Debates among Scotland's elite politicians is akin to a psychotic ventriloquist who has forgotten his dummy and is shouting at himself.
The women took centre stage this week. The top brass were out on parade and all over the TV. All performing for the cameras, starting cat fights, going crazy at each other, both sending the other up the pole, tearing strips off each other and leaving us all aghast.
We were wondering if we'd accidentally tuned into Strippers on Channel 4 but it was an hour-long Scotland Tonight Referendum Special debate between Nicola Sturgeon and Johan Lamont.
First up though, on Monday, Newsnight Scotland had Fiona Hyslop and Baroness Goldie of Bishopton. Quite polite, posh and pedestrian.
Newsnight Scotland adopted an approach of part job interview/part dramatically lit firing squad. Their format allowed for engaged debate, the content wasn't there. We were just in thirty seconds when I shouted 'house!!!' on my political cliché bingo card. Up a fiver with two 'going forwards' and one 'if you allow me to finish'.
There was another unusual occurrence from the week's news cycle. With the modern age, ten minutes is a long time in politics. Between 24-hour rolling news, websites, bloggers and Twitter the agenda can move very quickly. It's highly unusual for a story in politics to reach a second week but Cameron's fixation with the Thin White Duke has carried on unabashed. On Monday he told the press and I quote; 'I was watching the Brit Awards and when I saw Kate Moss leap to the stage and utter those words I have to say I did let out a little cry of joy.'
It just sounds creepy to me. I also think it's most likely a lie. He would've been watching himself all night in the news no doubt dressed like some CBBC's presenter in a factory with goggles or in some outrageous array of Bob the Builder-esque gear. He was probably watching himself on the news giving out big cries of joy at his own image in yet another garishly yellow orange helmet.
If we can, just briefly, let's think about this. Cameron, your PM was watching The Brits? Why? At his age? That isn't right.
Anyway, it was interesting to see Annabel Goldie show up on TV in full support of the new special relationship between the Double Daves, Bowie and Cameron. Goldie Locks had the full feathered Ziggy Stardust hair. What next? Osborne, and Cameron with bleached blonde Lets Dance 1980s side shed looks? Suffice to say Hyslop missed a chance to fire in a gag about the (Bad) Barnet Formula.
Which brings us to the main event. STV's Scotland Tonight, which started out well but quickly dissolved into a bear pit. The comedy guy in my head, exiled somewhere behind the comedy trombone and the little funny monkey who plays the drum and cymbals was saying, this is hilarious, chaos, political carnage. This is what we need.
It was like the Gong Show on speed. Sturgeon at one point looked like she was about to climb over the lectern and have a go. The sensible guy in my head was left feeling devoid of narrative, looking for answers and explanations. As the questions turned to angry accusations they clearly both fell into the trap of thinking the skill is to just not answer the question. It was more Rambo than Rimbaud.
There are a few adages about people doing their job well. They say, for example, that you never really notice a great drummer. When a referee is doing their job well you should never really see him. The moderator was weaker than milky tea. We were left with three women just shouting. Great for comedy but sad for politics.
The debate at least promised a bit more heat. But then again, debating isn't about bullying, roaring at each other, not answering a question, shouting over the top of each other and just making the other person look stupid. That's called marriage. I'm gloriously happy of course, so I'm told.
STV got all technical, using word clouds to show the amount of times key words were mentioned…the bolder and bigger the word the more it was used.
Somewhere hidden in small writing at the edge of the word cloud among the square-go rhetoric there was the odd mention of currency, independence, and Trident. I have to say I was speechless, left mesmerised at how such a high profile debate was allowed to descend into farce. It gave loads of entertainment but very little in the way of answers.
The Cabinet scarpered quickly to Scotland…no doubt on the back of hearing a North Sea oil shake up could yield £200 billion. Big Jean the cleaner emailed me a discarded bit of paper from the meeting. 'Northern Lights renamed, made less Scottish sounding. North Sea Oil needs mythical 'special ingredient' like Irn Bru for rUKOil rebrand.'
More than 56,000 copies of the white paper - the blueprint for independence - have been ordered online across 40 countries in two months. Honestly I'd be delighted if Nirvana: A Tour Diary or Sandy Trout: A Memoir moved that amount of books in two months.
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