Welcome to the new Scotland.

I hope you've brought pyjamas and a pillow.

In the olden days, when Alex Salmond played the lead, First Minister's Questions was a bearpit.

Fighting, slashing, screaming, swearing.

You needed an umbrella to keep off the blood.

It was proper medieval fun for all the family.

Through seven years we couldn't get enough in the press box, as every dirty tackle, low blow and poisonous aside was lovingly recorded.

Then, today, in a moment of infamy, Nicola Sturgeon took over and said, 'Let's play nice'.

Giving FMQs a pastel-coloured makeover on her first official outing, she declared harmony was now rife and made "respect" her watchword.

Suddenly the bearpit became Sleepy Hollow.

Generous and inclusive, the FM said she was ready to work with others; was "open-minded to any proposals from any side of the chamber", even the Tories; her "door was always open".

And there was worse.

Unlike Mr Salmond, who built a career slinging old stats in his opponents' faces, she wouldn't be having "the usual defensive ding-dong".

No ding-dong! It was unnatural.

In the press gallery, hacks downed their pens in disgust and held their heads in their hands.

"What's going on?" sobbed one baffled veteran.

"She said respect again," whimpered another.

A third screwed up his face in contempt.

"This," he hissed, "is consensual. Consensual!"

There was talk of demanding a refund.

Nor was it just the media who were suffering.

As Night Nurse Nicky droned on, the narcotic dullness proved overpowering.

From around the chamber came the gentle pock-pock sound of coconuts falling on the beach as MSPs slumped on their desks.

In a stroke of good luck, I found a nail to drive into my leg.

Others less fortunate succumbed to the niceness and slid into a silent, immobile torpor.

The strangest thing was that much of the subject matter was highly charged.

Labour's Jackie Baillie quoted from the families of cancer sufferers denied lifesaving drugs, and pushed Ms Sturgeon on why the SNP government had failed to end the postcode lottery for treatment in May, as it had promised to do.

The FM twice fell back on the weasely formula "I do not accept the characterisation of delay" without ever answering the question.

Tory Ruth Davidson highlighted the tragic case of a woman raped by a prisoner on early release.

New legislation was in train to end automatic early release, said the FM.

But it would "barely scratch the surface" of the problem, pointed out Ms Davidson.

"This is not a resource issue: it is a moral issue," she told Ms Sturgeon.

And with a reshuffle in prospect, LibDem Willie Rennie raised the many and varied "policy failures" of Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

Mr MacAskill gave the new FM a beseeching look, like a knackered old hound who's just seen the vet shake their head.

Her answer contained no solace.

People, she said, did not want a Scotland where they might be "the victim of somebody who is drunk and disorderly in the street".

The Justice Secretary, who was once banged up as a Tartan Army beer monster, mumbled his prayers. Then it was back to all that dreadful cooperation and Kumbaya stuff.

Mercifully, it cannot last.

Next week, FMQs comes as the Smith Commission delivers its masterplan on more devolution.

The parties will then kick in their opinions.

That should restore some much-needed indignity to the proceedings. Let the ding-dongs commence!