Sunday, January 06, 2008

You'll Have Had Your Holidays, Then?

Well, if that was my holiday, I suppose I've had it. It's been great to have some time off, and I dare say I've even managed to use some of it fairly productively: a Christmas seeing a range of aunties, uncles and cousins; a night out with my mate Brian - a friend from school whom scarily I've known for 21 years, but who is seldom around when I am nowadays; a night out in Edinburgh with some old workmates from Scottish Widows; an extended New Year away with SNP friends involving good food, good wine, good chat, good song and the chance to play my fiddle for the first time in months... I even got some of my 'homework' for Westminster done into the bargain.

I'm off back south tomorrow, so I'm spending the morning at my flat in Edinburgh, cleaning up my clutter of the last two weeks to get it ready for a new tenant. I'll go out for the papers in a bit, and maybe try and sneak in a quick couple of pints in the afternoon with Richard the catsitter. Then it'll be time to get my case packed up, and sort out what train I plan to leave on tomorrow morning. Hopefully the journey will be a little bit smoother than last time, but the travel stories haven't been getting any better with the New Year...

Anyway, personal musings and trivia aside, this blog is supposed to be about politics. Since I'm still feeling nice and chilled and full of the spirit of goodwill, I'm not really in the mood for expressing huge enthusiasm for the righteousness of my chosen cause, or for pointing out the folly of all others (give it a couple more days!). Instead, here's an article from the Seattle Times on the state of the (British) union. If you forgive the clumsy metaphor about traffic islands at the start, it's a reasonably astute and fair-minded assessment of where Scotland stands, from a long-time overseas observer.

To see ourselves as others see us indeed. A happy and prosperous 2008 to all.

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