EVERYONE expected the Spanish inquisition at First Minister's Questions yesterday.
Spain's PM Mariano Rajoy guaranteed it.
Just a day after the publication of The Rough Guide to Eckistan, or the White Paper on Independence as it's sometimes known, Snr Rajoy unhelpfully declared Scotland would be a region "outside" the EU if it left the UK.
Unhelpful if you're a Nationalist, that is.
Unionists threw a fiesta.
Indeed, the opening thrust from Labour's Johann Lamont was an ironic "Muchas gracias" as she asked Alex Salmond about the intervention.
The FM tried to chuckle his way clear, quoting Snr Rajoy's muddled description of him as the "Scottish President" on Wednesday.
"I know the First Minister likes to quote selectively but that takes the biscuit," deadpanned the censorious senorita.
The Spanish PM would have a veto in any EU negotiations, she reminded Mr Salmond.
Wasn't it dreadful that Scots had to get the hard facts from a foreign power? It was a red rag; Mr Salmond charged.
As conclusive proof that Scotland could become an EU member from within, he flourished a letter from a top Euro-nabob, even offering to put it into Holyrood's library for posterity.
Alas, it was more bull.
The text, it later emerged, was an anonymous email culled from a Nationalist website.
With equal desperation, the FM then dusted off a two-year-old quote from one of Snr Rajoy's ministers about Scotland, implying it trumped what the Prime Minister had said a day ago.
But Ms Lamont was not diverted, saying the FM's Rough Guide was indeed historic, but only as "no document has become obsolete so quickly".
Fresh from warning that a No vote would mean a £4 billion cut in Scotland's budget, Mr Salmond urged Ms Lamont to "just get off the scaremongering".
After the bullfight, the clowns came on.
Ruth Davidson reduced the front bench to tears by asking why the FM hadn't got an opinion on Scottish entry from the EU, then supplied the answer - only the UK could ask.
While Willie Rennie lectured the SNP on selling out, a subject close to Liberal Democrat hearts.
Like the inquisition, it was pure torture.
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