A Scottish court has had the good sense and common decency to free Clara Ponsatí on bail while she fights the extradition order brought against her by the Spanish government seeking to prosecute her on politically motivated charges which could potentially result in the former Catalan education minister facing up to 30 years in a Spanish prison. Scotland’s courts have in this instance proven themselves to be more humane and to have a greater respect for human rights than the German court which refused bail to Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
Despite the fact that senior figures in Labour in Scotland like Ian Murray MP have tweeted that they support the arrest and extradition of Clara Ponsatí, some in that party are, gob-smackingly hypocritcally but entirely predictably, trying to use her arrest as an excuse to indulge in some SNPbaddery. Some in Labour, like Labour Youth, are trying to claim that the SNP supports the repressive measures of the Spanish government because the Scottish government has said that it cannot interfere in a legal process. Can you imagine the outrage from that same Labour party if the SNP had indeed said it was going to interfere in a legal process? Exactly. Labour in Scotland has two faces, both are covered in egg, and each one is supported by a brass neck.
Given the hypocrisy of the Labour party in Scotland who are keen to tell us what they think people in Catalonia think about the SNP, it’s worthwhile to have a look at what people in Catalonia are saying about the response of the Scottish government and the people of Scotland to Clara’s arrest. Why listen to Labour’s monkeys when we can listen to the Catalans themselves.
Clara’s arrest and her fight against extradition is the lead story today in the leading Catalan language pro-independence digital news site Vilaweb.cat. The newspaper reported that through her lawyer Aamer Anwar, Clara had released a statement thanking the people of Scotland for their support saying, “Scotland is a true friend of Catalonia in these dark hours.” The newspaper also highlighted the support given to Clara by various members of the SNP, reporting that they had condemned the persecution that she was facing. It went on to report that the Scottish government has written to the Spanish embassy in the UK to complain about the European extradition orders against Puigdemont, his ministers, and members of the Catalan parliament. It reported that Scottish justice secretary Michael Matheson had spoken in the Scottish parliament to criticise the failure of the Spanish government.
Meanwhile the Spanish language Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia is reporting that Clara has been freed on bail, and the story is the most commented on and most liked on the paper’s website today. La Vanguardia is a right wing newspaper, which is fiercely anti-independence, it’s sort of like the Hootsmon but with ageing Francoists, but many of the comments under the article express thanks and appreciation to Scotland.
The pro-independence left wing daily El Punt Avui also carries the story on its front page, as it does with the story that the Scottish government has written to the Spanish embassy in London to complain about the use of European arrest warrants against members of the Catalan government.
El Punt Avui carries a far more detailed story about the protests of the Scottish government than anything you will read in the traditional Scottish media, with of course the honourable exception of The National, which gets a mention in El Punt Avui’s article. The paper reports in full on the comments in parliament of Michael Matheson, and talks about the letter written by the SNP’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Fiona Hyslop to the Spanish embassy. The paper also reports on the call from Alex Salmond published in The National saying why we should all be speaking out about the Spanish government’s treatment of Catalonia, and gives a link to the video published by our only pro-independence Scottish daily newspaper.
The pro-independence Ara.cat has likewise made the Clara Ponsatí story its leading article, and also reports on the incredible success of Clara’s fundraiser.
The support being given to the fundraiser by ordinary people in Scotland is being seen and heard in Catalonia. It is being perceived, rightly, as a sign that the people of Scotland are giving their backing to our sisters and brothers in Catalonia, that their struggle for self-determination is our struggle.
What absolutely no one in Catalonia is paying the slightest bit of attention to today is what the Labour party in Scotland is saying, and neither should we. On the other hand, they are talking about the support that Scotland is demonstrating for Catalonia. It has been noticed, and it is appreciated. They know that many people in Scotland and the Scottish government are on their side, whatever nonsense Labour in Scotland hacks might put out on social media. Their views are not being reported in Catalonia, the support that Catalonia is receiving from Scotland is very much in the Catalan news.
The above article on Vilaweb.cat has now been replaced as the lead story by the news that Clara had been released on bail and that her lawyer is saying that it’s the Spanish police who ought to be answering for the brutality and violence of their actions. Meanwhile the paper is also reporting that the crowdfunder to raise money to fight her extradition had wildly exceeded all expectations. The original target was £40,000, but that was smashed through within a few hours. At the time of writing this blog article, the crowdfunder had exceeded £176,000.
We need to show our support for Catalonia in its hour of need, because if Scotland doesn’t stand up for Catalonia, we cannot complain if no one stands up for Scotland when we’re the ones needing support. Their struggle is our struggle too.
You can donate to the fundraiser here – https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/defendclara/
I am off to the USA for two weeks on Friday as it’s my partner’s birthday and we’re going on holiday together. Sam (Macart) will do his usual sterling job of looking after the blog in my absence.
The Wee Ginger Dug has got a new domain name, thanks to Indy Poster Boy, Colin Dunn @Zarkwan. http://www.indyposterboy.scot/ You can now access this blog simply by typing www.weegingerdug.scot into the address bar of your browser, the old address continues to function, the new one redirects to the blog. The advantage of the new address is that it’s a lot easier to remember if you want to include a link to the blog in leaflets, posters, or simply to tell a friend about it. Many thanks to Colin.
Wee Ginger Donations & Speaking engagements
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Wee Ginger Dug 
Anything to say about the disgusting Nazi pug assault on freedom of speech in this increasingly censorious country, Paul? Curious. Wings nailed it succinctly, but I would be interested to know your take on it.
Hi Paul,
I want to donate to you again but prefer not to give Paypal a cut. Can you give me the details I need to made a donation direct to your bank account? No worries if you prefer to use Paypal .
Cheers Laura Dunbar.
Sent from my iPad
Many thanks Laura, it’s appreciated. Email me please and I’ll give you the necessary details. Thanks again.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a 50+ Female and commented:
#ViscaCatalunya
“Labour in Scotland has two faces, both are covered in egg, and each one is supported by a brass neck.”
Sums up this sorry crew perfectly, Paul. Just when you think they can’t get any more stupid, hypocritical or opportunistic………
Encouraging signs today that the Scottish legal system may do the sensible thing and set aside the Spanish warrant. The points raised by Mr Anwar in defence seem very strong and there is no one better in Scotland at this kind of thing.
You took the words right out of my mouth, tintochiel!
Great commentary and as usual we have to get the truth from outside media.
Enjoy your stay in the US,will miss your cheeky commentary, haste ye back
[…] Wee Ginger Dug As others see us – com les altres ens veuen A Scottish court has had the good sense and common decency to free Clara Ponsatí on […]
Great article, thanks.
Very sensible of Scottish courts to bail Clara Ponsati. Imagine if a Britnat unionist party was at the helm at Holyrood? It would be a completely different outcome today.
Labour are an utter disgrace. We know the tories are, but Labour, who were kept in power and living the good life in Scotland for what, 70-80 years!
The 3 unionist parties in Scotland actively work against Scotland, how bizarre is that.
Mundell, UKgov appointed secretary of state to Scotland, paid hugely to speak outand indeed act against Scotland! He and his tory pals likening Scotland to a ‘county council anywhere in the UK’. Not a country, not with it’s own powers, albeit devolution light, and not with it’s own laws. Oh no, to them, the Scottish parliament is of no importance and certainly not worthy of being allowed to have control over it’s own immigration!
Which is strange because haven’t the English been saying, outwardly, for years, that Scotland is a ‘subsidy junkie’. So anyone would perhaps, maybe, just wonder why they want Scotland’s status as a country, with it’s own parliament and laws, to vanish as if by magic, or at the least, to be assimilated as if all of a sudden, you are a lowly ‘county council’ of England. Surely they should be working to cast us adrift, have your independence then, too wee, too stupid anddefinitely too poor Scotland, see how that suits you! Hah!
Hmm.
Scotland, watch out, because, abracadabra, with a wave of a very destructive and large wand, the UKgov and their pals are just lying in wait to vanish your actual parliament out of existence, while keeping control over your revenues and vast wealth of resources.
Whoosh!
Have a fab holiday Paul.
We go we want a divorce and the English mps go oh no you don’t you can’t leave and the English won’t ask why this is damn southerners are so thick no we are a laughing stock with those southern people acting like programmed robots.
To take a quote from Jacob Rees Mogg, a gentleman who is no friend to Scotland and tweek it slightly; Scotland is a vassal state. Of course, that was not good enough for the UK in the EU, but plenty good enough for Scotland in the UK.
Now, we aren’t even a state. We, are on a par with an English county. In 2014 with the No vote, we gave the English Tories carte blanche to do with us what they like. Well, they’ve certainly done that.
No matter though, we’re still going to win.
It was clearly just an initial hearing today. The precedence has already been set by the Belgian courts re Puigedemont. Let’s get our facts straight. Its a pity Paul failed to mention this. I don’t know if Puigedemont is now in breach of his court conditions hence the reason the German courts have refused bail. In any event, there will be a delay in the court process and Ponsati will be extradited if the EAW tests are met in due course. And Nicola will do nothing. ..
What I was doing in this article was reporting on what is being said in the Catalan media.
What exactly are you suggesting that the Scottish government should do?
I’m no legal expert, but I somehow doubt a legal precedent in another jurisdiction will count as a legal precedent under Scots Law…
Proud of Scotland and the Scottish courts’ way of dealing with this. Got every confidence in Aamer Anwar .Great to know how far this has been reported in Catalan media….oh for that media in Scotland! Have a great holiday!
To consign an elderly respectable person, against whom the complaint is having campaigned peacefully for independence, to imprisonment in Spain is inconceivable. So c’mon Scottish Judiciary, find the words to refuse extradition.
I don’t think that is the complaint, Gavin. It’s more along the lines of “inciting violent rebellion”!
Which is even more ridiculous.
Thank you for another Great article Paul. Proud of Scotland’s support for Clara.
Enjoy your holidays Paul. We will miss you but Sam I’m sure will do a good job while you’re gone.
Paul, re yr article in today’s National (Indy Pledge) would you please have a look at the comment I left there re security..?
Like a lot of people I’m not very knowledgable about interwebbies and security and stuff so really am in no position to give you a sensible answer. All I can really do is to suggest that you take the issue up with the people running the indypledge site. You can contact them via their facebook page or via the online form on the indypledge site http://www.indypledge.online
Thanks Paul: In conversation with Indy Page / DT at the moment… He/she(?) says they’ve activated another level of protection, my guru (a long-standing friend in whom I place a high degree of trust) says NOT….
Please resuure me that DT is not David Torrance…(!)
Final word (for this evening) on this from my tech guru “Yes I’ve looked at their page. I’m not signing, if others want to that is their choice, it seems totally pointless to me. They want our personal details while not giving any of their own, they appear to be registered in Panama, they have no contact details, only a form and a facebook page. All these extra sites are weakening groups, not growing them. What do we gain from it, other than giving vague promises to people we don’t know? Then the “yes we have added secure socket layer (missing the “s” at the end as I did in my typo) They haven’t. So they are either lying or clueless, neither of which gives me any confidence in their secret organisation.
Paul: Are you totally confident in this ‘groups’ bona fides..?
Yes I am. I know some of the people behind it personally. The lead was taken by Yes Kelty.
I understand that the secure socket layer is now sorted and that you are happy with this?
😂😂What do you expect for @IanMurrayMP Union is facist organisation look at their past they have pillaged & murdered executed political members throughout the world of the past, but he’s showing his true colours, he would go to the extent to place someone in jail for 30 years because she supports something she believes in, this is the guy that believe in democracy well think again folks, What the problem is Ian Murray is on panic mode just like BritNat bbc. sky. Itv. Stv running around UK attempting to get polls on Brexit to save Theresa May’s ass due to Cambridge Analytica saga. This Is Scotland’s last chance for Independence if we fail its bye bye Scotland & if Toris get majority in 2022 you can say bye bye to Scottish parliament its time to take action now and stand up on what we believe in and thats independence.
I’m gutted for Labour MP Ian Murray. When he looks back over history he must be kicking himself for all those lost opportunities when he could have denounced law-breakers to the authorities. If only he’d been around to denounce Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the KGB, or Count von Schellenberg to the Gestapo, or the Pankhursts to the Metropolitan Police.
Awwww, Ian. What might have been…
Great stuff as usual Paul. Your insights on Catalonia and Spain are hugely valuable. Have a great holiday!
Great post Paul.
One of your finest, Paul. Have a wonderful holiday and I hope your partner has a terrific birthday.
Excellent article Paul. Easter greetings to you and Peter. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday!
I hear Ian Murray MP is trying to get a time travel machine so that he can go back to 1943 in France and report some law-breaking French fiends to the Milice. After that he’s toying with 1960s South Africa. Bon voyage, Ian.
It is an honour to donate, it shows Scotland in its true colours.
o/t – apparently Mrs Mayhem is paying the Jocks a visit today ,A business in Ayr is the proud venue for her visit , a clip of the fleeting visit has been posted on twitter , blink and you will miss it – anyone know what Begg & Co ayr make so i can Boycott it , no disrespect to any of the workers its the management that need educating .
http://www.alex-begg.co.uk/
Begg in Ayr make cashmere scarves seemingly
It had to be something of the sort, I suppose. Luxury niche goods for wealthy BritNats!
Thanks very much for this welcome feedback on reactions in the Catalan media.
I was through in Edinburgh yesterday to join in support of Clara outside the Sheriff Court. Great atmosphere (even when it came on hailstones!) and very moving when the Catalan folk who were there sang their traditional anthem. Hoping for a good outcome at the next stage of the judicial process.
Hope you have a wonderful holiday in the USA.
Yet again the Herald Britland contributes to its own demise by allowing Ruth Davidson, who has been in hiding for weeks, column inches to spout her usual vacuous nonsense about Brexit.
Her party believe that the needs of farmers in Lincolnshire are greater than those of Scottish farmers ; official.
I hope to get along to Yes Dumbarton’s National Roadshow tonight. I need a dose of sensible talk about Brexit, Trident, and a reassuring woof from the WGD.
I’m a Bankie right enough; will there be border guards at Milton?
Break a leg tonight, Paul, and have a great well earned holiday in the US.
Mibees see you tonight.
Woof woof. Say hello to the dug for me, Jack.
Good sense and common decency is going to prevail, eventually.
Have a great night, and Happy Easter, y’all.
U2, asty.
Always a good entertaining speaker and a definite leader if required of the wider YES movement he brings so many like minded folk together .
I don’t think you will need to go in disguise Jack , unlike the exit of Mrs Mayhem made during her flying fleeting visit to an Ayrshire manufacturer by the name of Begg who after this Tory government decimate their market trading with the EU might be Begging the Scottish government to bail them out ,
Anyone actually see the flag waving folk of Ayrshire giving their support to a welcome visitor ,or will that be added later by the BBC and voiced over by Brian the Union man .
Christ she would as well have sent a tape recorded message of the usual Mayhem guff speak . At least it wasn’t so embarrassing as a visit to a hut in the middle of a forest .
Just thinking of Spanish history..it is chilling to see echoes from the past, Franco et al.
I see Nicola wont stand up for the EU citizens rights because it’s not within her gift under UK positive law. It’s worth remembering no Nazi committed any crime against German statutory or positive law. Meantime Nicola is making sure Westminster won’t forget about Scotland. Does she really belief this nonsense or is it just platitudes to keep the natives from being restive and her garnering her full UK pay plus perks.
So what precisely would you like Nicola to do, without breaking the law? Or do you think she should flout the law and to hell with it?
Mboyd just wants to keep slagging Nicola off but doesn’t want to say what they think she should be doing. Paul has already asked this question without reply. Even Clara Ponsati says that there’s nothing SG can do.
I think you should start reading the judgments at Nuremburg. When a law is unjust then we can act outwith it and refuse to recognise it: natural law. For eg, In 1933 Germany put in the enabling acts which meant the executive bypassed the legislature… thereby setting the precedence and conditions to thereafter strip German Jews and others of their rights amongst other things. In Britain the Tories want to bypass both Westminster and Holyrood…etc etc and Nicola still refuses to challenge Westminsters primacy due to the rule of law ! That’s a cop out. And that’s my point- Scotland will not become Independent through the SNP’S failure to challenge Westminster or the EUs unjust laws.
I don’t see the connection between Germany in 1933 and Scotland in 2018 – it’s just not similar in any way, shape or form. We WILL achieve independence if we hold our nerve and don’t succumb to exaggeration and odious comparisons!
What are you talking about? Belgium and Scotland are providing the only a legal refuges for Catalonian activists in Europe, at the moment.
The First Minister, despite it being out with her remit under the powers of devolution, is publicly admonishing Spanish repression. The people of Scotland, despite our relative poverty, are financing the refugees legal defence. Which will likely be elevated to the ECJ, by Scottish advocates, to decide if Spanish use of the EAW is abusive.
These are the only proper responses available to confronting Westminster and the EU that I can think of. Based on my reading.
Your anger is misplaced. If you have a better suggestion, you should put your money were your mouth is. I would be more than happy to help if you have a better idea 🙂
Very well said and heartily seconded.
Are you seriously suggesting, that if you were living in Nazi Germany of the 1930’s, you would be challenging Hitler’s laws? Easy for you to suggest, a keyboard warrior. I wonder, how brave you would be in practice, as a brown shirt’s steel toe capped boot, crashed into your testicles?
I, think you would behave slightly differently from the hero you portray yourself to be. No doubt, you would be at the front of the crowd, Sieg Heiling, for all you are worth. You’d be in good company there though, alongside Ian Murray and Ross Thomson.
Wendy, Anne, ‘m boyd’ is a conglomerate of Brit Nat trolls, somewhere in the bowels of Brit Nat project Fear 2, who take it in turns on a 24 shift basis to infiltrate Pro Self Detremination sites and basically declare that that Nikla Surjin is shite.
They pop up everywhere, and will go into overdrive as the Demand for Scottish citizens’ right to decide gathers pace( I was going to say ‘momentum’ but the Loony Lefties have bagged that ).
They pop up everywhere.
‘m boyd’ does not exist. You are arguing with a computer programme, or is that ‘program’?
Thanks for that info Jack. I’ll just save my breath then.
I know Jack. But sometimes, it amuses me to reply.😁😁😁
Thank you, Jack. I appreciate your advice and will take it henceforth. I will repeat to myself 50 times “I will not engage with BritNat trolls” before reading these threads in future.
Have any of you people actually read and understood what I have said: I have equated the Tories with Nazism not the SNP and the point I am making is that where there are unjust laws or laws used to an unjust end it is our moral duty to defend against them. Ipso facto, Nicola Sturgeon is wrong not to challenge the legality of the Spanish extradition warrant!
whatever… the afternoon shift of Project Smear has clocked on I see. Go away ‘m boyd’.
Why don’t y’all get jobs annoying the feck out of us on the telephone selling us central heating and PPP refunds?
Nice one! 😉
Ha ha.
I take it you were the guy harassing Paul at the B Ferry Bowling club last year for the National roadshow?
Just watched London calling again – I shouldn’t as it makes me angry to think that neither you nor the rest of the very articulate people involved will ever be allowed a voice on the wondrous , ever so clever BBBC Scotland – or so they told us tonight – can’t have truth impinge on their message.
Have a wonderful holiday and I’m sure Sam will fill in excellently.
It will still be the same old Scotland when he returns
As I pulled into the car park of the Dumbuck House Hotel which was playing host to The National Newspaper/ Yes Dumbarton Roadshow I half expected the still calm twilight air to be pierced by the mad cackle of world famous gaggle of geese which stood sentry at Ballantine’s maturation warehouses across the road from the hotel.
Sadly after decades of devoted service, the diminished flock was ‘retired’ by the present owners Chivas a few years ago and spent their remaining days in a sanctuary in Glasgow.
Ballantines no more, J&B no more.
A Letter From Dumbarton.
I’m the third Proclaimer !
As an interloper, I’m Bankie born, I could not help but reflect on Dunbartonshire’s glorious past, and look forward with eager anticipation to the ‘brand bright new dawn’ that Self Determination as an alternative to Brexit offers the citizens of Scotland.
The hall was packed, to overflowing, as the saying goes.
Extra chairs were conjured from somewhere, and eventually we settled and let the evening take its course.
They were a mixed bunch, these Dumbarton ‘Independentistas’.
All walks of life, all ages, with more than a fair share of ‘mature’ seasoned campaigners, who doubtless were ex- employees of Polaroid, Westclox, Burroughs, The Torpedo Factory, Denny’s, the whisky bonds, which thrived in the halcyon days before Thatcher and Globalisation.
Denny’s was involved in the early development of the Hovercraft, and Helensburgh was involved in pioneering Wave Energy projects back in the dim and distant.
Of course, Dunbartonshire’s story is no more or less tragic than that of the rest of the towns on Clyde, or Dundee, Tyne Tees, Sheffield, The Mersey, Barrow on Furness, the Yorkshire Pits, the Rhondda Valley, and all the great Industrial hubs of pre Globalisation Britain.
But as we Scots were reminded only this week, Lincoln is of more importance to Mundell and his Tory Puppetmasters than Scotland.
So Self Determination it is then. Scotland must do it for itself.
Speeches from the top table were lively, thought provoking, and realistically upbeat.
It was great to see Paull in action live, and I can die happy now; I got to pet WGD.
The Editor of the National, an encouragingly youthful Callum Baird exhorted us all to keep buying the printed version, and reminded us that the vast majority of the MSM are pro Union, as if we needed tellin’.
The local WM MP Martin Docherty-Hughes reiterated that Scotland is a sovereign people, and that only through Self Determination can we make our way in the world post English Brexit.
I disagree with his logic as to the timing of Indyref 2.
I contend that we go before March 29th as we shall know by October 2018 the final Brexit Deal, and the six months’ window between Ocober ’18, and March ’19 set out in the Article 50 timetable is the window for the EU 27 Parliaments and the English parliament to approve the Final Deal.
Docherty-Hughes argued that we wait until Brexit hits the fan and we ‘suffer the drastic consequences for a year or so as part of isolated UK PLC, and then go to the country; the argument being that former No voters will change their minds as the UK economy bombs and prices go through the roof.
In my oft stated view, Scotland would be down the pecking order from Lincolnshire by then. There would be no seconf Indyref once we will already be out of Europe, EU nationals working here would not have the vote, nor 16-17 year olds, because WM would simply say No, you are now a county of England.
Shad appa da face.
Lorna Douglas, an Argyle and Bute councillor, and Vale Academy school teacher, observed that there were few ‘young people’ in the assembly and wondered how the Yes movement ‘recruit’ more youngsters to active campaigning.
Answers on a pc.
She is involved in an Interfaith pro Indy group, which I promise to research today, honest.
It is only when you witness Paul live, that you realise how much time energy and physical presence this remarkable man contributes to the cause of Self Determination.
As you read this he is winging his way across The Pond for some overdue Me Time with his partner.
Yet there he was last night, late, after I left, talking to everyone and anyone. A true knight of Scotland.
I warned him that while he’s away and Macart holds the fort, we shall treat the site as an ‘empty’.
Party!
Don’t blame me if the place is trashed and the Polis called by the neighbours complaining about the noise and wild goings on from the nasty cybers.
Thank you Yes Dumbarton for an enjoyable nicht.
Enjoy your break, Paul.
Oh hell! You’ll have JDMAN breaking open the crates.
You shouldn’t have said ‘party’. I’ll never hear the end of it. *sobs*
‘I think you’ll find I brought this microwave to the party with me’. Kevin Bridges, Chad Hogan’s Spring Break.
The image of WGD being on one of the first independent Scottish postage stamps, and Ruth Davidson having to lick the Dug’s arse will live with me forever.
As you can see it was all high brow intellectual theoretical debate last night; not.
I’ll brink the nibbles and the Buzet.
My mother’s a microwave.
‘brink’ the nibbles? I need an editor.
But definitely no pate de foie gras. Literally ‘fat liver’, whisper it, goose paste.
Q.v., ‘gavage’, but don’t let the Ballantine’s geese or Patrick Harvie read it.
Hello Jack,
I will be more than happy to send you a booklet of the “Prototype” WGD stamps, legal tender, here in Canada. Once Paul is back he can pass on my email address to you.
Thanks as always for the insight, and glad to see this article was about the Rise Up in Dunbartonshire, my “beginnings”!
Thanks Jack. I enjoyed reading your news about Yes Dumbarton and of course your great wit.
Glad you enjoyed your night out in Dumbarton, Jack.
Wee Ginger is a grand wee dug. I met him in Corpach a wee while ago.
He has had a huge influence on the independence movement, and well worthy of a postage stamp, statue, painting.
It will be a sad, sad, day when he eventually dies, but hopefully by then we’ll be an independent country.
A great pal of mine from Glasgow Uni days is from Clydebank. Malky Thomson; you might have known his father. Ah know, Clydebank is a fair big place, but it’s a small world.
With the Uni Mountaineering Club we used to go out and clamber about on Dumbarton Rock now and again. Difficult bloody climbing though. Smooth as anything that basalt. There was only one or two of the routes that I could even attempt, and even then a tight rope from above was needed.
Anyway, blah de blah.
Hope to see you for a pint one of these months. Half thinking of coming over to the old country in the not too distant future to go and do the Cuillin ridge again.
all the best, asty
asty, one of my classmates was Harry Thomson, back in the day.
My secondary education was in Dumbarton between 1959 and 1965. Train from Yoker to Dalreoch every day,rain,hail,or shine.
I also worked in Dumbarton for several spells in adult life.
I know the place, and the watering holes, like the back of my hand.
I have taken the ‘tourist path’ up the Rock a few times, but never clambered up the rugged rockface.
The nearest I ever got to climbing was in my rash youth when, full of the joys of summer and not a few Guinness, we Young Turks edged our way along the cliff face in Howth, Co Dublin, totally oblivious to the consequences of a mistake and the sheer drop onto jagged white foaming rocks below .
Unfortunately we were buzzed by seagulls as we had stumbled inadvertently into a cluster of their nests. Think Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ and you get the picture.
Hence my lifelong vertigo.
I hope that we can meet up when you are back home, asty.
Have a great Easter meantime.
I tend to agree with m,boyd Sturgeon and the SNP have been ducking below the parapet ion a lot of issues,they allowed themselves to be sidetracked by one of the worst ever politicians in Roothie and that,s saying something,Rabbies “parcel o rogues” still doing the rounds,what about the highly toxic nerve gas attack that Sturgeon so readily endorsed,the daughter just been released from hospital,nowt wrong with the copper either,fcuking Sid James and his crew wot did it.
Spain is the unionists wet dream.
I shall restate a recent post in Defending Democracy .(simply an article in The National 29.03 which may ultimately prove of importance in this matter), the Lord Advocate of Scotland is perhaps best placed to ensure that due/proper process is followed in this matter. i.e if another Country requests the extradition of someone from St. Andrews University / Scotland / UK – in Scots Law..
‘The Crown brings the case on behalf of the Spanish courts. It could argue that the rest of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) charges such as ‘mis-appropriation of public funds’ allow Ponsati to be extradited because there are similar criminal offences in Scots Law, yet such secondary charges proceed from the main charge of ‘violent rebellion’ so the whole warrant must be correct or Spain’s case is lost.
The only offence akin to rebellion in Scots law was sedition, but the first SNP government repealed the law on sedition in 2010, so the Spanish authorities appear to have botched their warrant.
The rules on the EAWs are relatively straightforward and you would think the person who signed those rules – the Framework Decision of June 13, 2002, – into EU law would know them well.
It was none other than president of the EU Council (Justice Home Affairs and Civil protection) Mariano Rajoy. Yep, him, What is the Spanish for ‘Oops’?
The fact that the Crown has chosen to represent and pursue Spain’s interests in this matter… I leave to history to judge.
Shhh. Quiet. Is he away yet? OK. All clear. You can come in now. Step quietly and watch out for that creaky floorboard where the dog biscuits are hidden. Cor, look at that, a Jackie Bird Escher drawing – up and up and up, on and on and on; a never-ending drivel. And look at that. It must be worth absolutely nothing at all – a genuine signed copy of the vow. No, don’t sit down. We can’t stay. Macart will be along shortly to do the dobying, dichting, clean the cludgies and replace the clouties, and he wouldn’t be amused if we left any unwritten words lying about or unused punctuation to trip over. Watch out for trolls as we leave. There seem to be a few further up the page. Don’t where they came from. Maybe WoS was full and they are the overspill. And beware barrack room lawyers, they’re almost as bad as the trolls. Perhaps they should read Andrew Tickell’s article in The National.
At the time of writing the Crowdjustice appeal for Clara Ponsati stands at over £222,000. That is some statement of support and much more useful than political gesturing, which oor Nicla has sensibly avoided.