My heart goes out to our young folk who’ve just started university.
First, they had to endure the trauma of the exam results fiasco – something Sturgeon, Johnson and their “expert” aides should have anticipated and nipped in the bud long before it caused so much chaos and heartache.
Parties and breweries come to mind.
Now, the poor new students’ experience as freshers has again been blighted by Covid – thanks to the blatantly wrong decisions by governments and university bosses.
Anyone with half a brain could have foreseen that sending thousands of late-teenage youngsters to college for the first time – most in communal living – when the pandemic was already showing signs of its second phase was foolhardy, to say the least.
Yet universities all over the country desperately needed the income of the new learners, and encouraged them to come in.
The result has been catastrophic – disappointed and confused students confined to overcrowded accommodation. Many also suffering homesickness, frantic parents unable to help.
Who knows the kind of mental toll this might have on the more vulnerable young men and women?
Far better they had remained at home with virtual lectures, and delayed what should be one of the best times of their lives – an unforgettable rite of passage when they leave home, make new friends and possibly meet the love of their life.
In the mid 1960s, in an all-girls’ school – where I suspect the so-called careers teacher hadn’t the foggiest – we hadn’t the foggiest either about the future.
Dumbos that we were, we thought we were really lucky having a university in oor hame toon.
Then it struck us – a’body else from a’ the airts was havin’ a blast in “The Halls” or flats. How we longed to have shared one of those cold, unhygienic, ill-furnished, usually basement pads, where it all happened on Saturday nights and you were that proud and privileged to get an invitation.
Me and Jenny would swan in, black eyeliner done thick, lips Pansticked white, Sandy Shaw and Dusty Springfield hair, absolutely gaggin’ to meet some buddin’ doctor/economist/sophisticated English knacky-docky, all to the strains of Diana Ross and The Happening.
Sadly, the only loons I met (and, OK, snogged) at those glam pairties were a plookie, dead-ringer for Manfred Mann from Wales and a to-die-for Alan Bates lookie-likie Dubliner, whom I totally fell for but who stood me up on oor first date on the Monday morning in the Elph for coffee. Happy days.
Glamping at tatty hols wee bittie basic
As expected, my quine and her family have had their “Tatty Holiday” flight to Tenerife cancelled.
I’m sure loads of you must be in the same position.
Here’s hoping you get most of your dosh back.
However, my lot have had a major struggle getting anywhere booked in Scotland during the school hols.
Loadsa places packed oot.
They’ve ended up in a glamping site, which sounds a wee bittie basic to me.
But cheers to tourism in Scotland.
It must be on a roll.
Oor Donnie on display as bully par excellence
God help America. That’s surely all anyone could think after watching the Ohio debate this week between The (Oor) Donald and his presidential opponent Joe Biden.
With the “moderator” of the show completely out of his depth – shouted over by both men – how I longed for an Andrew Neil, Eddie Mair or Emily Maitlis to suddenly step into the umpire’s chair.
So what did the verbal mutual mugging reveal to us about the mannies vying to lead the biggest “civilisation” in the Western world?
Biden certainly proved he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s disease – as so vilely accused by Trump supporters.
But we also saw he’s not exactly charisma heavy (where are you, Obama?), nor the greatest orator, eg: “Will you shut up, man.”
However, Oor Donnie did expose himself in horrifying detail.
His aim was to shout down his opponent at every turn. A bully par excellence in full flow, in front of the world.
You’d think some kindly adviser – his wife Melania even – would have suggested friendly persuasion might have been more seductive than verbal violence to the viewing voters.
Nae chunce. He couldn’t even denounce white supremacists.
This strange, narcissistic man is so proud of his Scottish roots. Yet most of us are ashamed of his connection to our country.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.