As imagined by Brian Beacom

HALLELULJA! I haven’t felt like praising the Lord so loudly since I was PR officer for the Church of Scotland back in the 1980s. Why? Well, if I can turn to another deity for inspiration, as Brucie would have said, “Didn’t she do well!”

This week’s performance by Nicola would have made Helen Mirren envious.

OK, the memory lapses stuff didn’t play out too well, but I can confirm The Boss suffers from mild amnesia at home. She often forgets I’m not an employee.

But right now I’m ecstatic. Can you imagine what it would have been like for me if the jam scone had landed on the floor upside down and she had to resign?

My life would have been a nightmare. I’d be forever hearing the clippity-clop of anxious stiletto pacing up and down on our hardwood flooring. I’d be Elastoplasting her fingers, bloodied from sticking pins in that voodoo doll of Alex Salmond she keeps under her pillow. Or forever trying to calm her mood by streaming the first series of Borgen.

As you can imagine, The Boss is not the banana bread sort. She loves to mix it in the cut and thrust and skulduggery of political life. She loves being centre stage, almost as much as Jason Leitch.

Not me, though. I’m wallpaper. I’m a Dobbies plant pot. I’m the copy of that dull Sunset Song you read at school because teachers made you. I’m quite happy to look out the window at magpies.

I simply can’t be doing with all these questions about whether or not I was at home the night The Boss met with Alex Salmond, or whether I had WhatsApp on my phone all the time I said I didn’t – because we all know we can never really be sure, can we, even if accounts suggest I last used WhatsApp on November 22.

And yes, I know you want to know about the messages.

Well, I will be totally honest about them. I used to go for them regularly when I was a wee boy living in Edinburgh. I’m not saying I always came back with the stuff on the list. But that can happen when you’re only in your early 20s.

And I know you want me to talk about what me and The Boss talk about at home. Well, sometimes we talk about that fateful day we met at an SNP Youth Camp in 1988, when our eyes met across the plastic tartan tablecloth and, oh, how we shared the romance in our souls, talking passionately of favourite films such as Brigadoon and Braveheart.

You know, that first night we stayed up until 10 o’clock imagining what a fiscal planning budget for a new Caledonia could look like.

We still talk about that. But thanks to The Boss’s show, we’re now talking about Jackie Baillie’s slide back into Labour muddleland. And Ruthie leaving for the Lords. Hallelujah indeed!

Oops, what was that? Sorry I must go. There’s a magpie tapping at the window.