It's been a special day today. I may have mentioned before that I was once a regular subscriber to The Spectator but with the advent of the charming but hapless Boris (no surname required, there is only one 'Boris'!) as editor the humour changed from sardonic to silly and after 25-years I gave it up. Now, with the Barclay Brothers in charge, there is a new regime and Matthew d'Ancona is the editor, and that fact plus a special offer was enough to tempt me back. Today my first copy arrived and it was almost like old times. Some of my favourites were still there, Paul Johnson, Dr. Dalrymple, Taki and Jeremy Clarke who has stepped effortlessly into the down-at-heel, scuffed suede shoes of the late Jeffrey Bernard in the 'Low Life' column.
At the heavier end, the main political essay was written by Fraser Nelson, a young man with a sharp and intelligent eye on affairs that I grew to appreciate from reading his column in The Business, now in the same stable as the 'Speccie'. Today he ruminates on the difficulty 'ur wee Gordie Broon' will have as the music stops and he receives the last (ticking?) parcel from Mr. Blair, to wit, one new European constitution/treaty (delete to taste). 'Ur wee Gordie' has always let us believe that he has a healthy dislike of all things European, but I suspect that it is not so much that it is European but that it is not 'Brownian'. In other words, he is not against turning Britain into a semi-socialist state of inertia, as such, but it must be a state in which he is the Commissar-in-Chief not some jumped-up pip-squeak from Luxembourg, or where-ever.
Blair will obviously give the nod to anything the Euros come up with next week and then hand the whole smelly thing over to 'ur wee Gordie' with a boyish grin, saying something like, "Hey, you wanted the job, OK?" If he kicks it into touch that will stand him in great stead with the majority of the British people who appear to be sick of the whole enterprise, and that will play very well in the only thing that he is really concerned about - winning the next election. On the other hand, 'Dim Dave' has decreed that his party is not to be so anti-European in future, so if 'Broon' accepts it, after some renegotiation round the edges, the Europhobes will go ballistic and the main gainer in the next election will certainly be the UKIP - and guess from which main political party they will garner the most support? If the Scots Nats are likely to suck some of the sand from under 'ur wee Gordie's' feet, then he will be delighted to watch the 'Camerloons' sink as the UKIPs tunnel under the Tory party.
As I say, Fraser Nelson has a sharp pair of political eyes!
"Oor", David, "Oor Wee Gordon Broon".
There, you'll be speaking like a "native" in no time.
Posted by: Flying Rodent | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:13
'Ratty', I am happy to bow to your local knowledge but I had a half-memory of a character in a Scottish newspaper, or comic (no, I will resist the obvious!), called, I thought, 'Ur Willie'. Please correct an old man's doddering memory, if I am wrong.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:31
Are the Broons still in the Sunday Post? I have not seen it for about sixty years.
Posted by: F Jones | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:33
Mr/Mrs/Ms (one has to be so careful these days!) Jones, welcome to Duff & Nonsense.
Your comment came in as I was posting mine above, so please tell me if there was, indeed, some 'Broons' in the Scottish papers. I had not realised that, I simply attempted to guy a Scots accent.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:38
Oor Wullie was in the same paper.
Posted by: F Jones | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:39
Oor Wullie was in the same paper.
Posted by: F Jones | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:39
As an adolescent in the North of England I derived much amusement from the antics of the Broons and Oor Wullie who appeared in a Sunday Post comic strip. The paper concerned was a lively very Scottish journal with a considerable circulation in Cumberland. I believe it is still extant. I am happy to be just called Jones.
Posted by: F Jones | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 19:48
Thanks, Jones, and am I right to infer that 'Oor Wullie' and the 'Broons' were from the same strip, or did they merely share the same newspaper. I'm interested because I don't think I ever heard of the 'Broons' before, until what I thought was *my* 'witty' invention for our PM-in-waiting-and-waiting. But perhaps, as I did vaguely remember 'oor Wullie', the name 'Broon' was buried in what passes for my subconscious.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 15 June 2007 at 22:12
Different strip, same paper. From the same Dundee stable as The Beano, The Dandy and so on. Great source of childhood fun, all of them.
Posted by: dearieme | Saturday, 16 June 2007 at 07:40
Hmmm! So the name 'Broon' which I thought was my witty original actually came from the shallow recesses of my mind. Damn!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 16 June 2007 at 08:44