President Salmond (sorry First Minister) has certainly made no bones, about his party's intended breaking-up of the United Kingdom, asap.

The SNP arrived at The Scottish Executive, re-named the Scottish Parliament a little over a year ago, on the back of a deeply flawed Scottish Election. With a majority of a single seat, which I believe has now grown to a pair of seats, and despite nearly 140 000 spoilt papers, the SNP behaves as if it came to office, with an over whelming majority.

The opposition parties are basically in complete disarray. Scottish Labour is into its soon to be, but unannounced 3rd leader in a year. The Conservatives/Lib Dems seem to be in awe of the SNP, who claim to lead Scotland, despite the low election turn-out and the narrowest of majorities.

With all the talk about referendums in Scotland, vaguely racist hype, does little to answer, in plain and simple terms the following: If Scotland goes for full indepence, what will it gain & what will it loose? What will Scotland have to give up, and what will it get back?

Mr Salmond believes Scotland does not receive its fair share of taxes from Westminster, while Westminster believes Scotland has a slight un-fair advantage? Who is right, I wonder? Whose hype and statistics should we accept?

Mr Slamond, certainly struts his stuff far and wide, seemingly more interested in personality clashes, hidden agendas and much grinding of personal axes. Rather than getting to grips with the day to day running of Scotland, although a whole raft of new bills are about to be put to Parliament.

Nice building the Scottish Parliament, at the foot of Arthur's Seat, where the Royal Mile begins in Edinburgh. Like so many capital projects in Britain, it ran way over budget (£700 Million) the building thereof was always behind schedule, and the architect (a Spaniard, had a massive coronary half through the project, and died)

The Scottish Parliament Building looks as if it was designed by Dali or someone similar, and despite being quite newish, has had quite a lot of money spent on it, for repairs & maintenance.

Well, I think we are stuck with Mr Salmond & Co., who wish for closer ties between Scotland, Norway, Iceland and the Faroes Islands, so watch this space indeed. I always remember when I was a kid, a local Scottish bully, would often shout at me, "Remember Banockburn, England's disgrace!"

My father suggested shouting back at him, "Remember Flodden, England's revenge!" And he was an Irishman.

The bully boy continued his ranting for many months, until finally he was punched in the mouth.

Mr Salmond reminds me quite a lot, of my childhood tormentor.