Yesterday (30/10/2026) I was idly perusing the usual worthless unionist rags
comprising the Scottish newspaper contingent (Herald, Scotsman, etc) when I saw a
story that gave me real pause for angry thought. Including a link to it. But I
am going to dissect the whole text, so wouldn't give them the click, if I was
you. Just including it for reference:
https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/nicola-sturgeon-set-to-be-curious-host-when-she-grills-one-day-author-at-scottish-literary-festival-9314114
Nicola Sturgeon is set to be a
"curious host" when she grills One Day author David Nicholls about his career as she mulls a move into writing fiction, the curator of a literary
festival has said.
Michael Pedersen said Ms Sturgeon, who has said she
is considering writing a novel, will “have genuine questions" about
writing fiction on the on the "blisteringly brilliant scale" of
Nicholls, whose bestselling novel was this year turned into a sell-out musical
which premiered in Edinburgh.
Just as well she's not an incurious host, eh?
So here we have manhater political fraudster and mentor tormentor Nicola Sturgeon, who will be interviewing somebody called David Nicholls - no idea, don't care, but suppose I need to know for context - at some literary frothfest presenting herself as quite the gadfly Female Writer About Town. She'll be interviewing a bestselling author about his book which is about (quick check) a couple who spend the night together on July 15th, 1988, then visit each other once a year for twenty years on the same date afterwards.
Sounds ripped off from the plot of the old 1995 Julie Delpie and
Ethan Hawke film Before Sunrise, to me. Perhaps the idea of a couple
only having contact once every twenty years appealed to the ex-First Minister
'mulling over' becoming a fiction writer. Given the divided, dystopian Hell she
turned Scotland into during her misandristic, caustic, vengeful FM term, she's already
achieved her fictional aims quite admirably.
As for Sturgeon's plummy chum, Michael
Pedersen, the arselickathon curator, well. Let's face it, the man has exploited
the tragic suicide of his 'boy friend' (amazing wordplay!) Scott Hutchinson of
Frightened Rabbit in 2018, the horrifying act that propelled Pedersen to
stardom. He wouldn't have been anywhere near as famous as he is without tapping
into some sort of national indie kid need for a grieving lightning rod over
Hutchinson's sad suicide. I mean, listen to this melodramatic, navel-gazing
maggoty slab vomited up from his memoir of their friendship here:
(That...fucking...jumper...and...boyish...hair...!
He's 42!!)
Another former first minister, Humza
Yousaf, is also to be grilled by ex-politician-turned-performer Mhairi Black at
Winter Words, which will take place at Alan Cumming’s Pitlochry Festival
Theatre in February.
And this article gets yet more
insulting, disgusting, and anger-making. So far we have had Michael Pedersen
and Nicola Sturgeon mentioned. Now we get Humza "WHITE!" Yousaf
mentioned (he's just shat out a memoir - no doubt written by him - y'see),
Mhairi 'Fake Ned' Black, and Alan 'America's Official Favourite Scotsman' (TM)
Cumming dragged into the pick-and-mix. Cumming would turn up at the opening of
an envelope, and The Scotsman is his personal stalker PR machine zine.
It's a total luvviefest, like every
single narcissist backslapper panto careerist you wouldn't want to be anywhere
near in Scotland all in one place at one time. Like her erstwhile eighth-wit
ex-colleague Sturgeon, post-SNP politico Black has gone fool circle from
performing on the Holyrood and Westminster stage as 'Scotland's Laziest MSP':
https://spectator.com/article/is-mhairi-black-westminsters-laziest-mp/
to going onto the comedy circuit (I am
laughing here at the sheer brazen brass neck of the woman!) and now,
apparently, she wants to be an actor, just like wee Sturgie. The latter
appeared recently in a vomitous production about Russia attacking the UK,
playing English Deputy Prime Minister (shows where her head and ambition
lay/lie) to another turncoat Scot, Michael Gove.
A musical version of One Day, which is set in the capital,
enjoyed a sell-out extended run at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in March.
Former SNP MP Ms Black, who left
politics in 2024 to embark on a career in stand-up comedy, has recently
expanded her range into acting, playing detective Inspector Bridges in upcoming
BBC drama Counsels.
'A career in stand-up comedy'. The jokes
write themselves, and no doubt the nine years Black spent impersonating a
caring, interested politician (until she got enough money for a pension and
bailed out, leaving absolutely bugger all as a legacy) will stand her in good
stead in the acting stakes. You genuinely can't help but feel that insecure
angry, minority-sexuality-obsessed weirdos like Black and Sturgeon should just
have gone into the arts instead of politics, where they would maybe have gotten
the approbation and validation and attention they both clearly needed growing
up. The loss to the arts is a loss, I mean a gain, to politics.
Poet and Edinburgh Makar Pedersen, who
programmed the festival for Mr Cumming, described the line-up as “glisteringly
unique”.
'Poet'. Laughing here. There is not one more pretentious and
purple poetry-and-prose-puker in this whole wee country than Pedersen! What the
fuck does 'glistering' mean? A misspelling of 'blistering'? More likely it's an
extremely clumsy portmanteau of 'glistening' and 'blistering', trying to give
the drab, shallow, kissyface arsepatter proceedings some sort of 'fabulous'
connotations. It doesn't work as a word, at all, like a helluva lot of the
simpering, whimpering total shite the scribbler comes up with. Like, say, the
whole next paragraph, basically:
He said: “I lit the fuses and the
fireworks hath come. The 2027 edition of Winter Words is glisteringly unique.
Some of the most gifted storytellers and courageous literary thinkers that walk
amongst us are coming questing to Pitlochry – crooning, rallying, roostering,
lullabying, coruscating, and romping to stage.
I am genuinely sitting here laughing out
loud. 'I lit the fuses and the fireworks hath come.' Who speaks like
that, let alone writes PR materials for some wordslopfest in that idiot idiom?
If AI steals the jobs of clownbags like this, I'm all for it! Bring it on, I
say! 'Some of the most gifted storytellers and courageous literary thinkers
amongst us are coming questing to Pitlochry - crooning, rallying, roostering,
lullabying, coruscating, and romping to stage.'
(Pause to genuinely laugh out loud some
more)
So just telling a story is no longer enough, you have to be a 'courageous literary thinker.' Why is it the ones who know nothing whatsoever about morality and ethics and art and life in general are the ones who strut and crow and fart on about these things the most? Seriously. Who needs 'courage' to tell some silly populist profit-making bestseller story at some inconsequential wee Scottish litfest? Talk about self-aggrandising and self-dramatising!
You can't just write, now, you have to have some sort of utterly
pointless, nonexistent 'moral and ethical courage and artistic code' to be
going on with. Like any of this litshit makes the slightest bit of difference
in the real world, far away from doeyeyed wannabe-poet everysexual types. The
ones who talk about sex and reality the most are the ones least familiar with
them.
'Crooning, rallying, roostering,
lullabying, coruscating, and romping to stage'...indeed.
They can't just walk onto stage and read
and discuss their 'questing' work, they have to performatively blunder on with some sort
of roll of words denoting exciting action and something far beyond mere
self-book-pimping: 'roostering' (laughing - cockadoodledoom!), 'coruscating'
(had to look that one up, admittedly - basically meant to sparkle or, well, I
suppose 'glistering', to quote some hack) and 'lullabying' (suppose there is
truth in this one, in that some of the readers will put people to sleep), or
any verb ending in 'ing'. What a gashfrothy goshalicious wordsloppy spoogebath,
dahlink!
“This punchy weekend programme is
enthralling enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any book festival in the
UK.”
'Enthralling'. Nothing can be just
interesting, it has to go one hyperbolic verb higher. Still, the foostiefest
has been handed down from luvvie to luvvie, I suppose Alan Cumming has set the
capelifter hyperbole bar incredibly high. Where do you go from the low heights
of Cummingdom? Who knows? Or cares.
He said Nicholls would speak about adapting One Day for the
screen, as well as his latest novel, You Are Here, which is currently being
turned into an eight-part TV miniseries by the BBC.
Ah, the good old English Broadcasting
Corporation, losing licence fee payers at a rate of knots, Scotland's dear
impartial friend during the Independence Referendum. They better hurry up and
get it finished, or they'll be out of business before they broadcast if they
don't! And Hell fucking mend them, agitprop-slinging scum that they are.
Mr Pedersen said: “We're going to have
him speaking about both those books and about his love of Scotland. It will be
chaired by Nicola Sturgeon as well, who herself has said publicly she's
venturing into the fiction writing world at the moment. So I think we'll have a
very curious host in her. She'll have genuine questions about writing fiction
on the on the blisteringly brilliant scale David's done over the years.” (last line typo from original)
I have no idea what Nicholls is like, as I said, so I'll just reserve judgement on him. But Sturgeon, whose googly eyes she made with the likes of Jackie 'Talentless' Kay during her tenure as Box-Ticking Makar betray her litgirl internal musings - you can bet she has a stash of cringe-worthy teenage lovelorn lesbian poetry somewhere in a trunk in Dreghorn - show what she's doing.
She's sniffing about for some high-level literary connections, as she did with her dalliance with her pal Val 'Arsenic Expert'
McDermid, and is doing right now associating with Claire Mitchell, KC. She's no
doubt mining her work case load for stories for a tiresome career in crime
fiction. Speaking of which. Please read and sign my petition if you haven't
already:
https://www.change.org/p/fight-crime-fiction?source_location=search
Other highlights of the festival, which runs from 18-21 February, are vest-selling author Matt Haig, whop will be in conversation with the poet Donna Ashworth about his latest novel The Midnight Train and his career; Val McDermid and Professor Jo Sharp in conversation with broadcaster Nicola Meighan,who will also be in conversation with crime writer Denise Mina about her latest book The Good Liar.Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and Cal Flyn will discuss the natural world in their new books: The Tangles and The Savage Landscape, chaired by Edinburgh International Book Festival director Jenny Niven. (Typos left intact from source material. Particularly like 'vest-selling'. Oddly appropriate somehow.)
(Random great song break)
Matt Haigh: had to look him up.
Speculative fiction and non-fiction writer, ho-hum. Wonder if he is a
'courageous literary thinker'. He'd better be, for his own sake. He has a lot
to live up to at this preening peahen pestfest.
Donna Ashworth: poet. Basically a
useless human being.
Val McDermid: criminal writer. Already
mentioned.
Prof Jo Sharp: Val's bird. Geographer.
probably shows her the best terrain to bury bodies in. Assuming it's not their
back garden. Need to ask Nicola Ess, sure she'd know.
Nicola Meighan: freelance Scottish
journo.
Denise Mina: crime writer. As it says.
Pay attention. Actually, toss a coin in Scotland, and you've a 90% chance of
being right if you call a writer a crime writer.
I'm not sure I know how coin toss chance works, though.
Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and Cal Flyn will discuss the
natural world in their new books: The Tangles and The Savage Landscape, chaired
by Edinburgh International Book Festival director Jenny Niven.
Amy Liptrot: her that wrote that book
The Outrun that I saw the boring film of. Ex-Edinburgh Yooni student bird gets
into drugs and alcohol with wacky, tedious, predictable results. Film was made
by some woman who thought she was early Lynne Ramsay. She thought wrong.
Cal Flyn: writes for rightie rags like
The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. Also holds an MA in experimental psychology
from Oxford. Run away, run away!!!
Jenny Niven: OK, now's your chance to
show you were paying attention. What is it Ms. Niven does with herself? Should
be easy enough.
I can only imagine the handing of the luvvie baton, Cumming and
Pedersen facing away from each other, trousers dropped, bare bums, baton jammed
up a Satanic Verse, passing the mantle from actor to 'writer' with a swift deft
arsecheek-clenching motion. That was not meant to be a sexual image, merely a
disgusted, surreal, funny, satiric one. If it was sexual, I recommend you seek
professional help. Or start attending Cumming plays or Pedersen readings. You
never know, you might get lucky.
On that score, though, Mikey is going
against the modern omnisexual luvvie grain and actually going out with somebody
of the opposite sex! For heterodox, heteronormative shame, sir, for shame! His
missus, the poet Holly McNish, is also appearing at the festival that he is
running. With him hosting. As Harry Hill put it: "What are the chances of
that happening, eh?"
Pedersen said: “These past couple of
years, I’ve cherished reading at and chairing events at the gorgeous Pitlochry
Festival Theatre, to now step beyond the stage and conjure a full programme has
been the most supreme of thrills.”
'Cherished, gorgeous, conjure, supreme
of thrills.' Never just
merely speak when dahlink kissycheek gushslush will do.
This year’s festival will also include
comedians Frankie Boyle in conversation with Christopher McArthur Boyd about
the role of the novel in an insane world and poet Kae Tempest who will be in
conversation with the actress Grace Quigley about his second novel Having Spent
Life Seeking.
Used to find Frankie Boyle funny, until the BBC defanged him. He now thinks he's a crime writer (I bought the hardback of his novel when it came out: he's wrong), so of course he'll fit right in. Heard he's really into the occult and all that Dennis Wheatley rubbish. Wonder if he'll start writing dipsomaniac defective detective novels like Clive Barker's Harry D'Amour character. Jock Jakey, anyone? Has a certain ring to it.
Christopher Macarthur Boyd? That's the wee specky guy that does
the Here Comes the Guillotine podcast with Boyle and the tedious Susie McCabe
on Youtube. The Scotsman spelled his name wrong. Laughing here. Typo city! When
Boyd speaks he always shows his teeth, like he's trying to come across as scary
to ward off a late night attacker on Sauchiehall Street, or is suffering from
trapped gas.
Kae Tempest used to be Kate. Sex change.
I do not believe 'Tempest' is his given name. I might be wrong. these middle
class libertarian arty types can be pretty decadent in the nomenclature
department. Having Spent Life Seeking was called by fartgubber journal The
Guardian a 'painfully earnest tale of trauma and transition.' Plus ca change.
Yay.
Grace Quigley: a 1985 Cannon films
production about a lonely old widow who hires somebody to kill her, and other
lonely old people.
Wait-
Eh-
Sorry. Can't find anything for Ms. Quigley (no idea if she's any relation to 80s scream queen Linnea)(I really, really hope she is) online, which is odd. There is a Grace Kelly Quigley, but she looks about ten years old. So unless they're resurrecting the idea of getting kids to do adult jobs, like they used to sling them up chimneys to clean them, I doubt it's the right person. Get that youth market in! Hardly matters, anyway. You get the general idea.
Gentle
Reader, you may wonder why I have even wasted my precious time writing this
inconsequential guff. Well, it's like this. And I'll keep it brief. The likes
of Sturgeon, Yousaf and Black disgust me to my core. they were wall paid to do
a political job, to lead and serve Scotland. And they did fuck all but
self-righteously lecture us all, serve themselves and bugger off, leaving us
totally in the lurch. Now we're just meant to uncritically sealclap their
post-ripoff 'creative' endeavours. And hardly anybody seems to even care or
have the energy to complain about us getting ripped right off in this brazen
cunty way.
I mean, Sturgeon and Black going into the arts after being
in office, saying that politics wasn't really for them (at least Black said
that, and you get a certain vibe from Sturgeon) - really, aye? You
twisted, insincere, zero-legacy fucking clowns. Failing-upwards Yousaf barely
registers, because he was in power so briefly. He clearly thinks he's made of
some sort of international statesman material, which is utterly hilarious. So
fuck him and his racism, too.
The rest of what I wrote was just a comment on the literary and poetic scenes in this moribund, dying country. From what I have seen of them, publisher and writer, they're nearly uniformly disgusting. Sturgeon's pitterpatter fastheartbeat wannabe-writer machinations encouraged soft, weak, stupid, untalented people into our public arts sphere. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving these people money - if they have talent.
"But I don't know Vanessa Wedgrave!"
Which the vast majority of them don't.
They cluster round the Scottish Poetry Library like flies on shit, needy,
nerdy, greedy, heartbleedy, bleating, jamming their narcissist navel-gazing me me me I I I
'poetry' down the shit-choking necks of all and sundry. As befits the modern age,
there is no sense of nae pasaran solidarity in these writings, no-
You know what? Fuck it. I'm just going
to stop writing and step away here. No point in wasting more good analytical
words on them anyway. Nobody cares, outside their wee literary and poetic scene
emo echo chambers and spunk bubbles. It's just that these clownbags flouncing
around pronouncing themselves the 'courageous thinker' intelligentsia and
'creatives' (an appalling appellation that always makes me laugh. What are
other people, 'destructives'?) that represent Scotland on the world stage gies
me the fucking boak. Why wouldn't they? And I know more than one person in
these scenes, and on the peripheral edges, who agree with me. Might you know
them, you ask? One or two, you might. Not naming them. Apart from that, I'm
signing off. Writing about such distasteful swill is making me ill. As ever.
THE END (OF MY PATIENCE WITH THIS INTOLERABLE SHIT)
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