Whit a guy! Whit a guy!

It's about a week to go 'til St. Andrew's Day, when I will, as usual, wear the Kilt, shout abuse at sassenachs, and drink irresponsible amounts of alcohol, all in the name of my cultural heritage.

So over the next few days [and there's a modicum of optimism triumphing over experience coming here] I will be posting about how fantastic are Scotland, the Scots, and all other things Caledonian.

But I wanted to start on a down note by personally attacking something called Steve Richards. Steve is a journalist [of sorts] and works for The Independent. He might well be a nice man, who buys his mother flowers on her birthday and the like; and I don't know what country he comes from, but I suspect it starts with 'E', ends in 'ngland', and has 'patronising bastard' in between.

In his article Watch Scotland yesterday we see some tired old bigotries; watch out for the Scots, a tricky and mendacious rabble, subsidy junkies, but in the end they know what's good for them; kissing English arse. If he said the same thing about Nigerians he'd be arrested.

Richards belittles First Minister Jack McConnell's plans to boost investment in Scotland by cutting corporation tax as parochial; and four times refers to him as Jack McDonnell. Not a crime; just pisspoor journalism. Or perhaps Steve is in the habit of mis-spelling the names of heads of governments.

You might want to contact him at s.richards@independent.co.uk and let him know just what a prick he is; you might think he knows already; you might think that if he doesn't he is beyond help. But having dumped my load, I'll accentuate the positive from now on.

Andrew Mishmash