News of the Cheese

"Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?" is attributed to de Gaulle.

Good question. Perhaps we in Scotland need 246 varieties of political blogs. Not so as we can be "governed" but so as we can be free.

I note with interest that the Universality of Cheese is back online.

In the Sunday Times today Mark MacLachlan tells his side of the story of how his blog went offline in the first place.

And doesn't this quote show that Scotland's parliament is perfectly capable of taking its rightful place alongside those of other nations?

The image of our parliament as a dignified cathedral for the cut and thrust of hard-edged debate goes out the window when one witnesses the jockeying in the Garden Lobby canteen. Here, MSPs, journalists, political TV correspondents, civil servants and lowly country mice like me jostle for a decent table from which to eavesdrop on political rivals. The amount of swivel-necking is a sight to behold as people indulge in conversations over each other’s shoulders, eyes keen on the prize of spotting the bigger dog, what they’re having for lunch and with whom.

And then they pass the port to the left...