For the first time, I really don't give a crap who wins the upcoming Scottish election. And in keeping with what seems to be the accepted paradigm for many independence supporters just now - by not having watched any of the leaders debates, or news reports, or any of the other bits of output I usually do - I'm speaking from a position of almost-complete ignorance.
You'll see why.
That being said, I've merely pulled up the drawbridge, so to speak. I am able to see over the parapet of my metaphorical castle, I have observed, and continue to observe the shite being flung around, the screaming of obscenities, half-truths, and fabrications - that sort of thing. In the distance, I can see a shining light, tinged by a corona of unassailable perfection, I assume that's Nicola Sturgeon sitting atop the pedestal her followers have built - fuelled by headlines from The National 'newspaper' and bloated articles from Bella Caledonia, and a more general unquestioning faith based mostly on starry-eyed amaurosis.
I tried hard to find a more disparaging image, but came to the conclusion, short of putting one up of the man himself, such an image doesn't exist.
Scanning the field of battle from atop my fence- eh, I mean indomitable battlements, if I look carefully, I can see a small man, with glasses knocked slightly askew, scuttling here and there - his carapace shining dully in the milky sunlight. Every now and then he stops to pick up a severed limb to nibble on, he then raises his shiny head, straightens his glasses (as if that helps to concentrate his thoughts), and issues a hollow scream at the sky in which he tries to explain to the universe what a woman is. But he can't, because he thinks everyone is a woman if only they have the courage to say so.
I watch in disgust, as this horrid little bacillus, tugs feebly at a summer skirt covering the body of an activist lost to this oh-so-pointless conflict.
Over by the wheat fields which supply my castle, (it helps if you build a narrative for your shit metaphors, it makes it feel more real for the reader), I can see a woman, dressed like an Amazonian warrior, but shorter and more squat than you might imagine. She's kickboxing hungry children to the ground, pausing only to kiss the arse of her commanding officers on the phone, and to make sure the kid's parents are still watching.
Every now and again, an odious but incredibly well-spoken cockroach-like thing sidles up, attaches itself to her ample thigh, and laps at the hate-sweat which coats her skin. When it's thirst is sated, it scuttles off waiving a flag and shrieking the words "you just can't, you just CAN'T" at the ruddy-coloured clouds which scud across the sky.
I sigh at this, it's all so depressing.
Just when I think of moving away from my castle's barbican, I see a sight which cheers me - the battle field jester. It's a welcome change from the horror, seeing this clown figure cavort across the cratered land, gibbering at anyone who will stop to listen. If I cup a hand around my ear, I am able to snatch fragments of his oratory from the wind, [Ed. nice one, sounds poetic]. Although they're words from the English vocabulary, they're not in an order that makes sense, or germane to anything which is happening.
This sad, ignored Jester begins to chase an owl, so I allow my gaze to move on.
Only picture of an owl and jester I could find.
I see a ghostly figure in the thick of things, but he's being ignored by everyone. He wanders to and fro, trying to pick fights, but it's as if he's not there at all. Opposition activists wave him off with crumpled pamphlets, like they'd wave off a fly at a picnic. I realise he's not alone, a bearded man with wild eyes accompanies him and occasionally stops sending indecipherably stupid tweets so he can pull the string which hangs limply from between the steeply sloped shoulders of this sad, ignored individual. This milquetoast specimen drifts on, recanting the same lines, over and over again, in to the void created by every other human being in existence ignoring him entirely.
(It's a wet rag, come on, keep up.)
The battle isn't due to reach its crescendo for another twenty four hours. So I stop focussing on the specifics and take in the wider view. To my surprise, it is possible to see a diaphanous form covering the ground as far as the eye can see. As the battle rages, it's being trampled in to the dirt. The majority of combatants trample with enthusiasm, but none more so than the forces of the beatific figure shining brightly, (some might say, so brightly, her holy warriors can't see very clearly), on the pedestal in the distance. (It might just be me, but it looks taller than it did when I began to type this pish out...)
Oh wait, it's just a lamp post.
Here and there, activist-soldiers - horribly outnumbered - try to save fragments of this mysterious, embattled lamina before it is lost under the unthinking, plodding hooves of the masses.
From the curtain wall of the castle, (which in my mind now looks like the one from the Disney adverts, and why not), I see massed on a ridge, serried ranks of men of indeterminate gender. Pink hair here, a nose-ring there - but all to-a-one sporting an immaculately-kept beard. They ripple and seethe down the hill, their war cry a confusion of sex versus gender. But wait, on the opposite ridge, (and it's a glorious site), a roiling mass of adult human females - enraged by the assault on their rights - issues a battle cry which causes everyone to pause.
It's an artists impression.
The forces-of-indeterminate-gender perform what can only be described as a hand brake turn, but are engulfed by the forces-of-adult-human-females anyway. Several adult human female knees connect with several fear-shrivelled lady-testicles - causing handfuls of puberty blocking pills to fountain from hip pockets in to the mud. The ragged remains of the bearded misogynist army slink back under the protection of their bogus consultations, pliable politicians, and their never-ending closed circles of 'advice'.
I have no idea how I'll vote tomorrow, or more accurately, I have no idea if the SNP will get my constituency vote. I'm fed up with being lied to, and being patronised by the pious, or lectured by the sanctimonious, who believe they've cornered the market in wisdom. I'm pissed off with narcissists who can't tell the fucking difference between their own malformed opinions and fact.
There are so many serious issues surrounding this election, but they've been usurped by vested interests, by careerism, and by succubae.
My greatest disappointment is with the SNP, and much as I hate to say - Nicola Sturgeon. I had a higher regard for Nicola Sturgeon than I did for Alex Salmond - I think because I grew up with Salmond always being portrayed as an ogre - and some of that stuck - but also because I genuinely thought she was a different calibre of politician.
Nicola Sturgeon is a manager, she's no reactionary or revolutionary - she talks the talk, but when it comes to kicking the ball, she's got banana feet. More over, I no longer believe independence is her goal - she's toe-punted far too many opportunities over the bar, (and there the football shtick ends).
There comes a time when the number of things you agree about, and the importance of those issues, is overcome by the number of things you don't agree about, and their importance. More-over, there comes a time when you just no longer believe the things they say - and that undermines everything.
That test has been met. Brexit, the way the trans-debate has been allowed to fester, women's rights, laws around Hate Crime, people being flung out of the party at the whim of leadership (and favoured-others being given a by), and a leadership which is now the darling of Scotland's media, presumably as a result of the bung they got from the Scottish Government.
I don't know what else to say. I thought we were better than this, but we've lost our way. Nicola Sturgeon's SNP won't bring about Scottish independence, that needs fixed, or another way must be found - and quickly.
Of course, all of this is just opinion. Unlike the smug, lecturing wasp-chewers who insist you take theirs, I don't insist you take mine. You're more than welcome to leave it where it is.
