Occupy London: God gets tough

The end was nigh and so it was done. The Occupy London protesters at St Paul's Cathedral in the centre of the Great Satan had paraded their heresy and stinking sodomy - behind tent canvas - for far too long.

In the early hours of this morning, God and his son on earth, Boris, appeared in the company of several hundred modern angels and disciples - bailiffs and riot cops to non-believers - and whipped the heretics away in a wind of righteous fury.

No more shall the lambs of God in the City be reminded of their greed and incompetence which contributed to the present recession. Here in the new Jerusalem, they shall be free to enjoy their large bonuses while the great unwashed are smited with job losses, public service cuts and homelessness.

It is also foretold in the scriptures that many foreign guests will soon arrive to be greeted in the new Jerusalem by the prophets Dave and Nick Cleggeron. There shall be no upturning of tables in this marketplace.

Amen.

Further reading from the book of the BBC:

Gentlemen and ladies, it's time to move on”

David Buik, Financier

The proximity of Gaelic

Speaking to a teacher recently who had worked for a year or two in New Zealand, I found out that all primary children there learn not only some basic Maori but learn about the place of Maori in the history and culture of the country. Maori itself though is a relative newcomer to the islands - it is thought that Maori speaking people settled there around 1000 years ago. To compare to Scotland, our last indigenous people have been here for twice that or more.

Because of this, Gaelic is all around us in Scotland. Though if we don't speak Gaelic or learn it to some extent and aren't told about it, we don't know. The obvious step for Gaelic activists and for a Scottish government should be to make people aware of their history and environment. This should be fundamental to anyone who calls themselves an internationalist - if you don't have a nation and culture of your own, then what are you going to take to the international stage?

The Scottish Government recently announced that Scottish Studies would be mandatory at some stages of a child's education. This frightened some of the usual naysayers who see anything Scottish as being inherently inferior. To most of us, a journey into Scotland's past and present history and culture is a fascinating one. We could go back to the days when lynx and wolves were plentiful. Or examine the reasons for the building of the various monuments at Calanais or the settlement at Skara Brae. We could study the composition of Y Gododdin and the real meaning of the term 'British'. There is the Celtic knotwork and the thesis, from musicologist John Purser, that instead of being just a pretty pattern it was actually an early method of transcribing music. There are also the Picts who may have died out as a separate grouping of tribes but whose DNA lives on in many of today's Gaelic speaking population. And, of course, there's the role and place of Gaelic.

Recent evidence would suggest that the Gaels were not invaders from Ireland 1500 years ago but that they'd lived in Argyll for as long as the Picts had lived in other parts of our landmass. Sadly, Pictish is no longer with us though it is likely that some of it entered the Gaelic language.

Finally, we have a campaign to make people aware of the Gaelic that they already have on their lips in everyday Scottish language. The posters which highlight well kent words in Scotland come courtesy of Ulpan - a group that facilitates the 'ulpan' method of language teaching for the Scottish tongue. Maybe the next step is to make people aware of the Gaelic on their doorsteps? In and around Edinburgh, this could include Calton Hill as Cnoc Challtainn - Hill of the Hazel Trees or Craigentinny as Creag an t-Sionnaich or Rock of the Fox.

After all, knowledge is power and many in our society - such as racists, Unionists and religious extremists - garner their strength through ignorance and fear.

Gaelic then is our present and living connection to our distant past.

Further reading/ listening:
A New History of the Picts, Stuart McHardy
Scotland's Music, John Purser
Scottish Place-name Society/ Comann Ainmean-aite na h-Alba

Second boozebus needed for Scottish Labour

With Eric Joyce managing to withdraw his head from his own erse for long enough to stick it on a Tory MP, the once stiff-backed sudger has seen his once 'promising' career finally hit the bottom of the glass. Years of fleecing the public purse either directly via his 'expenses for oil paintings' escapade or indirectly through his frequent indulgence in the subsidised bar in the House of Commons have seen his political fortunes come to resemble his haggard and careworn alcohol-beaten visage.

Labour wait years for a Boozebus and now they all come at once.

Forward with Labour. For..where with...Labour?

The most intriguing thing about it is just what the fluk did the Tory say to deserve such a mauling? I'd like to think that the Tory MP for Pudsey (really), Stuart Andrew called him a 'porridge wog and subsidy junkie who doesn't have the balls to go for independence'. Joyce was so inebriated that forgetting he was a Labour stooge, gave Andrew a hiding that he won't forget anytime soon. Not satisfied with sticking the heid on a Tory he leathered a few of his Labour comrades who came to the defence of the milk-snatcher.

Another angle is that the Welsh and openly gay Andrew is a bit two-faced when it comes to his politics. It seems that over the years he's played for both Hearts and Hibs, politically speaking, and jumped side depending the prevailing mood of the time.

Whatever, its kind of amusing to see the Unionists being so... disunited.

On top of the current Labour meltdown in Glasgow, the Tom Harris idiocy and the failure of several cocksure MSPs to hold their seats at last year's Scottish elections, this would seem to be another nail in Scottish Labour's coffin. The party are bankrupt and redundant on many fronts. The best approach for Scottish Labour is to cut ties with bloated and corrupt London and start again in an independent Scotland. Some have floated the idea of 'Labour for Independence'. Do they have the clachan for it though?

So many devils to sup with...

So, the great horned one has spoken from his British lair in Wapping and apparently declared his support for a 'competitive Scotland'. That could of course mean independence or maybe he's just wishing Craig Levein luck in the national fitba team's encounter with Slovenia next week.

He has however been unequivocal in his praise for Alec Salmond as the best politician in these islands. The other bit-part politicians in the Parish of North Britain have not been pleased and have passed around enough sour grapes between them to make Jeremy Clarkson's haemorrhoids seem few and far between.

Willie 'warmer' Rennie of the Scottish ConDems revelled in the rancid vineyard more than most and said that Murdoch's eight words would not convince 'us' to move forward to a progressive independent Scotland that is not ruled by a minority government of ex-Eton Tories propped up by his party.

Rupert Murdoch is without doubt a grade-A cnut. But, let's face it, an independent Scotland is gonna attract the attention of saints and sinners alike. Scots or those who support our independence are not inherently 'good'. And neither are those who support a conservative and warmongering United Kingdom inherently a bunch of crackpots, Europhobes, Nazis and dinosaurs.

It's still worth casting an eye over Willie Rennie's bedfellows in the fight to 'Keep Brutain United' and to 'Keep Scotland Brutish'. Are they any better or worse than Rupert Murdoch. As ever, Tocasaid lets you - the reader - decide....

The BNP, seen here in former times

The Orange Order - no surrender to progress

Loudmouth bigot, Ian Paisley

Aye, that Ian Paisley

Er... a long-dead and 'metro-sexual' foreign monarch.

Thatcher and friends

Thatcher's apprentice

Oswald Mosely and his British Union of Fascists would approve .

The horny-handed sons of toil in UKIP.

And lastly, Jeremy Clarkson.

Future past times in London with Queen Fabio

Kind of. But why does London-centric English society revel in the past? Any nation could be forgiven for wanting to relive past glories. We remember Bannockburn for example, though I'd say that for 99% of those wanting independence for Scotland, a glorious victory over invading oppressors in 1314 is not a blueprint for a future progressive Scotland. Neither do we want another crack at the Darien scheme.

Not so for much of English society. The past is being regurgitated quicker than Boris Johnson can cough up blond hairballs.

There's the minor matter of the England football manager's position. Fabio, the swarthy foreigner, has been sent packing back to Italy. Not only that but he should never really have come in the first place despite the English FA offering him £6m. Jawn Terwy may not be an out an out Nazi and more of village idiot but, either way he is not really 'role model' stuff. Surely though the manager of any team should be consulted on team selection? Has Vladamir Romanov bought the FA?

Therefore, the role models of the tabloid press are calling for steadfast woight Englishman to deliver what England expects. Now that Argentina are gurning once more about those Malvinas, they need someone who can sock it to the Argies in EURO 2012. Now there's a conundrum! If the Malvinas are 'British' and therefore European, why can't nearby Argentina join in EURO 2012?

Never mind, the new woightman in the English hot-seat could always feed the tabloid dogs by having a go at the Germans who England defeated in two world wars and one world cup. The Germans should be easy pickings as they've never won any major trophy and their economy is in tatters due to having adopted the Euro.

Speaking of Germans though, it's the diamond jubilee of Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg. Now, what could be more fitting in this glorious 60th year of her reign than to give her the England manager's job. On one hand, the tabloids would have their 'pure' Englishperson at the helm but on the other, it would also satisfy the lefties as the FA would now become a beacon for gender equality.

We no longer have a woman PM in Downing Street but David Cameron and his younger twin, Nick Clegg are champin at the bit to show that they can match the Iron Lady for warmongering in times of hardship. The economy is still fckd, their plans to wreck the NHS are coming unstuck and the Porridge Wogs in Scotchland are refusing to bend to London's will. After joining with the French to kick Gadaffi's ass, what better than Falklands Manager 2012?


After all, the population of the Malvinas are all woight and they love the Union Jack more than their brethern in Belfast so its our duty to defend... er their right to self-determination. Just hope the Jocks don't get wind of that. The idea that 'Britain' may have in the past ejected present islanders and replaced them with a bunch of sheep farmers from Scotland and Wales is irrelevant. In fact, recent research by English historian David Starkey shows that tectonic forces pushed the islands from their former position off the Devon coast to their current far-flung remoteness in the Southern Hemisphere.

All in all, there's never been a better time to break away though in the meantime I could live with the Sex Pistols or Laibach hitting number one this summer.

If Burns were here now?

Its yon nicht again and the merry ploughboy's poetry resonates as much as ever. As usual, everyone wants a piece of the cake. Even Tories. Even Lib Dems. However, even the nation's schoolkids who are taking part in school Burns' Suppers up and down the land could tell you that he... saw Scotland's rightful place in the world as her own nation, detested bigotry and the idle rich and saw no need to be bound by a 'Christian' view of monogamy.

To mark the bard's day, Tocasaid teamed up with the same crack team of graphic design whizzkids who presented us with Labour's highly sophisticated Scottish election campaign last year.

A Parcel of Rogues or Address to a Haggis?

Lib Dems? Scottish Labour? Unionists? Burns' stomach would've turned at the thought of these charlatans and liars. And the list is a long one.... Danny boy Alexander, Michael Moore, Jim Murphy, Alastair Darling, Douglas Alexander, Tom Harris, Iain Gray and Scotland's only Tory MP, David Mundane. Are they 'anti-Scottish'? Well, they're certainly doing SFA for the poorest in Scotland. As for independence - they can't make up their minds whether or not the referendum is illegal or whether Salmond should call it a.s.a.p. What a shower.

Is There For an Honest Poverty?

It could be argued that Burns had an influence on later Scottish working class champions - Hardie, Connolly, Maxton, Maclean and Jimmy Reid of late. How many of them saw the Scottish labour movement's main priority as 'saving the Union'? Morever, we hear from current Labour stooges the same old mantra of 'Tartan Tories' and of Scottish nationalists being 'insular'. Who was it though that saw the children of asylum seekers snatched from their homes in dawn raids and thrown in Dungavel Prison? Labour? How progressive.

Lay the proud usurpers low! or The Creed of Poverty

As to the English riots and the Con Dems of London? Well perhaps a verse of Scots Wha Hae?

 Lay the proud usurpers low!
    Tyrants fall in every foe!
    Liberty's in every blow! -
    Let us do or die!

Or, the Creed of Poverty?

In politics if thou would'st mix,
      And mean thy fortunes be;
    Bear this in mind--be deaf and blind;
      Let great folks hear and see.

Lastly, it would stretch things too far to claim that Burns advocated gay rights. However, as a bard with liberty and equality oozing out of his work, I don't think the bedroom habits of others would've bothered him. Especially when his own oats were well sown in many a furrow. The unholy coalition of god-botherers and bigots who are losing sleep over the proposed law to give lesbians and gays the right to marry would surely have seen a verse or two composed in ridicule.

My Luve is like...?

An American view on the threat to marriage...

Of. Debate. End.

Tom Harris MP: "London's Chomsky"

 

As the Scottish Government stands firm on its elected mandate to hold a referendum against the backlash of an injured ConDem London, the war of words intensifies. And Tom Harris MP posts a video on You Tube.

Thus, the Labour and Unionist Party's expert on social-media has resigned even before Johann could appoint him to fix the wi-fi on Labour's SOS bus. Upon his resignation, tributes flooded in:

"He was like London's Paxman, only they have one already."

"What many don't know is that when not working tirelessly to save the Union on behalf of the Labour and Unionist Party, Tom moonlighted in the CERN Hadron Collider on the outskirts of Geneva desperately trying to find the 'god' particle"

"His sophisticated use of politically charged graphics in conjunction with social media was second only to certain blogs of a Scots nationalist persuasion and earned him the fond epithet 'the Banksy of Westminster'.

His entry in Wikipedia is considered to be entirely dissimilar to this one:

Avram Noam Chomsky ( /ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/ or  /ˈnoʊm ˈxɒmski/, born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,^[4][5] cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years.^[6] Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics"^[7][8][9] and a major figure of analytic philosophy.^[4] His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.^[10][11]
Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.
Ideologically identifying with anarchism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy^[12] and contemporary capitalism,^[13] and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure.^[14] His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.
According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall.^{[15][16][17][18]} Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.^[19]

Tom's constituents know where his heart lies.

London: very cross and not amused

It was a mighty effort but us Porridge Wogs finally succeeded in knocking plastic breast implants off the top of the English news agenda.

How dare we? As Scotland makes moves to becoming the latest nation of the former British Empire - that model of enlightenment and ethnic cleansing which served as an example for a whole host of nutter tyrants from Hitler to Saddam - to break free from London governance, the three Eton millionaires of the London parties join forces to fume publically at Alex Salmond's disgraceful democratic mandate. The three sickening hypocrites at times seemed to gleefully rub shoulders as if taking part in a frat party circle-jerk at their exclusive alma mater.

Sorry Dave, the Empire has gone...

Ed Miliband was particularly nauseating. After an underwhelming period as London Labour leader that makes the hapless former Scottish Labour Brown Owl Iain Gray seem inspiring and dynamic, he asked David Cameron - in that strange Gary Numan voice of his - if he agreed that Salmond was a very very bad man indeed for wanting Scots to control their destiny. He did, and Nick Clegg nodded in orgasmic harmony. Miliband had thus gained his minute of acceptance and positive column inches in the London press and was free to scuttle off to his serpentarium. Whatever Miliband is - lizard, Numan voice-over or just weird posh boy - he's certainly no old-style Scottish socialist.

What else can one say? London has a pretty shameful record when it comes to democracy. It didn't like it when the nascent republic of the USA wanted free from London rule. Hey, but they didn't vote for it according to rules drawn up by London. But the Irish did. In 1918, a massive 75% voted for Sinn Fein and other nationalists. The bloody aftermath and smell of pipe bombs are still fresh in the nostrils. In 1979, London drew up the rules on Scotland's first home rule referendum. We needed a 40% majority to win. However, last year, the SNP won more votes than their 3 Unionist rivals combined. It means hee-haw to the three millionaires of Westminster though.

The bemused English media has spluttered their indignation and incomprehension. Some though have observed that we may even be 'pro-Nordic' in a kind of healthy wealthy sort of way but...

• Who says that the oil is ours? (International law does) 
• What about our share of UK debt? (ditto - shared pro-rata) 
• What about currency? (Er...mind the Irish punt?) 
• What about Glorious Britain's huge pile of WMD's and assorted warmongering paraphernalia? (England can have it. Think of all that safety and deterrence!)
• What about Europe? (Well, before the Act of Union, we traded peacefully with our Euro neighbours. After it, we were at war with them because England was)
• Er....

In the old days, the days in the run up to an election saw the Scottish versions of the Daily Mail and Express warn about some vague 'threat' from 'Tartan Terrorists'. These days its left to the pathetic Scotsman to fire off a few 'SNP accused...' headlines every month while the political masters in London quickly jot some ideas on the back of a fag packet about 'constitutional and legal precedence'.

Its hard to see the UN not accepting a positive result in an independence referendum. Though, if London has the power to confer these powers to us, then why doesn't it do so? Why the wait? Why the strings attached? And lastly, where's your fkn mandate Cameron, Clegg and Miliband?

Neologism of the month: santorum

The race to become the US Republican presidential nominee has reminded me of a recent addition to the corpus of the English language. Hearing that Rick Santorum came close to Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucus reminded of the noun santorum which entered our pure Anglo-Saxon tongue some years ago.

As Tocasaid is a family orientated blog, it would be irresponsible of me to highlight the exact meaning of santorum. Suffice to say, it was coined to describe the liquid by-product of anal congress between two consenting adult males. The story of how Catholic crusader Santorum's surname became common parlance for this can be found here.

More on Santorum and his homophobic statements can be found here on Wayne Besen's blog. Apparently, Santorum believes that 'abolishing' sodomy laws will lead to 'man on dog' sex. Interestingly enough, this is also the opinion of the Wee Frees in Scotland. However, Scotland's own Protestant Taliban maintain that anyone wishing to descend into a life of zoophilia needs only to journey on a Sunday ferry. I find it fascinating that two apparently opposing sects on the Christian spectrum can have the same idea. Could it be that both sects are equally insane?

Lastly, it reminds me of the late Christopher Hitchens' quote on the nature of fascist regimes in 1930s Europe. Here's part of his last interview with Richard Dawkins from the New Statesman:

Fascism and the Catholic Church

RD The people who did Hitler's dirty work were almost all religious.
CH I'm afraid the SS's relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.
RD Can you talk a bit about that - the relationship of Nazism with the Catholic Church?
CH The way I put it is this: if you're writing about the history of the 1930s and the rise of totalitarianism, you can take out the word "fascist", if you want, for Italy, Portugal, Spain, Czechoslovakia and Austria and replace it with "extreme-right Catholic party".
Almost all of those regimes were in place with the help of the Vatican and with understandings from the Holy See. It's not denied. These understandings quite often persisted after the Second World War was over and extended to comparable regimes in Argentina and elsewhere.

Warning! Clicking on the following disgusting links may lead to you sharing your bed with a pet.
Spreading Santorum blog
The neologism campaign
Rick Santorum's Anal Sex Problem