NICOLA Sturgeon must have felt like a teenager who thought they could get away with revising one topic for a school exam, only to turn up on the day to find it missing from the test paper.
Ignoring the 'tax chaos' warnings that dominated the news agenda, Jackie Baillie lobbed a curveball in the form of fuel poverty.
The number of people who couldn't afford to keep warm had risen by almost 300,000, or "the size of Livingston, Hamilton, Cumbernauld, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Ayr all put together", she said.
The Labour stand-in had apparently been studying the tried-and-tested Alex "one hundred, thousand, million pounds" Salmond trick of magically making the same number seem bigger.
Sitting alongside Ms Baillie, Neil Findlay looked on impassively. He will find himself firing the bullets next week if he wins the top job tomorrow, and was perhaps wondering whether he could do a better job.
"It's always someone else's fault" scowled Jackie, as the FM called for a united front against the real granny-chillers at Westminster.
It was an appeal that fell on deaf ears, provoking a fresh icy blast. "Labour stopped being the Labour Party, Labour has become the anti-SNP party," the FM barked, in one of the few lively moments of a forgettable affair.
Ruth Davidson went with plummeting teacher numbers, prompting an admission that they were a concern in response.
The FM must have been cursing her luck. It at least sparked the interest of her notable predecessor, who treated Graeme Dey to a running commentary for the remainder of the proceedings on the SNP back benches.
Then, just when it seemed a lost cause, it was Willie Rennie to the rescue, saying something about Revenue Scotland and contingency plans. Close enough.
"I'm glad Winnie Rennie has raised this issue" said the FM, apparently forgetting that this was not exactly a good news story for her administration.
She then gleefully rattled off facts of mornings meetings with tax chiefs, job offers, IT systems and even when adverts for staff were going up. "I hope Willie Rennie appreciates that update" she said, before remembering his actual question, and answering it in seven seconds.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article