attackers who kill and maim people in the name of ISIS or Allah, are extremists. They are not religious fanatics: a lot of the terrorists who have been caught in Europe are either converts to Islam or young men with no interest in religion at all.

I would take Yasmin's point one step further and say there is no difference between so-called 'Islamist' extremists and the white extremists from the many groups springing up all over Europe: Pegida in Germany, the Front National in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Jobbik in Hungary, the EDL and the SDL in the UK. These groups are the domain mainly (though not exclusively) of young white men.

All of these groups belong to the hard right of politics. They are anti-democratic. They are anti women's rights. The European groups seem to hark back to an age of male supremacy - white male supremacy - an age that never existed. They seem to be not very well educated and they are easily manipulated by people like Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders. The Islamist extremists seek a perfect world (not heaven - and there's no talk of virgins) in which Islamist men will have all the power.

The questions we need to ask are: why do young men join these groups and what can be done to stop them?

In the past, I've got really annoyed when people told me how men in the West feel disempowered. Their role in life has changed. They are no longer seen as the breadwinners. I don't buy all of this: the second half of the 20th century was a shock for a lot of people. Think back to how life was for middle class and some working class women in the UK 50 or 60 years ago. Even if they worked in a well-paid job, it was expected they would give it up when they married. Their 'place' was at home with the children. Nowadays some women are out there in the workplace because they want to be, but others are working because otherwise their families couldn't have the life they want. Life has changed for everyone. Boys leaving school at 15 used to be able to walk into a job. Not any more. Now people have to live with zero hours or short term contracts, jobs that pay the minimum wage, outrageous rents, the impossibility of being able to buy their own home.

Is it just that men are finding it harder to adapt? And a small number are taking refuge in extreme right wing politics?

And can we do anything about that?

Open Sesame!

I had a stroke when I was 35 and discovered I couldn't do simple things in the kitchen like open tins. Those were the days before tins had ring-pulls on them. (My sister reminded me at the weekend that ring-pulls are a hit or a miss: what happens when you pull the ring thing on a wee tin of tuna is you get covered in tuna and the smelly oil it's packed in. Not a good look when you're at your work). I went less hi-tech: I invested in an electric tin opener which I still have and it works very well:

When I got it (from the Great Universal catalogue - where a lot of us shopped in Islay and some may still do) it wasn't yellow - and it was clean.

I also bought from Betterware a plastic cap thingy that grips the top of a jar. I've still got that too, a wee bit frayed round the edges (aren't we all?) but it works fine:

But today I think I've met my match: a Kilner jar. A stuck Kilner jar:

This jar contains (look away now if you're vegetarian) a very expensive goose-liver pâté from Bienmanger, a French company that deals in posh grub. I treat myself to goodies from Bienmanger maybe 3 times a year. This is the first time I've had a problem. I googled 'how to open a Kilner jar.'

Lots of websites with lots of people giving contradictory advice: one told me this probably wasn't a 'proper' Kilner jar and that's why it's hard to open. Not helpful. Another told me to break the vacuum by standing the jar in warm water. Someone else insisted there is no vacuum - strictly speaking, it's a depression. Also not helpful. Someone else suggested: tease the rubber seal out from the side of the jar. With what? A blow torch? Not much advice on how to open the b*st*rding thing.

So here's my plan of action: the least dangerous approach seems to be to stand the jar in warm water and see if that releases the 'vacuum.' Failing that, I'll do what I usually do: bribe one of the nephews to come over with offers of beer and see if brute strength can get it open. I'll let you know...

The price of everything...

I once had a colleague who, as a student, had worked for the family of the Queen Mother. She talked about having to learn how to press ball gowns so that the holes in the ancient fabric wouldn't be seen when the ladies stepped out on the dance floor at the summer ball. They were as poor as church mice, the Bowes-Lyons. And every penny was a prisoner. That is to say, they had a castle and a place in London and a whole lot of debt, but they also had connections and a place in a society that almost all of us would be excluded from. It was no surprise that she married the younger brother of the future king. It's like she'd been groomed for it.

I was grateful to this colleague for giving us first hand info about these people. She reduced the staffroom to silence. If she hadn't spoken up, I'd have had to go on listening to teachers discussing the royal family as if they were their next of kin. You know the style: Poor Princess Margaret - and later on, Poor Diana.

The QM wasn't groomed for the job of queen, of course. That kind of fell into her lap. And boy, did she make the most of it. The very nice tax deals the house of Battenberg-Mountbatten-Windsor had till quite recently were negotiated by the QM after her husband took the throne and she was still doing deals well into her daughter's reign. Negotiations were conducted over tea - or maybe a dry sherry - between equerries and cabinet secretaries, and all they ended with the royals making a ton of money.

It's all very different these days. Of course, our political life is still infected by people like David Cameron - Eton and Oxford, married into the Astor family who, among other things, own a fair bit of the island of Jura. Sadly, David has proved to be a bit of a failure, having lost the EU referendum thanks to an overdose of optimism, a lack of nous and some pretty shaky political decisions.

And then there's George. George comes from "trade." His family make wallpaper. Posh wallpaper. Very pricey. They are quite rich. But still if you asked them they would have to say they make wallpaper. As far as I can see, George has no talent for anything much. Taught English in Japan for a while after university. Got an internship with a London newspaper but showed no talent for writing. Became an MP and - mirabile dictu (bless my cotton socks - for those of you who don't have the Latin) - got appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by his mate. In his time as Chancellor, George and his pals in government ran up a bit of debt - £1.7 trillion worth of debt and extended the deficit in the UK's import-export balance so far it's out of sight. But since George resigned as Chancellor, things have changed for him. He still has his MP's salary and he gets a bit of a pay-off for losing the extra wages that went with being Chancellor. And then he started racking up other jobs, so many that he is now reckoned to be earning £1.7 million a year:

- He's a speaker at the Washington Speaker's Bureau, where he has a lucrative contract to perform after-dinner speeches around the world
- He's a chairman of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership
- He's an advisor to the American fund management firm Blackrock. He's thought to be paid £650,000 a year (yes, you read that right) for working one day a week for the company (yes, you read that right as well)
- He's a fellow at the McCain Institute, an American think tank
- He will be (as of mid-May) the editor of London's Evening Standard newspaper .

There's only one problem with all this: George has a day job - he's an MP - so while he's jetting off to the USA to talk at dinners, who's looking after his constituency?

Markets but not so super

I have limited energy right now and what I have is not going to be wasted on walking round a supermarket putting food into a trolley that I have collected and paid for, unloading the food at a checkout, reloading the food at the other end of the checkout into bags which I have supplied and then wheeling it out to my car. So it's online shopping for me.

This week I realised something had gone wrong with the stock system of the supermarket I get deliveries from. My order comes from the biggest supermarket in the area, so how come they couldn't provide the following?

- Sensodyne - the pink one
- Carte Noire coffee
- mouthwash (the cheap one, not the posh one)
- beef in black bean sauce
- Port Salut cheese
- pork stock cubes
- roast chicken legs

I can remember years ago arguing with a supermarket manager that there was no way the shop could possibly have run out of melons. If the shop had computerised stock-taking, the 'just in time' system should ensure that what the customers need is there. Turned out the chain I was in didn't have computerised anything. I took my custom elsewhere.

Since I'm paranoid, I'm going to suggest something else is going on. I suspect manufacturers and retailers play a wee game with us customers:

So the pink Sensodyne disappears off the shelves for a while, forcing anyone who likes to use the product to buy the version the manufacturer wants to sell us. It's a wee bit dearer than the original pink one. Of course. It also seems to have a chalk base so it leaves you with white dots all over your clothes.

Same goes for mouthwash: if you can't get the 89p mouthwash, you'll have to go for the more expensive one. If you shop online, the one that's labelled 'You might want to try' is £3.15.

Carte Noire coffee is pretty dear but so is the replacement suggested by the algorithm and it isn't as good. The replacement for Port Salut is a pretty inferior (and not French) cheese. The replacement ready meal of beef in black bean sauce is a wee bit cheaper but a lot smaller.

I can't explain the absence of pork stock cubes. But if I couldn't get a pack of roast chicken legs, the shop my delivery comes from has a deli with a roast chicken counter. I could order from there. At a price.

Do I think we're being manipulated? You mean you don't?

Tory corruption

I've been writing about this most of tonight in various Facebook groups but I thought I would mention it here too. I'm trying to avoid the news at the moment* (except on C4) but for some reason tonight I found myself looking at Theresa May as she spoke these words to camera on Sky: 'The conservative Party has cooperated fully with the inquiry.'

She was talking here about the inquiry into electoral fraud in 20 constituencies - repeat, 20 - at the last general election in 2016 - and she was lying. I knew she was lying because I'd just been watching Michael Crick on C4 news, where he quoted from the actual report (page 70, if I remember right) which stated that the Tories had not cooperated fully with the inquiry. I imagine Michael Crick will have got that right because he was the journalist who started investigating rumours that Conservative Central Office had been playing fast and loose with expenses during the election. It matters that this involves 20 constituencies because the Tory majority is just 17 and if any of the MPs involved are prosecuted and found guilty of fraud, they'll have to stand down. A spokesperson for the inquiry was also there on TV to state that the Tory Party had been fined the maximum - oh, I don't know how much, maybe £70,000 - but I did think that won't even cover the amount they over-spent. And then I thought: drug dealers at least lose all their assets...

If you want to read about this try the New Statesman:  http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2017/03/qa-what-does-tory-election-fraud-probe-mean-government

He's quite eccentric, is Michael Crick. He tends to latch on to politicians and stories - usually suspect ones - and is reluctant to let go. That sometimes gets him into real confrontations with politicians who are not used to being challenged. But he's one of the last investigative journalists working in the UK media today. Next time you see a presenter delivering a piece to camera, ask yourself:  is this balanced, does it present both sides, is it fair? That's what TV news presenting should be about, but a friend pointed out the other day that when the Dutch government was facing up to Turkey, the BBC interviewed someone all the way from Istanbul - but nobody from the Hague.

I imagine Michael Crick is not very popular is some political circles, though he is with me. If I were him, I'd be watching out for polonium-tipped umbrellas.



* Well, it's the Scottish Referendum, Brexit, the Tories, innit?

Nice wee...

On some unionist haterag last week, I read this comment: 'I wish these people (not sure if it was SNP or all of us who want independence) would just go away and we could go back to being the nice wee country we used to be.' I'll leave the 'nice wee' bit to my favourite poet, Tom Leonard: 

https://francesbell.wordpress.com/.../a-wee-poem-the-voyeur/

The Voyeur
by Tom Leonard
what’s your favourite word dearie
is it wee
I hope it’s wee
wee’s such a nice wee word
like a wee hairy dog
with two wee eyes
such a nice wee word to play with dearie
you can say it quickly
with a wee smile
and a wee glance to the side
or you can say it slowly dearie
with your mouth a wee bit open
and a wee sigh dearie
A wee sigh
put your wee head on my shoulder dearie
oh my
a great wee word
and scottish
it makes me proud.

Indy Ref 2

It all kicked off yesterday morning and by this afternoon I'd come across so many people moaning about it on twitter and Facebook and in the papers that I decided: I don't know what we're going to call this independence referendum, but I know I'm not going to comment on it. Instead, I'll try to measure how hysterical people get over it by collecting some of their deathless overblown phrases in one place.

So within 30 hours, I had friends telling each other they felt sick (disgusted, revolted, furious) when they heard that Nicola Sturgeon (wee Jimmie Krankie, Salmond's puppet, a married woman having a lesbian affair - yes, this has all been said today) had called for (demanded, threatened) a second referendum on independence just two years after declaring the first one a once in a generation thing. (Actually, she didn't - her predecessor did and gawd help us all if we're to be held responsible for what other folk say).

Someone else was apparently being thanked for sharing information with the silent majority. I can't say I've noticed the majority - if that's what anti-independence voters are - being all that silent. I've had the Scotsman, the Guardian and the Daily Record quoted at me, all of them going way over the top in their choice of language. By the way, what on earth happened to the Guardian? It seems to have shifted its political view so far to the right it's now on nodding terms with the Torygraph. And that's not good. Words have been bandied about in the press: betrayal, for example, was up there, along with a gauntlet that seems to have been thrown down. And ambushed - as in Prime Minister ambushed. Mind you, sporran also appeared on one newspaper's front page. Nothing beats a bit of tribal type-casting. A friend is also sharing memes with me from the Scottish Tories. Three today. None of them have any thoughts on the future. Just how much they hate Nicola Sturgeon.

I'm sure you've noticed some of these comments - like ambush - are based on warfare. So, if that's the level we've started at, where do you suppose we'll end up by the time the independence referendum is finished? Especially since the Tories haven't waded in yet, except for Theresa May looking pretend-astounded when SNP members laughed at her comments in the House of Commons. Maybe Mrs May needs to look more closely at these people on the benches opposite: that is what an opposition looks like when you have one.

I have other friends who are re-thinking their position very seriously: some are in a difficult place and it's good to see them take the time to reflect on that. I'm sure they are not alone. I've no idea how they will deal with the independence conundrum: stay in Europe or stay in the UK. These folk are torn. Good luck to them.

I was accused tonight by a young person of looking down on their opinion of the UK/EU debate. I toyed with two replies:

I'm so far up the moral high ground I look down on everyone.

I'm a smart arse - don't take it personally.

Open wide!

My dentist had the audacity to retire last year. When I tried to argue that he wasn't old enough to retire, he reminded me I'd been going to his practice for 25 years and, in that time, he had moved on from being a newly-married youngster to being a grandad several times over. He promised me moving on to a new dentist would be a seamless transition.

In fact, the new dentist even has the same name as the old one: Stuart. He's a Norn Irn boy, which inspires confidence. He takes the same approach as the other Stuart: preserving what life is left in these teeth of mine. He's very diplomatic: when I asked him about the 25-year-old veneers on my front teeth, he said 'Yes, they are opaque.' I wasn't sure what that meant so I just let it go. They're still there. Still opaque, but there.

This week, during my 6-monthly check-up, Stuart told me that one of my 'big back teeth' is showing signs of decay but in such an awkward place that he's not keen to tackle it. I don't like the word decay. Plenty of parts of my body are showing signs of decay but I had hoped my teeth were hanging in there. I said: 'So what do we do then?' From somewhere above my head, Stuart said 'We'll keep an eye on it.' I was not reassured. 'What are we waiting for? To see if I die before anything has to be done?' He had the decency to laugh. But all he said was 'Don't worry - it won't come to that.'

I can only hope he's right. Between the veneers and the big back tooth, we're talking big money. Stuart No 1 didn't bother too much about money. When the front fell off one of my teeth, he put it through as emergency treatment. Cheap as chips. But I get the impression things have moved on these days. When I got a filling replaced recently by Stuart No 2, it cost a lot more than chips.

Still, what's a gal to do? Curl up and die or smile into the mirror and tell myself: You're worth it!

Health

Along with my pal Alex, I deliver books to library customers who can't make it to the library. Some are elderly and some are just too ill or disabled to make it round to the library. Contact with people from the library once a week is sometimes a life-saver for our clients.

Today we visited Hettie who - we think - is in her 80s. About two years ago, Hettie seemed to lose interest in reading, having had a library ticket for Elder Park since she was 6. She had deliveries for years but now she refused offers of any kind of books, wouldn't consider large print and rejected talking books out of hand.

Today, she announced she has had her cataracts done. She took the books we brought her and wants us to come back in a month.

Yay! Success! We are really pleased because recently we've gone from 12 clients to 5 - and the service is not sustainable like that.

We need to stop for a moment and think who made all this happen: the local authority, Glasgow City Council, set up an 'arms-length' agency called Glasgow Life. It recruited volunteers like Alex and me to provide a service in local libraries that otherwise would not exist. I wish the home delivery service could be part of regular library provision but it can't, so us volunteers step in and help out.

I have changed my attitude to libraries recently: I've been ill myself over the last 13 months with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I couldn't get out for a lot of the time and I appreciate the importance of having books delivered, but the local authority where I live doesn't run anything like the Glasgow service: here you can have the books they provide from the WRVS and that's it. Glasgow works out the kind of books you like and brings you only those books.

Right now, Alex and I, along with the library manager at Elder Park, are trying to flood the Govan, Ibrox, Mosspark, Cardonald area with adverts for our service. We want it to continue. We're trying to make contact with as many outside agencies as possible. If you know anyone who would benefit from the service, please contact us:

Elder Park Library
228a Langlands Road, Glasgow G51 3TZ
0141 276 1540
libraries@glasgowlife.org.uk

Zoom!

We don't know yet if or when there will be a second Scottish independence referendum, even though Labour and the Conservatives are talking it up. But already brethren on both sides are getting agitated. The main pro-independence parties have said nothing: Greens, SNP and SWP. We also don't know when Article 50 will launch Brexit but the internet and social media are already full of complaints and insults on all sides.

I would like to encourage us all, if we're to survive 2017, to give up the schoolboy insults and try using argument to make our points. Some of the insults I've seen are so weird, I don't know what they mean: like zoomers. I can't tell you what they are but the word is used as an insult on Facebook.

Thus, a person who wants independence is not a splitter or a splittist or a sep. A member of the SNP is not a nazi or a nastynat. A Green is not a sandal-muncher (though the mental picture is quite good - reminds me of Charlie Chaplin eating his boot when he had no money). A person who wants the UK to stay united is not a yoon.

A man with an opinion that is opposed to your own is not a wanker or a bastard. Alex Salmond is not the SNP's puppet-master. He's just a politician. Nicola Sturgeon is not Alex Salmond's puppet. Theresa May is not a bitch. Nor are Kezia Dugdale or Ruth Davidson. They too are just politicians. They actually believe in what they're doing.

It would be good if people who want independence could remind themselves that insults are used to provoke - and if you retaliate with more insults, you're playing into the opposition's hands.

People who wanted to stay in the EU are not Remoaners. They are among the 48% of voters who voted to stay for a lot of reasons and are now alarmed to see where the UK is heading without a map or a guidebook.

A woman with an opinion is not a c*nt. The saddest thing to see recently has been the continued attacks on Claire Heuchan's views of Scotland. No, I didn't like what she said either but I took the trouble to find out what she had actually written for the Guardian and can see how her views were distorted to suit the Guardian's new agenda. (It's entertaining that the Guardian is calling for its 'supporters' to donate money to save the paper, while all the time turning itself into the kind of right-wing organisation a lot of people in the UK detest). Surely, everyone who had something to say about Claire Heuchan's article has now said it. Can we just tell ourselves opposition views are not a bad thing and move on?

Finally, watch out for trolls and don't be a troll yourself: trolls are members of the opposition who don't really want to get into a discussion. They want to go on to other people's Facebook pages and Twitter feeds and provoke them by insulting them. Nothing good ever comes of trying to talk to these people.

To everyone with an interest in politics, I'd say: keep your powder dry - it's going to be a long year and a bumpy ride.

Dom

This morning I've been roused - latterly to a frenzy - four times by the paper boy.

Not Dominic.

Dominic has decided to take time out from delivering papers while he sits his Highers. On the one hand, I'm very glad that he's serious about his studies but, on the other hand, it means introducing someone new to the building, 'the code' and the lift. We don't have a good history with this. The big problem is the code.

Today, the new guy keyed in the code twice and, instead of me, got the emergency service (Bield - memorise the name - you will all have to know that name soon if you don't know it already). They called me, although it wasn't an emergency and Bield is an emergency service. Could they let the paper boy in? Of course. Their code didn't work. The paper boy called me again. Could I come down and collect the paper?  Not a hope in hell! I keyed him in again, waited a lifetime (3 minutes) and was about to go down and let him in when he appeared at the top of the stairs. I took my paper and asked if he was on tomorrow. Yep. And the next six weeks.

Bugger.

The new guy and I will get used to each other. Just as well because once Dom has got used to the idea of not getting up 5am, there's a chance he'll never come back to his paper round. That's a shame because although he's often late, he's reliable. I never thought I would miss him.

Norn Irn

Do you know what's happening in politics in Northern Ireland? I kind of have an idea. I used to work in an area of Scotland that had close links with Northern Ireland and I take an interest, but I have to say if I was depending on the media to tell me what I need to know I'd be lost. I read a newspaper in printed form, follow a couple of other papers online and watch C4 news fairly regularly so I can sort of piece together what's going on. I know Martin McGuiness has stepped down as depute First Minister and Arlene Foster has got caught up in a huge financial scandal over - what? - a heating deal? On Thursday, there was a 'snap election' but I'm not entirely sure what the fall-out from that election will be.

And yet, this is one of the main communities of the United Kingdom. As is often the case these days, we only hear about Northern Ireland (or Wales or Scotland or any area of England north of Watford Gap) when there's an election or a major disaster. You think I'm exaggerating? Watch BBC or ITV news and keep a tally of (1) stories from outside London and the south-east area and (2) the number of times reporters actually get off their arse and report from areas outside London and the south-east area.

Northern Ireland is important. It always has been to some of us, not that you could tell that from what happens in Westminster or in the media. Apart from the problem that a good proportion of the population is still suffering the trauma of The Troubles, even if they weren't directly involved, and live in dread that it will all start up again, this is the front line of the UK's frankly insane decision to remove itself from the European Union: is there to be a hard or soft Brexit? I imagine few people in Northern Ireland care, but I suppose they care about the idea that border posts, lines of barbed wire and customs officials will be installed along a border with Eire that we know is basically full of holes - and all the cross-border nonsense will start up again.

The uncertainty of what will happen during and after Brexit is doing the United Kingdom no good at all. Do you have faith that the Conservative government will go in and negotiate a good deal to leave the EU? Do you have any idea when that will take place? Do you have any confidence in how they plan to protect industries that are of major importance to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales - like farming and fishing? Is anyone in the Tory party even trying to reassure us?

I'll leave you to answer that on your own. Given the election results in Northern Ireland, it's pretty clear what people think there.