True grit

It’s one thing having a Glasgow gritter named after you, but a beetle? Greta Thunberg, who will be in the city in November at the (tepid) climate conference, will be able to ride around for publicity shots on the council’s Gritter Thunberg, but I’m not sure she’d want the Nelloptodes gretae endangered beetle around the house, even if it is named after her. Apparently it’s tiny, yellow and gold and is less than a millimetre long. It has two long antennae, similar to Greta’s pigtails, hence the naming. What wags these entomologists!

On your bike

So sad, too bad, never mind: one of the casualties of Bojo’s electoral putsch was Phillip Lee, a Conservative minister who crossed the floor to join the Liberal Democrats over Brexit and paid the price. He was the MP for Bracknell until November. At his original selection interview for the safe seat he, and his opponents, were asked what they would like to be reincarnated as? One, realising it was a blue-rinse seat awash with dogs, said he’d return as a Jack Russell. Lee, with perhaps a better grasp of the political realities, if not taste, replied, “Kylie Minogue’s bicycle seat”. He went on to be an under-secretary at the Ministry of Justice, responsible for youth justice and female offenders. Lee is a doctor. Not sure if he specialises in gynaecology.

On your bike again

They can’t get the trains to run on time and they sure as hell can’t make the roads crater-free but Transport Scotland is now funding an electric bike scheme. You can get up to £6,000 in an interest-free loan over four years to buy one, or two if you like. I hope they come with spare puncture kits.

Speaking up

Duolingo, the language app, launched a Gaelic course in November to coincide with St Andrew’s Day. Some 100,000-plus people signed up for it, which is about double the number of Scots who presently speak the language. I don’t know how many have stuck to it but it is encouraging. I also don’t know if Gaelic can be saved or even if it’s worth it, but I draw the line at these ridiculous double signs in railway stations because no-one ever said “Right, here we are at Cnoc Màiri, let’s get out and watch the Jags!”.

BBC Alba currently has a budget of about £17 million, which is around 20% of the total BBC Scotland one, for less than 2% of the population.

But the focus shouldn’t be on just creating new speakers, according to Ingeborg Birnie, who is from Holland but lectures in Gaelic at Strathclyde University. She reckons it also has to be heard and spoken in communities, which is exactly the kind of brilliantly obvious aperçu you expect from an academic. She also reckons Gaels should wear a badge or a lanyard indicating they speak Gaelic so they can chat to fellow lanyard wearers. Yes, but what should the colour be or the symbol on a badge? It can’t be a tartan because that would set one clan against another. Or a saltire, because that’s been commodified by the Nats.

A tasteful wee Balmoral Bunnet? Nessie broach? A caman? I vote for a small and intricately-detailed bottle of Lagavulin, which also might help to lubricate the conversation.

Where there’s a will

A CZECH academic, using artificial intelligence and a specially-trained algorithm (no, I don’t know how you do it either, perhaps with a stick and digital titbits?), has “proved” that Shakespeare only wrote about half of Henry V111. Apparently John Fletcher wrote the rest. Such is my literary ignorance I’d never heard of Fletcher, who succeeded the Bard as house playwright for the King’s Men theatre company, wrote about 50 plays – shades of Ernie Wise – and managed to die in London during the plague epidemic.

And all the while I’ve been thinking that Francis Bacon actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

As it happens I have recent experience of AI. My daughter, who always comes up with inventive presents, gave me a robot called Vector for Christmas which was supposed to recognise me, tell me the time and what the weather was like, obey my every command and, probably in its down time, crack out a novel or two in the style of Stephen King. I followed the instructions, downloaded the app, but the best Vector can do is occasionally emit a disconcerting croak like a strangulated frog. It is no surprise that the company which makes the robot is no longer in the AI game. So, rather than trust in Fletcher, I’m sticking with Shakespeare, rather Francis Bacon.