Coverage appeared this week on social media of Jim Murphy being heckled by Yes supporters and he did well, standing his ground.

He's doing an admirable grassroots campaign, a 100-day tour of Scotland in the run-up to the independence referendum and he's actually one of the few Better Together side trying to convey a positive message.

He hasn't really recovered since Ed Miliband ousted him as the party's defence spokesman at Westminster and demoted him to international development.

It's thought that move was down to speaking out against the power of the Unite union, upsetting both Miliband and Tom Watson.

Murphy carries the political scar tissue of being strongly allied with Gordon Brown and a devotee of Blair and New Labour (thus the blood on his hands/heckling from the Shawlands massive - all four of them).

I'd suggest Johann Lamont should be worried if the referendum is won by Better Together: I can see Jim Murphy taking over.

Democracy needs strong capable people in any parliament. In fact, while we're at, we'll need laughs in that scenario, so let's bring Gorgeous George back too - if he can stay out of the jail - and Tommy Tango Sheridan, let's make it box office!!!!

We would all love to be captivating and beguiling, Danny Alexander on the other hand…anyway he was on Radio 4's World at One, up against Stuart Hosie SNP treasury spokesman at Westminster on the same topic.

Hosie showed why he's another very capable politician, able to keep the wolves at bay down south, by sounding just like his gaffer up here.

I almost burned my toast running for my notebook as he cut through Alexander. He quoted chapter and verse from many sources, many estimates about the oil. He finished by saying the terrible news was that Scotland "only has lots of oil, a great deal of oil, a huge amount of oil or an extraordinary amount of oil". Job done.

Keeping the radio and oil theme going, as an insomniac, I listen to radio all night. Radio 4 becomes the World Service after the Shipping Forecast at 1am. One of my favourite shows was Global Business, presented by Peter Day.

Around this time last year, he did an in-depth two part report on the North Sea, featuring Sir Ian Wood of the Wood Group. Sir Ian excitedly eulogised about the developments in subsea technology which meant they could find huge amounts of oil in pockets under the sea and that the North Sea was still rich with oil. They had new technology which helped locate it. He was very optimistic about it.

The second one is still online and, quite clearly, around the 25th minute, he says that there's at least another 40 years there, easy. In the show, he jokes about being a canny Scotsman, implying he'd be more likely as a businessman to under promise and over deliver.

So, if he's now saying 16 years, it's probably a conservative estimate but knows it's far more. He also mentions the huge potential for fracking and the reserves of gas. It's like two different people. Telling the world a positive message but locally keeping it bleak?

The best joke of the fringe was announced this week. You've probably heard Tim Vine's gag by now: "I decided to sell my Hoover...well, it was just collecting dust." It got me thinking about the tangible connection between politics and comedy.

Both have always been closely aligned through a long and proud tradition of political satire which stretches as far back as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes, who famously pilloried Cleon, an Athenian statesman during the Peloponnesian War.

I'm sure there's primitive cave paintings blaming the village elder or tribal leader for not having a Planicus Beeticus in the equivalent of a Neolithic referendum, or drawings parodying the cost of a stone-age square wheeled version of the trams.

Back to Vine's joke, it's a decent, well-constructed but very Tim Vine joke. People always think comedy is comedy, it's all the same, but is Jim Davidson the same as Woody Allen? Both are comedians.

What about Nick Griffin and Nicola Sturgeon? They are both politicians. Most politicians you meet do tend to have a good sense of humour and have developed a thick skin, it's also a good defence mechanism.

The skillsets in performing a stand-up routine or delivering a speech and debating at Holyrood are very similar. Not so much for the one-line style of Jimmy Carr and Tim Vine but the traditional classic stand-up routine, with a few scenarios, a narrative, all heading toward a good ending, lends itself more in terms of set-up, to a political speech.

You need to be memorable, have good structure, strike the right tone, know when to slow the pace down or take it up a notch, have good delivery, control the room, appear confident and relaxed as well as ending strong. You also have to hold an audience, have good timing, know when to release the gag or salient point.

It would be difficult for Alex Salmond to be full of existentialist one-liners like Steve Wright but it would be fun. Lenny Bruce was the Elvis Presley of comedy, a rule-changer, using free association, the beat, a routine like free form jazz, Bill Hicks was a counter culture man, Richard Pryor kicked down the doors for African American comedians.

The most hard-hitting comedian in terms of politics and culture was probably George Carlin. There's another parallel, most of the truly legendary stand-ups and great politicians are dead now.