You can tell the adage "lies, damn lies and statistics" was coined before devolution, because otherwise FMQs would be the fourth measure of unreliablity, a universal watchword for the process of rendering facts into mince.

Take today's iffy offerings.

Labour's Jackie Baillie wanted to know whether certain things had gone up and down since the SNP came to power.

Alex Salmond, whose falling fortunes are such he can't always get himself burnt efficiently in effigy these days, knows the difference. Yet getting a straight answer was tougher than persuading a cybernat to smile.

Mr Salmond began by boasting the Commonwealth Games were not only "the greatest in history", they had come in £25m under their £575m budget.

That the final budget was £200m more than the original was conveniently overlooked. But it was just the start of the bamboozling.

When Ms Baillie asked if teacher numbers had gone up or down since 2007, the FM suggested it was more like sideways, as "the pupil-teacher ratio" agreed with councils had been maintained.

"The First Minister knows I am a kind and helpful person," said Ms Baillie, startling her colleagues, "so he will let me help him out here. Between 2007 and 2013, the number of teachers in Scotland dropped by 4000."

Mr Salmond's smile fell proportionately.

Next, Ms Baillie asked if the number of people going to college had gone up or down since 2007.

The FM ducked that by going back to the previous question, reading out numbers so fast it was if they were scalding his tongue: 51,212 teachers in 2011, 51,100 in 2012 and 50,932 in 2013.

It meant a steady teacher-pupil ratio of 13.5 since 2011, he concluded, never mind that he'd been asked about the change since 2007.

As to college places, the numbers were firm "in terms of full-time equivalents", a stat that means almost nothing in terms of human beings.

Ms Baillie accused him of hiding from the truth. "The reality is that the number of college students in Scotland has been cut by 140,000 since 2007," she said.

"How about we go for third time lucky?" Was the number of Scottish students going to university from the poorest areas up or down?

Mr Salmond blethered about English cuts, chucked in another ratio, then embarked on a giant detour about construction, declaring the SNP had finished 463 school building projects - outdoor privies, tumble-down annexes, holding cells etc - way more than Labour ever had in office.

But Ms Baillie was unmoveable. "Even by the First minister's usual standards, that was truly woeful," she replied.

"The First Minister's government celebrates percentages, but we talk about real people."

At which SNP backbenchers, like a telepathically operated goon squad, tried to drown her out and were chastised by the Presiding Officer.

With fewer teachers, fewer college students, and fewer poor kids at university "he should be ashamed," Ms Baillie blasted merrily.

After criticising Ms Baillie's "absurdity", the FM ended with some prime weirdness of his own.

"I heard on the radio this morning that there are scientists at the University of Glasgow who are researching the expanding nature of the universe," he chortled, teeing up a punchline.

"There are political scientists all over Scotland researching the contracting nature of the Scottish Labour Party - from big bang to black hole, from expansion of the universe to the disappearance of the Labour Party in Scotland."

The vacuum of space was nothing compared to the laughless void that met that stinker.

Mr Salmond should perhaps remember one just stat - he now has a single FMQs left. It would be a shame to waste that one as well.