THERE was something a bit wartime about the announcement; something a bit Soviet. Stop throwing away food! As someone who believes the state should interfere much more in our private lives, I was delighted to hear it.
Broon, the First Minister of England, wants us to store fruit and vegetables in the fridge to make them last longer. Waste, he said, was costing every household eight poonds a week, which was ruining the world economy.
Now, to be fair to those wan
ting to hang Broon, the subject matter seemed less than statesmanlike. It was more like something you'd see in a supermarket magazine. It was homely and educational, something for our own good. We don't expect politicians to be interested in our own good. We expect them to blab about big stuff like the underlying rate of inflation, the Kyoto agreement, the scourge of terrorism. We don't expect them to advise us to keep our carrots in the fridge.
Listening to the announcement on the radio yesterday, I could feel the mob's outrage swell. For many, this might be the last straw. They'll think him ridiculous and call for his heid. But they've had it in for Broon for some time, and I've ever been one for supporting the underdog.
True, the man's an idiot, and his constitutional treachery has made the lieges gag. But there remains a sense, still, that he is our idiot and that he knows not what he does.
That he has been found out should come as no surprise to the discerning. I warned years ago, when he was chancellor, that he was winging it. But hatred for the admirable Tony Blair lent Broon a second-hand credibility. He is essentially, like most Scots, one of life's number twos, and should have stayed there instead of swinging his jowls into the limelight.
It's curious how, as with Glasgow Rangers in Manchester, it's the Rule Britannia brigade who've been giving Scots a bad name. Maybe it's a conspiracy. (But, when I give it more thought, I cannot believe Broon engineered the Manchester riots. He doesn't seem worldly enough for such gritty matters.)
He has for years existed in a New Labourland of bluff, endlessly repeated statements, of stale formulae for public presentation; a world of political persiflage utterly divorced from reality. Here, the super-rich are paying £14,000 a time for holiday breaks in swanky mansions, where chefs cook them cordon bleu meals on demand, to "lift their spirits".
This is the world New Labour has created. Now, no-one wants to upset rich-loving Times newspapers, leading to a new outbreak of bowdlerising, so let's say right away that it's terrific there's such choice. It's splendid that wealthy people, still prospering mightily during the credit crunch, are spending so wisely because, in the mystical ways of our financial system, that money will trickle down to us all.
In economics, this is known as the "back of the couch" theory. A rich person comes in and sits on your couch uninvited. You become angry and throw him out. This is wrong. The correct approach is to look down the back of the couch when he's gone, for there's a chance he'll have dropped some money down there. That way, you too will share in his prosperity. Everyone's a winner. That's how capitalism works, and it's the most benign and efficient system in history.
It's this system over which Broon presides. Under his pleasantly grim aegis, some citizens spend £14,000 a time on meals to lift their spirits. Others are told to store their loganberries in the fridge to save eight poonds a week. Broon looks after us all, the high and the low. He is our Stalin, our Churchill, our Father Teresa. And it is wrong to mock him.
What a slight to our third national drinkIT'S a shame the National Museums of Scotland have chickened out of displaying a bottle of Buckfast in a forthcoming exhibition of Scottish life.
The monks in Devon who make the tonic-style tipple felt it was being associated with yobbish behaviour – a central aspect of modern Scottish life – and that this demeaned a product "made from the finest quality French wines".
One does feel for the monks. They are simple, voluntarily bald people, who have struggled for many years with their Benedictine addiction. They know they'll burn in the fiery pits of Hell for their sins in supplying ned-juice to the lieges of Lanarkshire.
Yet Buckfast is a delicately astringent drink, and at least our neds have the good taste to quaff it in the traditional manner – straight from the bottle, while standing under a bridge – just as the French do.
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft…DOCTOR Who mania has undone the brainlobes of many citizens. They have been trying to telephone the controversial space traveller who, at the time of going to press, does not exist.
The Bathgate-born Doctor's telephone number was shown, as part of the plot, in the penultimate episode of the current series. At the time, viewers feared he was going to die. This turned out not to be entirely true.
The science is quite difficult to follow but, suffice to say, his dismembered hand in a jar saved him from painful regeneration and, after that, everything was all right. (I should explain that I have watched every episode of the current series and have no idea what it is about.)
When the telephone number was shown, approximately 2,500 people rang it. Many of you will say: "These people are idiots." And you will be correct. Traditionally, idiots gather on the internet and, here, one of them complained: "They showed that number so many times, as if they were asking for it to be called." Yes, it's so unfair.
Another said: "Grrr – I phoned the Doctor's phone number, but there was just an annoying network message. What's the point in showing a phone number if you're not gonna use it?" It is a fair, if stupid, point. Everybody knows the Doctor is ex-directory.
Increasingly, it seems, many people are unable to distinguish between the television and reality. Some of them even think Sir Trevor McDonald is real.
The Doc's mobile number, incidentally, is 07700 900461. I never managed to get through, but you might have more luck – if destiny has chosen you.
The full article contains 1081 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
