Scotland is very worried because it has the flu. Not quite the usual flu, but a mutated variant of the H3N2 virus, which is known for causing more severe illness, particularly among older adults. The situation has led to restrictions on visiting hospital wards, returning to wearing face masks, hand washing and urging the public to have the vaccination. Public Health Scotland reported that in the week of 24-30 November, lab-confirmed cases rose to 1,759 compared with 845 the previous week. Hospital admissions as a result of the illness also rose by 70%, from 426 to 724.
It seems that Scotland, contrary to past performance, has won some football matches. Now, you know that I don't do football, at all, especially Scottish football, where the boisterous booziness of the fans outclasses the tedium on the pitch, but Scotland's World Cup 2026 certainly excites Neil Gray: Scotland will play Haiti, Morocco, and Brazil in the World Cup group stage, in Boston and Miami, kicking off on June 13, 2026, and concluding on June 24, 2026.
Then there's the Commonwealth Games, being held in Glasgow from July 23 to August 2, 2026, with 74 nations and territories competing in 10 sports and six Para sports including Para Powerlifting.
Can't wait.
Not least is the inaugural Nations Championship, with Scotland competing against Argentina, South Africa, and Fiji in July 2026, and culminating with matches against New Zealand, Australia, and Japan in November 2026.
Yum.
Never mind the bloody flu, eh?
The oaf, Gray, is an Orkney lad, born and brought up here and educated at Kirkwall Grammar School. Please don't run away with the idea that the name "Grammar School" is an indicator of excellence, it is simply the state secondary school attended by children living in one half of Orkney and the isles. Stromness Academy takes the rest of the kids. "Academy", equally, is meaningless. Following Kirkwall Grammar, the oaf Gray went on to gain a B.A. in Politics and Journalism from Stirling University. He was selected to stand as the SNP candidate in Airdrie and Schotts, amid the usual SNP nonsense - one chap, SNP Councillor Alan Beveridge, resigned from the party in February 2015 after Neil Gray was selected, claiming that there was a "climate of fear, intimidation and false allegations within the party". Sounds about right for the SNP. Just as a sidebar, a degree in Scotland takes four years to achieve, the vaunted Scottish Highers being in no way equivalent in length or academic calibre to A levels, so the first year of degree studies covers A level ground. It's ok, though, Scottish tuition is free, on account of Scotland being progressive and its broad-shouldered citizens bearing higher tax burdens than in England, thusly:
the basic rate is 19% levied on incomes up to £27,850;
20% on income between £27,851 and £43,662 and
41% on income between £43,663 and £150,000.
Should you be lucky and broad-shouldered enough to earn over £150,000, you will be taxed at 46%.
Honest, not invent.
Back to keen athlete, the Oaf Gray, (he buggered his knee running in the 400 metres). In November 2024, he used his official ministerial car to be chauffeured to watch four Aberdeen F.C. football matches. Gray registered the events as official government visits, on account of being Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy at the time. In a statement to the Scottish Parliament, he also admitted using an official car to attend five Scotland matches, saying all the engagements were "official ministerial business" and that summaries were available for all of the meetings, but apologised for not attending "a wider range of games", and for creating the impression that he was acting "more as a fan and less as a minister". The Scottish Conservatives accused Gray of having a "jolly to watch the football" at the expense of the taxpayer and called for the costs to be refunded in full, while the Scottish Greens predictably criticised him not for misusing his ministerial perks, but for not using public transport. First Minister John Swinney (SNP) told journalists that he would not refer Gray for investigation under the ministerial code, and that he considered the matter closed. Not everyone was so satisfied, however, and in January 2025, a Freedom of Information request revealed that no note was produced of Gray's meeting at the 2023 League Cup final at Hampden Park. Gray subsequently apologised to the Scottish Parliament for making a misleading statement. John Swinney re-iterated his support for Gray and insisted that the Health Secretary had made an "inadvertent error". In June 2025, it was revealed that in 2024 Gray had also used his official ministerial car to be chauffeured to a pub before an Aberdeen F.C. match. The journeys were logged in the official ministerial register as trips to and from a "personal address, Aberdeen". These entries were amended after an investigation by the Scottish Daily Mail showed that no evidence of such an address could be found. Officials acknowledged that Gray had no home address in Aberdeen; the Scottish Government insisted there had been an "administration error", and the First Minister John Swinney said, "The ministerial car was used in accordance with the rules that have been set out within the guidance on this occasion. And those rules that are clearly and publicly advertised have been followed on this occasion."
So that's alright, then. Nothing to see here, move along, business as usual for the SNP. What did happen to that £600,000, by the way?
It hasn't done Gray's career any harm at all, of course, what with all that support by John Swinney.
Now Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Gray is responsible for handling Scotland's response to the flu epidemic, god help us. His interviewer this morning on the politics show had a little dig - "Minister, it is well known that you are a keen football fan" - like water off a duck's back, it was.
So why should our English readers care? Maybe because Scottish football fans attending matches in England in their uncounted hordes spread Covid, urged on by Gnasher.
It seems that The Punditry is never tired of repeatedly telling the nation that Covid Lockdown was a generation-defining catastrophe, that children are feral and teenagers unemployable because their schools closed, that mental illness seized the nation, that men and women forgot how to get it on and that the economy will never recover. I seem to have been in a different universe - my recollection is that lockdown really didn't last very long at all, and that being sent home from work with a laptop was a delightful interruption of the daily misery. The weather in May 2020 was fabulous and the sea sparkling blue as I took my state-sanctioned daily walk, and I spoke to neighbours I'd never even noticed before, (socially distanced, of course), as we passed while walking.
This construction of a false narrative, that by repetition becomes the new history, has been perfected by the Labour Party, who told us, with appropriate gravitas, all about the Conservative Black Hole.
You may have already come across the following - if not, enjoy:
There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, at Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
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With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.
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We'll tax that, too. |
12 comments:
When the Kung Flu hit, my county tried having a mask mandate. It didn't much work, and was quietly not mentioned again. We're a rural county in the Southern United States (feel free to read 'redneck'--we are); you're not going to lock up a bunch of old farmers, mechanics, etc. Their friends would be along shortly with tractors and bulldozers to disassemble the jail. You definitely don't want to be seen hauling someone's sweet old 'Meemaw' off to the hoosegow. That's like mishandling an Italian mother.
--Tennessee Budd
Behind a paywall, but the opening bit is all you need. What is going on in Scotland?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/09/over-40-per-cent-of-scottish-children-classed-as-special-ne/
Thanks for the article, mr mike - being a subscriber, I was able to read the whole thing. Blame is heaped on Covid, of course, as usual - so handy; but the special needs category includes children who can't speak English and those who are upset because of reasons. (Familial drug abuse, child sexual abuse, poverty, no-one to get them up of a morning because the parent is hungover, comatose or feckless, school refusal, family breakdown etc). It's not all about an increased incidence of autism - although that figures. The autism thing is a bit of a worry - there's either more of it, which should be deeply alarming, or there is more diagnosis of autism for behaviours which, in the past would have been dismissed as "Boys will be Boys", or "its just a phase", "stop being a nasty little bully" or "if you don't shut up, I'll give you something to really cry about."
Scotland being a socially progressive country, there's more fuss about kids, better teacher/support staff ratio to children and smaller class sizes. It all boils down to - if you look for it, you'll find it.
There's a particular problem in Orkney, not just because of the whole web-footed small genetic gene pool - although that's a factor, but also because English families bring their dysfunctionality to Orkney, having heard they'll get better support here. We have primary schools with very small pupil rolls - 6 kids in one school on one of the small isles, so any unusual behaviour or mood gets diagnosed to fuck.
I think an answer would be to expand the role of the school, with breakfast and homework/supper clubs, quiet rooms for a little lie down, free, unlimited fruit and milk, and keep them open all year round. And make them single sex.
Ive read an article and seen a video about vitamin d / vitamin k Mrs Ishmael apparently they,ve known for about 11 years that the recommended dosage is to low especially in the winter months..... I suppose vit d cheap remedy for a lot of ailments and that wont do for our medical establishment.....I remember seeing children with rickets in the fifties....Scotland isnt blessed with to much sunshine so get that oily fish down you
Mr Henry: here is a video on that very subject. Vit D is absolutely essential for a functioning immune system and it needs vit K to be fully effective. In the UK, particularly Orkney, because of the weather, everyone will be deficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtoxkK7MeKc
An of course, Mrs I, the nRMA covid "vaccines" have degraded immune systems. The evidence for this is now overwhelming. So indirectly, all manner of unhealthy stuff could be blamed on covid.
mRNA
mRNA, hmm. According to our glorious NHS .gov website, a newborn child will receive (39) thirty nine ‘vaccines’ before the age of (18) eighteen months. They are committed to making people ill, to have a permanent client list, to continue the funding of rNHS.
By all means invest in vitamins and mineral supplements, I do btw, but young children’s immune systems are far too compromised for supplements to help.
This is the reason for Scotlands youth health problems, along with feckless parents. In Norn Iron, where they record children’s health better than the rest of UK, one in seventeen children are diagnosed Autistic or ADHD. Something has gone badly wrong.
Thank you, gentlemen - and, to reassure you, I've taken Vitamin D supplements for years.
As for this increased incidence in autism and ADHD - I simply don't believe it. When I think back to the purgatory of Northowram County Primary School and its classes of 40 kids, I reckon most of the kids would get a diagnosis of something these days. Extreme anxiety, in my case - but that was because the nasty little boys were psychopathic bullies, the teachers disliked and despised their pupils, a couple of male teachers had fetishist punishments for unruly behaviour - one liked to squeeze schoolchildren behind the free standing blackboard (get back behind there!) and then subject their shoes to mockery, whilst another liked to grasp the upper arms of ten-year-old girls, accidentally grazing their nascent breasts; whilst the head master disciplined the whole cirque du freak with a strap, in privacy, in his office, little children standing in a queue outside the door for their turn.
If I may, mrs I. Please take a look at this ladies Substack/blog ;
https://theautismtribune.substack.com/
Our grandchildren have a very scary future to endure.
Thanks, mr inmate - illuminating! Maybe the problem lies in "autism" being used to describe situations that the author finds herself in, where she has been watching Thomas the Tank Engine with her autistic son for the last 20 years, to adults who are completists, keen on collecting things, and to every shade of nuance in between.
Well I don't know about that mrs I, but what I get from reading her posts is that autism is not just inherited from parents via genetics or immune system problems passed on, or indeed ‘vaccines’. It would appear that damage to the child’s gut biome, immune system, micro biome etc, results in poor communication between gut and brain/ brain and gut.
She also ponders on the financial costs to local councils, schools and parents, this is a ticking time bomb that is not going away, particularly when the ‘world’s foremost experts’ believe we shouldn’t look for a cure or even treatment, but should celebrate the diversity, the differences. Never mind the fact that many of these poor children will never be able to make a cuppa tea, never mind hold down a job.
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