i am now the proud owner of a Scots grammar WRITTEN IN SCOTS

Hawthorn and wild garlic being ridiculously pretty #wildflowerhour

Yellow pimpernel #wildflowerhour

Orange hawkweed and ivy-leaved toadflax decorating a car park wall #wildflowerhour

Beechgrove Garden > Gardeners World

Woodruff #wildflowerhour

Sweet cicely #wildflowerhour

Higher than the craw-stepped gables of our institutes – chess-clubs, fanciers, reels & Strathspeys – the old kingdom of lum, with crowns agley… —Kathleen Jamie, “The Republic of Fife” first published in THE QUEEN OF SHEBA (Bloodaxe, 1994) A #poem for #EuropeDay www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...

🎶Absolutely amazing scenes in Wales as Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth - set to be Wales's first pro-independence first minister - is interrupted by an impromptu rendition of the Welsh national anthem

Greater stitchwort and bluebells #wildflowerhour

As usual the #wildflowerhour theme is weeks ahead of what's out here, not a buttercup to be seen yet. Best I can do is marsh marigold.

Dog violet #wildflowerhour

A patch of woodland floor in the shadow of a tree. Wood anemones, celandine, and bluebells just beginning. #WildflowerHour

Wood sorrel #wildflowerhour

It doesn’t change what I said above in the slightest - Sarwar and Labour should have recognised before now that a party you’re going to launch a fierce anti-racist attack on in TV debates is not one you can also brief the papers will be part of your path to a majority.

SP26: You'll have had your MSP then? Amongst the many lists of candidates published this week, here's one list sitting MSPs don't want to be on: those at risk of losing. With an almost certainly record-breaking turnover in MSPs this year, find out who is most at risk of an electoral sacking.

ach well all livin language is sacred… —Tom Leonard Published in GHOSTIE MEN (1980) #poem #poetry

Accidental Aardman.

Your daily order of JOY www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

The crocuses are out and so are my bees

Listening to a story on audible set in 16thC Edinburgh where the nobles have the accents of 20thC Glasgow hard men. So inconguous to the ear it's hard to carry on.

“Stevenson… could write his name on ice as readily as on paper, & could execute the most difficult figures with perfect grace & ease” A loss to #FigureSkating was a gain to literature… Robert Louis Stevenson at Saranac Lake #WinterOlympics #C19 ⛸️ www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/opinion/colu...

Isn'ti t? Felt for the first time in 2010 that whatever was happening in the UK election had nothing to do with me. Logically, I knew it did...but emotionally? Nope. Nada. Felt weird.

Wrote something, just to get it out of my head, about how fundamentally weird it is watching the panicked flailing and pathetic self-soothing defences of the UK Government from a Scottish perspective medium.com/@allanfaulds...

They’re on site cutting down the Muirhead Oaks for the AI data centre that’s been all over the news today and I swear it’s going to become my villain origin story

I like the rich tapestry of accents etc but please stop pronouncing mayor as 'meh'

TRUMP: honk honk honk, I'm a big goose. everyone tells me whenever I enter a room, that's the biggest goose I've ever seen and I say yes. I'm a big goose. in a good way. a lot of Somalians are small stupid gooses but I'm a big goose BBC NEWS: a disciplined Trump sticks to the script on the economy

Until I read the replies I didn't realise that people outwith Scotland don't know who Stephen Daisley is

Canadian PM Carney’s speech at Davos reportedly received a standing ovation. The speech marked the end of an era. It will no doubt be looked to as part of the historical record of the end of the transatlantic rules-based international order. You can read the speech in full here:

Waiting for Starmer to say something meaningful

Holy hell, what an obituary

As a more general point, those who worry about the rise of British nationalism should remember that there is more than one form of nationalism within the U.K., and that those different forces may be pulling the country in different directions. You underestimate that underlying tension at your peril.

If these models predict next GE, the lie at the heart of “Great Britain“ will be clearer than at any time since 1746: it will no longer be about a tactical alliance (aka “Labour”) of the North + London 5th column + the Celts vs the Tory South but a straight fight against English Nationalism.

media focus on Reform UK has obscured the likelihood that Plaid Cymru will lead the next Welsh government

Wise words

Kind of extraordinary that the new Local Growth Fund is to be distributed by the Welsh Government in Wales, but directly by the UK Government in Scotland, and that the rationale for the difference seems to be no more than "we don't trust the Scottish Government".

Looking at flight radar. It's mobbed out there.

There we go. That there’s a headline.

the photographer was definitely like, "ok everybody, look tough!" but we know they're all just reading tweets with their arms crossed in a country club dining room divided up by bedsheets tacked to the beams

Take three "nowcasts": mine, @devolvedelections.bsky.social, and @ballotbox.scot, and the seat projections right now are in these ranges: SNP: 63-64 Lab: 18 Ref: 17-18 Grn: 10-12 Con: 9-11 LD: 8-10 So a pretty strong consensus on a large SNP minority and pro-independence majority.

A night out in the town. Involves stashing wellies at the road end before proceeding in good shoes.

Our projection for Scottish Parl '26 based on the latest @Ipsos_in_the_UK / @STVNews poll 🎗️ SNP — 63 🌹 Lab — 18 🌳 Con — 10 🌱 GP — 16 🐤 LD — 5 ➡️ Ref — 17 🔵 Alba — 0 ⚪ Other — 0 devolvedelections.co.uk/scotland/

Good Q. The short answer is yes, provided that's how someone concerned about anti-migrant rhetoric would themselves see the immigration code in the question. We can't tease that apart in this data, but we might make inferences based on how voters concerned about immigration intend to vote 1/3

Bad flu season in England: Filed under "Health" with doctors asked for comment. Bad flu season in Scotland: Filed under "Politics" with Labour BritNat fanatic Dame Jackie Baillie asked to comment.

A good result as far as I'm concerned. A high reform vote, but the anti-reform vote was enough. Probably one of the most likely seats in Scotland for reform to have won.

BBC News: "the government believe refugees are deliberately bringing their children to avoid deportation" As opposed to doing what with their children??

This is the essay that won the Anne Brown prize. It's called Firle, it's by Tamara Fulcher and it's totally brilliant. www.wigtownbookfestival.com/blog/firle-b...

Quite apart from anything else - This is going to go down *so* badly in the devolved nations. The "Brit Card", in Northern Ireland? Are you out of your mind?

If you're only recognising a state if it has a government you like, then you aren't recognising the state at all. Are you?

“Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye’re sleeping.” —The Laird of Dumbiedikes, on his death-bed, to his son (in THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, by Walter Scott) 28 July is #WorldConservationDay. Here’s “Dumbiedikes”, by James Robertson