You'll have had your tea.

Up until this evening I had taken the stance of opposition to Scottish separation from the UK, not for any other reason than that it had been supported by the Scottish Nationalist party. In my book, any group of people who include Nationalist in their title should be viewed with a certain degree of suspicion. (Hands up all of those of you who thought I was going to say “Scottish” instead of “Nationalist” there). I loathe the concept of Nationalism. There may be an element of truth in the accusation that I adopt this posture because if we were to be grouped by ethnic type, then I would be with the fat, ugly, ginger twats, but I have more altruistic reasons for my distrust of those with a parochial view of the world.

That is until my old mate Gordon Brown, he of the lugubrious disposition, enlisted the help of scientists in his campaign against the SNP. According to my friends at the BBC, he could only find 61 of the buggers to side with him. I don’t know how hard he looked. My eyebrows are arched at the lack of enthusiasm found in the scientific community to poke their very ugly noses into someone else’s business. They are normally at the forefront of such nonsense. Perhaps it is Brown that they object to. I do not have figures to hand. There may be many more than 61 scientists in the UK, who is to say? I doubt whether our frail economy could support many more than that, and even my vivid imagination is stretched to encompass the prospect of what we need that many for, and what they do all day. I may be wrong. The islands may be overrun with them, and only 61 failed to come up with a good excuse when Brown called to enlist their support. “Daphne, if that fool Brown calls, tell him I am conducting important research into the average diameter of lumps of coal and can’t possibly speak to him”.

Whatever the facts and figures may be, and both Gordon Brown and scientists are notoriously unreliable when it comes to sums, the fact that this many of them are in favour of union with Scotland leads me to the conclusion that independence for the Scots can only be a good thing.

The whole of the article at the BBC is riddled with nonsense. I am slightly suspicious that it is the work of my new friend Reg, who, by his own admission, has a new job, and is very inebriated indeed.

He (Brown) said: "Of the world's top 200 universities, Scotland has three - more than Ireland, Iceland and Norway combined.”

What? It is the early hours of the morning, and I can’t quite deduce what he is trying to say. It may be that he thinks that having lots of universities is a good thing, who can tell? Personally, I cannot fathom how an economy based upon crofting, crocheting porridge and trying to find the last remnants of fossil fuels in the North Sea can possible thrive with all of those bloody students, and if he thinks that being joined to England will make the Scots less prosperous, then I would like to know if there is anyone south of Berwick involved in any useful trade. It seems to me that we are all accountants, marketers, conservatory designers or telephone sanitisers these days. The last time anyone in Britain produced anything of any use was when someone gave Engelbert Humperdinck a passport, allowing him to leave the country.

Apparently, according to the BBC (or Newcastle Brown addled Reg as the case may be), a group of prominent Scottish footballers have spoken out in favour of the Union. That must be all right then. We can’t go raising the school leaving age without the report of a working party consisting of Nobby Stiles, Ian Wright and Peter Shilton. It would be wrong to join the European Union single currency without thorough scrutiny by Dion Dublin. I trust that none of you has rushed into matrimony without first seeking the approval of Malcolm Macdonald.