THE American professional football team the Seattle Sounders have launched a second kit dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, who came from the city. It has purple haze on it, obviously, with yellow and orange splashes. A reproduction of Hendrix’s signature is on the front left corner of the jersey, and part of the inner neckline is inscribed with the lyrics “We got to stand, side by side” from Jimi’s song Straight Ahead.

There’s also the logo of the Puyallup tribe – who owned the land on which the Sounders stadium stands, now known as Puget Sound, before they were massacred – on the right jersey sleeve. The tribe are one of the Sounders ‘sponsors through the Emerald Queen Casino, which they own, in a kind of revenge on the white man.

This is a terrific idea which should be encouraged. Aberdeen would have small and tasteful hairdryer motifs, after Sir Alex Ferguson. St Mirren’s strip could be designed by John Byrne and it would be dedicated to Gerry Rafferty, perhaps with replica Baker Street signage? For Rangers, we’ll steer away from men on prancing horses and go for dark blue 55s on light blue. Brother Walfrid is a bit too staid for Celtic, so banana feet after the Big Yin or lots of tiny Rod Stewarts. Hibs would have lots of sweary words from Irvine Welsh and for Killie it would be small Kilmarnock bonnets as decals on the fabric.

Raising eyebrows

According to the UK Government website, Priti Patel spent £900 in a pub in Oxford last February, £77,269.40 in SP Beautiful Brows in March (what, is she a werewolf?) and, in the same month, £2,022.64 in Neptun Qtu Tirane, which seems to be an electrical shop in Albania. Eh? And, in September, £5,415.90 in Primark. Come on, no-one can spend that much in Primark.

What the Eck?

IT was perhaps one of the least surprising announcements of the last week, but it certainly caused waves when Alex Salmond made the announcement that he’d decided to go back into politics.

At a press conference he said he’d be standing in the May election as leader of the pro-independence Alba Party. But on the list, not on the constituency vote. Anyone who says they understand the d’Hondt proportional representation method for the second vote is either a liar, Iain Macwhirter, or John Curtice.

A second vote the same as your first, if it’s for one of the major parties, is largely discounted, because of the way the system discriminates. For instance, in the Glasgow Region list election in 2016, the SNP took 44.8 per cent of the total ballot, 111,101 votes, but didn’t get one list member. Patrick Harvie for the Greens was elected on just 23,398 votes, 9.4% of the total.

The Salmond announcement kicked off what is going to be one of the nastiest and most bruising Scottish elections ever. What’s not to like? My colleague, the peerless Tom Gordon, asked the question of the campaign so far of Eck. “Are you still a bully and a creep, or have you reformed?” Ouch.

Not so ship-shape

MUCH mirth was displayed on social media over the big boat stuck and blocking the Suez Canal with hundreds of others behind queuing to get through. Analogies with CalMac ferries abounded. It was French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps who won the licence to create it. It took 10 years to build, 1.5 million worked on it, and countless thousands died making it, many of them slave labourers.

There was to be a monumentally huge statue on a plinth to be placed at its entrance. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was commissioned to create it but the company ran out of money and it was never built. Not one to miss an opportunity to recycle an idea, he offered it to the United States and it was finally installed on the site of a former fort off New York. Ironic that a statue which would have been raised over the deaths, exploitation and slavery of so many thousands would become the Statue of Liberty.

A very private matter

WHEN is an officer not a gentleman? When he dishonestly claims £48,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay for his kids’ private education, that’s when.

Major General Nick Welsh, who earns more than £120,000 a year, is the most senior officer to be court martialled since 1815. He fraudulently claimed the money under the Continuity of Education Allowance, which is a special fund to allow children to stay at the same school while their parents in the forces are posted elsewhere. Inevitably this means private boarding school, like Fettes at £36,500 per child per school year.

But given how the army has shrunk and is going to again, and we’ve precious few wars to fight, most of the postings are within Britain now. Welch was sent to London as Assistant Chief of the General Staff and his wife Charlotte was meant to go with him. The family home is at Blandford Forum in Dorset and the two schools are the £37,000-a-year Clayesmore School and the £22,500-a-year Hanford School nearby.

Under the CEA scheme, the serving parent pays 10% of the bill and we stump up the rest. But if you take the cash, you and your spouse can only spend up to 90 days at your home, which in this couple’s case was a little over 100 miles away. It transpired that Charlotte was living in the village, not in London all the time with her husband. One of the kids posted on social media a video of Welch on a lawnmower.

Welch’s brief at the trial argued that the CEA deal was a mess and was not strictly enforced, which isn’t much of a defence. A character reference from the former Commander of Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons, saying he was of “unimpeachable integrity”, didn’t fly either.

Well, the allowance may be a mess, but it’s overwhelmingly an officers’ mess. According to the latest figures, we spent over £80 million on 5,520 kids’ private education. The majority of the money went to those of the rank of captain and above, 3,620, with all other ranks 1,900. That’s to a parent earning £50,000 minimum and in Welch’s case, more than £120k. There were just 50 kids of privates or equivalent ranks.

Four Scottish schools benefit. Stewart’s Melville, Loretto, Strathallan and Fettes, which also gives a 12.5% discount to service weans. Tony Blair’s old alma mater has been raking in around £300k a year from it, and it has more army, navy and air force brats than Eton.

Perhaps some parliamentarian will raise questions about the Continuity of Education Allowance and why it disproportionately benefits the well-off, but I doubt it.

I had a friend many years ago, a navy officer, who was cashiered for pointing out in the press that we had more Rear-Admirals than ships. We probably now have more generals than tanks. Nothing changes.