I GUESS THIS IS BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT BLOG I HAVE EVER WRITTEN. I REALLY HOPE YOU WILL GIVE IT A FEW MOMENTS OF YOUR TIME

So.

After six years, 363 blogs and 860,000 visits to this page, the time has come for me to have a go at penning the most important words I have ever written. If the next couple of thousand words find a way to hit the sweet spot, then this blog will transform hundreds of lives: maybe even thousands. And if the chosen words fail? Then I guess I will have failed as well.

When I first started writing this blog in 2012, my main intention was to promote my books. But things soon changed. Soon this page became a platform for flagging up all kinds of important stuff. When you work in a foodbank, you get a front row view of where things are going wrong. Abject poverty. Dreadful injustice. Withering addictions. Wrecked minds. Broken soldiers. People lost and never found.

For six years I have used this page to tell the stories of people the world seems to have forgotten. Discarded. Judged and dropped. People living out a semblance of a life in the twilight world at the bottom of the ladder.

Twice I blogged in desperation when First Base faced the prospect of running out of cash. On both occasions the community came through for us and we managed to survive. Which means we will get to help out twenty or so people with an emergency food parcel today.

And tomorrow.

And the day after that.

Over the last fifteen years we have helped out over 60,000 people in their time of need. Have we fixed every problem in their lives? Of course we haven't. We've put a band aid on the wound. Tided them over. Got them over a hump. Stopped them being hungry through a long cold night.

And there are times when we all need a band aid. A band aid stops the bleeding. A band aid solves the immediate problem. However it doesn't stop us from getting cut again. When someone hasn't eaten for a few days, food is their number one priority. Of course it is. When you haven't eaten for a few days, a food parcel can feel like the best thing in the world.

Have we changed any of the huge forces which are causing so many people to be unable to feed themselves? Of course we haven't. How can we? We are just a small charity in a small town. We don't make the weather. All we can do is provide umbrellas.

So why is this blog different? Let me have a go at explaining.

A year ago I was out and about walking the dogs with a BBC World Service podcast in my ears. The programme was all about the problems faced by Uganda and its young population. And out of a clear blue sky, a simple fact jumped into my head like an Israeli paratrooper.

It got my attention. Big time.

School girls in Uganda miss up to 25% of their education. Why? Because their families cannot afford to buy sanitary pads for them.

What a huge problem. And yet, it was a huge problem with an unbelievably simple solution.

Provide sanitary pads.

So I walked back home and played the podcast to Carol. 

She told me she had heard a remarkably similar programme from another developing country. Quite a co-incidence.

So what do you think? Do you think this is something we could try and help out with? In Africa? In Uganda?

She did. 

And we did - last November. 

We wanted to prove to ourselves it was possible to make a difference. Thankfully it was entirely possible. We met all kinds of great people and established a means to make things happen.

Instead of yet more words, I will refer you to the five minute video we have thanks to the kindness and talent of Al at Phantom Power films which is posted on a new website we have thanks to the kindness and talent of Creatomatic. It never ceases to amaze me how great people are.

Here it is.

So that was November. What happened next?

Plenty.

In Uganda lots of good things have happened at the Kamuganguzi Janan Luwum Memorial school. There have been big falls in both absenteeism and infections. As the word has spread of the availability of sanitary pads, more and more girls have joined the school. When we were there in November, there were 250 girls on the school roll. Now there are 330 girls. It looks like they have voted with their feet.

In Scotland, we have worked our way through the tortuous process of setting up a new charity. It has taken a while, but we've finally made it.

The Kupata Project.

'Kupata is Swahili for 'secure'.

We have an excellent team of Trustees - Carol, me, an accountant, an MSP, a local councillor and an African migrant.

Our ethos? Our mission statement? Well that is simple enough.

The Kupata Project will have NO paid staff, NO fancy offices, NO overheads, NO travel expenses for trips to Uganda.

Basically we will only have two running costs. Very modest expenses for our two wonderful young volunteers in Uganda and the cost of producing a yearly set of accounts for OSCR - the Scottish Charity Regulator.

Otherwise every single, last penny we raise will be spent on providing sanitary pads to the girls.

Already there is a growing list of schools who are asking for help.

Over the next year we hope to gather plenty of evidence. Then we will be well set to make lots of applications for funding.

With luck and a following wind, we will make the Kupata Project fly.

A couple of final points.

For fifteen years, First Base has been in the business of giving out band aids. More and more and more band aids. And all the while things have kept on getting worse. And worse. There is nothing we can do to hold back the growing tide of need. We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure everyone who comes through our doors will receive the food they need to keep body and soul together. We have never turned anyone away in 15 years due to a lack of food and we are determined to keep this proud record going.

Happily, thanks to a successful funding bid to the Scottish Government, First Base now provides free sanitary pads from all the 25 locations which stock our food parcels across Dumfries and Galloway. This mirrors the situation across Scotland where the Government is about to make free sanitary ware available to all school girls and students. Only last week, North Ayrshire Council installed dispensing machines for free sanitary ware in the ladies toilets in every library. 

The Kupata Project faces a far greater challenge, but one we all feel inspired to take on. Providing sanitary pads for school girls in Uganda is all about investing in the future. The drive and creativity the young people of Africa show every day is truly something to behold. As the countries of the West get older and more and more exhausted, Africa's youthful millions are absolutely the future.

And education is everything.

Regular readers of this blog will know I tend to view most things through the lens of Scottish Independence. Fair enough. Ever since the Brexit vote, the Johnson/Rees Mogg brigade have been painting ridiculous pictures of some kind of re-awakening of the British Empire. In their arrogant, deluded imaginations they seriously seem to think all the old colonies will form a queue at London's door to go back to the good old days.

How completely and utterly ridiculous.

However, a very different future awaits an Independent Scotland. One day we will join the list of all those other countries who have found a way to free themselves from London Rule. One day we will also be an ex colony.

And then we will have huge opportunities to forge links with all the others. We will become a fellow traveller. A kindred spirit. A brother in arms.

Scotland and Uganda share much in common. We are both drop dead gorgeous places with vast untapped potential. We are both having to deal with the aftermath of being robbed blind and asset stripped by London. We both have our best years ahead of us.

Every girl who receives her first pack of sanitary ware also receives a post card carrying a very simple message.

'To you from the people of Scotland'

It is a message they will not forget in a hurry. Fair enough, London doesn't allow us any say on Foreign Policy right now. But it doesn't mean we can't make a start. Forge links. Build partnerships from the bottom up. Get the word out that Scotland is different. We aren't about nuclear weapons and illegal wars and rampant jingoism.

All of which means sanitary pads are not like band aids. Instead, they are an investment. An investment in the future of every girl who gets the chance of 25% more school. And an investment in the future of an Independent Scotland.

Well, I guess it's time for the nuts and bolts. 

£6 buys a year's worth of sanitary pads for a Ugandan school girl. If you want to make this happen, please follow the link below.

OUR FUNDRAISING PAGE

So. That's my best shot I guess. Time to light up, cross the fingers and hit the 'Publish' button. If you've made it this far, I guess you can see why this is by far the most important blog I have ever written. 

One more time. Here's the link.

OUR FUNDRAISING PAGE

A QUIET FOOD CRISIS IS GATHERING PACE AND I FEAR THE NATION'S FOODBANKS ARE ABOUT TO BE COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED.

On Monday morning I chained myself to my laptop and forced myself to get on with a put off task - the dreaded accounts. It didn't take so very long for me to be reminded of a lesson once hammered into me in the days when I was a company director.

If you can't measure, you can't manage.

As I worked through piles of receipts, a sense of unease started to take hold. And slowly but surely the spreadsheets started to look more than a little alarming. 

So fair enough, we have been a bit busier over the first four months of this financial year. But not that much busier. 10% up, I guess. And fair enough the amount of food donations coming in through the back door has dropped a little. But once again, not by that much. Maybe 10%. It isn't like we have lost any of our donors. The same volunteers from the same churches and offices still arrive with car boots filled with the same carrier bags. But there are 10% less bags.

So. 10% more going out through the front door and 10% less coming in through the back door. A 20% swing. A fifth. So OK. A fifth is quite a lot.

But I knew this already. I knew we were placing more and more orders for deliveries from Tesco and Asda and Morrisons. But I was pretty sure this wasn't another 2010 when the numbers of parcels headed out through the front door jumped fivefold. Now that WAS a wild ride. This year has been more gentle.

But the spreadsheets were starting to tell me a very different story. The line which was screaming at me was the one I had labelled up as 'Food Costs'. 

April 1 - 31 July 2017 - £4000

April 1 - 31 July 2018 - £8000

WHATTTT!!

Something here was making no kind of sense. A 20% swing should have meant a 20% rise in the cost of purchased food. Obviously. Duh. But there was no way the figures in front of me were lying. In four months, we had spent twice as much money on buying food in 2018 than we had in 2017.

Well I had my measurements. Time to manage. Time to get some flesh onto the bones. Time to try and make some sense of it.

It didn't take very long. I started comparing receipts from the summer of 2017 with receipts from the summer of 2018. And it only took a few minutes of doing this before I sat back in my chair, lit up a cigarette and uttered words my mother wouldn't be happy about at all. 

So here's the thing. Every now on the news we get to hear about how inflation is trending. Sometimes it is 2.5%. Sometimes 3%. Never more than that. And these figures lodge in the brain and we kind of buy into them. Things are going up a bit, but not that much. 

My piles of receipts told a very different story. A hidden story. A seriously alarming story which seems to be unfolding a long way below the radar. I guess you won't be so very surprised to hear First Base doesn't shop at Waitrose when we buy in our supplies. No chance. We live at the very bottom of the market in the land of the 'Value' ranges. We fill our boots with 'Loss leaders'. No wonder the supermarkets hate us. We're the customer from Hell. 

Over the years, they have tried to come up will all manner of reasons for not supplying us when we place our online orders for deliveries. It has become a familiar stand off. They say they can't supply us because it leaves them holding less stock for their other customers. We threaten them with the press. You know. How do you think your boss will feel when he sees a front page reading 'Supermarket giant refuses to sell to embattled Foodbank!!' Not a good look, right. A career killer. They always back off. Well, they have so far. God bless the power of the press.

So why do they hate our orders so much? It is because we fill our boots with their 'Loss Leaders'. It goes something like this. I gather the cost price of a tin of beans is about 40p. So if a supermarket sells a tin of beans for 25p, they are making a loss of 15p which of course is pretty lousy business in anyone's book. Well they see it differently. Baked Beans are one of those core products which people know the price of. So if a retailer is selling expensive beans, we punters assume they are expensive for everything else. If on the other hand they knock out cheap beans, we assume they are equally cheap for everything else. So if the retailer loses 15p on a tin of beans but makes £15 on the rest of the trolley, then all is well.

Things obviously don't look so good when the likes of First Base order in £150 worth of stuff and almost all of it is made up of 'Loss Leaders'. They don't like it at all. I bet their computers are set up to make loud Klaxon noises.

Anyway. Things are changing. All of a sudden the old 'Value' ranges are slowly shrinking and disappearing. And I am sure you can guess what is coming next. Oh yeah. Here's what happens next.

July 2017 - 500g of Tesco Value Range Corn Flakes - 31p

July 2018 - 500g of Tesco Own Brand Corn Flakes - 55p

Same product, different box. A cool 77.5% increase.

July 2017 - One packet of Tesco Value Custard - 20p

July 2018 - One packet of Tesco Own Brand Instant Custard - 40p

Same product, different packet. A cool 100% increase.

Now this hasn't happened with every product. But it has happened with most of the stuff we buy in. A similar comparison of the prices on branded, non 'Value' products would probably show a 3% increase along the lines of what the government is telling us.

So. If you CAN measure you should be able to manage.

Food parcels out - Up 10%
Food donations in - down 10%
Cost of bought in food - Up 100%

Now maths has never been one of the big guns in my armoury, but these stats suggest to me that on average, the cost of the items we buy in must have gone up by 80%. 

Think about it. If this is happening to us, then the same thing is happening to everyone else who shops at the bottom end of the market. Take someone trying to eke out a living on £70 a week of State Benefits. This time last year, a week's worth of shopping from the 'Value' range might have cost £10. This year? Probably nearer £18. An increase of 80%. £8. And what does £8 mean to them? 

It means 11.5% of their disposable income. I'll expand this. A working family where both parents are pulling in the average wage has about £44,000 a year after tax coming in. About £850 a week. If they had to swallow a similar price hike to the lad on benefits, it would mean an extra £100 a week. How many could deal with such a hit? Not many.

I wonder how many out there depend on the 'Loss Leaders' in the 'Value' ranges to keep body and soul together? Millions. And each and every one of them is going to have to find a way to deal with these huge price hikes.

Lots won't make it. For many people, these increases will be the straw to break the camel's back. For years the outgoings have been quietly bossing the incomings. Credit cards are all maxed out and family can't help any more. And power bills are also on their way up.

All of this is about to hit the nation's foodbanks like a runaway truck. It is worth pointing out at this point how First Base is different to most foodbanks. We have a set list of items for our food parcels. If we don't receive enough donations, we buy in the extra items. And right now this is costing us an extra £1000 a month. Most foodbanks don't work this way. They simply give out whatever food they receive. This is why there are often queues at the doors of many foodbanks because they work on a 'first come, first served' basis. If you get there late, you go away empty handed.  

Well it isn't rocket science, right? If numbers go up by 10% and donations drop by 10%, then 20% more people will go away empty handed. 

And this is probably only the beginning. The July heatwave hammered the grain crop. Maybe recent rain will have gone some way to rescuing it, but the odds are on expensive wheat this winter. Which means expensive bread and pasta.

The nearer we get to a lunatic Tory Brexit, the more the pound is going to take a hammering. If Sterling goes down another 10%, the cost of imported food will go up by 10%. And 60% of the food we eat is imported.

Ouch.

More and more people are about to feel the pinch. Millions will lack a spare pound to spend on a four pack of baked beans for the collection box for the local foodbank. Hundreds of thousands will be confronted with the sight of empty kitchen cupboards and empty purses. And a first visit to the local food bank. 

The nightmare scenario. More people at the front door. Less people at the back door. It's the outgoings outstripping incomings thing. It always is. And it is the same for foodbanks as it is for everyone else. And when the cupboards are bare.....

Well, the cupboards are bare.

Ever since 2010, Britain's foodbanks have achieved miracles. Millions have been fed when they would otherwise have gone hungry. Governments have taken us for granted. They seem to think we will always be able to meet any kind of demand, no matter what. 

This is a pretty dangerous assumption made by men and women who have never shopped the 'Value' rage in their lives. The quiet food crisis which gathers pace with every passing week threatens to completely overwhelm the nation's foodbanks and I am not sure anyone is paying much attention.

So there it is. August 2018. The canary in the coal mine is starting to find it hard to catch it's breath. In a perfect world, people in power would be making contingency plans right now. If the public are unable to supply foodbanks with enough food to feed everyone who needs it, then at some stage the Government is going to have to step in to help out. 

And if they don't?

Then we all about to live through a bit of a nightmare.

CAN WE MEASURE JUST HOW MUCH 'BRAND SCOTAND' IS BOOMING? I RECKON WE CAN.

Carol and I spent a couple of days up at the Edinburgh Festival this week. I guess we have been regulars for twenty something years now. And every year the whole thing grows. More shows. More venues. More everything. This year it seemed the change was even deeper. More profound. 



Is there any other city on earth which could do what Edinburgh does for three weeks every August? Not many. I am lucky enough to have got around a bit in my time and off the top of my head, I can only think of two – St Petersberg and Prague. And all they would manage to do is provide the physical backdrop. Both would have pretty major problems with the whole diversity thing. Edinburgh in August is a flamboyant bonanza of every kind of human being our planet has to offer. Black, white, yellow and red. Straight, gay and all stations in between. I think St Petersberg and Prague would have more than a few issues with that kind of thing! 



More than ever Edinburgh feels like a Nordic capital. The Union Flag on the castle seems out of place, as ugly as graffiti. It is a place comfortable in its own skin. Happy to be different.



We were having a coffee in a Brazilian cafe across the road from Bristo Square. The place was being watched over by a gym fit Slavic guy who ticked the box for more than a few stereotypes. You know. A tight black T-shirt stretched over a gym fit body. A crew cut and quietly alarming eyes. If we had bumped into him in a Lithuanian backstreet I would have been laying eggs and then some. 



His pale eyes latched onto an approaching figure. Black. Rather scholarly. Very African. And then the Slavic face suddenly transformed itself into a beaming grin. The two guys exchanged an elaborate handshake and embraced. Well of course they did. This was Edinburgh, not Stoke.



This is Scotland, not England.



A few hundred miles to the south, Boris Johnson was making his latest pitch for the Tory leadership by comparing Muslim women in the Hijab to 'letterboxes'. The pundits seemed to think it was a decent enough ploy. The road to London power seems to require a healthy dose of racism these days. The experts in the studios seemed to think Boris had found the right pitch of dog whistle to satisfy the septuagenarian Daily Mail readers who choose our leaders. With every passing week, this dreadful aberration seems to be morphing into England's very own twenty first century version of Herman Goering. 

Let's compare and contrast. They both busted a gut to cut a glamourous dash as young men as they emerged from their silver spoon in the mouth upbringings. To be honest, Goering shone a little brighter. Whilst Boris strutted about as President of the Oxford Union and threw his guts up at the Bullingdon Club, Goering cut his teeth as a bona fide war hero in the skies above the Western Front. Then both men hitched themselves to the racist bandwagon in the pursuit of power and glory. Once both men were handed any actual responsibility, both proved themselves to be completely incompetent. Of course, Goering got himself hanged in the end. I guess hope springs eternal. 



So many coaches. And so many Chinese. And for the umpteenth time, it hit me just how much 'Brand Scotland' is continuing to flourish and boom. Once again it hit me just how much the rest of the world is buying what we have to sell. And once again I seethed at the reluctance of the ever-cautious Scottish Government to shout about it from the rooftops. 



And I got to thinking. Can the success of Brand Scotland be measured in more ways than counting coaches at the Edinburgh Festival?



Maybe. I had a go. Here's what I came up with. It goes something like this. I took three areas of Britain whose natural beauty has been deemed to be National Park worthy. The Scottish Highlands, the English Lake District and Snowdonia in Wales. 



Is any of the three a clear winner in terms of postcard potential? Not really. Everyone will no doubt have their preferences. 



Which is the hardest to get to? That is easy. The Highlands.



Next, I picked three 'gateway' towns on the edge of these areas of natural beauty. 



Inverness, Kendal, and Bangor. 



Next, I summoned up Booking.com and asked what it would cost me to stay for a night in these towns next Friday. 



And the results were pretty conclusive. For a relatively bog standard three star hotel, the average prices for a double room were as follows. 



Inverness - £220



Kendal - £90



Bangor - £80.



Would this have been the case twenty years ago? I very much doubt it. In fact, if my memory serves me right, I reckon Kendal would have been the dearest place to stay by some margin back then. 



So what has changed? Well, I reckon it is clear enough. Twenty years ago most of the guests in these towns would have been British. I guess this is still the case for Kendal in Bangor. Not so Inverness. All of a sudden visitors from all over the world are drawn to the Highlands. 



This isn't simply down to the Lochs and the Glens. Instead, it is all about Brand Scotland. Some put it down to Braveheart and Outlander. I think it is rather more. I wonder how much is down to the 2014 Referendum. We were given a very different view of Indyref to the one served up to the rest of the world. When thousands of flag wearing 'Yes' supporters filled a street, the BBC would give them a grudging ten seconds before gushing on about Jim Murphy using a loud hailer to speak to ten party activists and a couple of hopeful drunks. The rest of the world saw the carnival of Yes in full technicolour and it caught the imagination. Scotland might not have actually signed on the dotted line, but it showed itself to be a completely different place from its backward looking neighbour. It became a beacon. 

If you are a tourist who happens to be black, brown or yellow, you have to think carefully about where you choose to take your holidays. I know, believe me. As a mixed race couple, there are fewer and fewer European destinations where we don't get hard-eyed stares. 



We underestimate just how much notice the rest of the world has taken of what we have become, whether it be the Tartan Army or the Edinburgh Festival. Of course, this is is a bit of a stereotype. But what the hell. If the rest of the world wants to see us as party people who don't do racism, then I for one ain't about to complain about it. And there has to be a reason why we don't have our own Caledonian versions of Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage or Tommy Robinson. Dog whistle racism gets blown away on the wind up here. Surely this is the main reason why a bog standard hotel in Inverness can ask £220 for a double room. 



The rest of the world is sitting up and taking notice of what we have become. Of who we have become. And the rest of the world clearly likes what it sees. The rest of the world is beating a path to our door. The rest of the world wants a piece of our action. Our visitor numbers go up and up whilst tourism is tanking in Trump's America and more and more shops on Oxford St fall vacant.



The day we wake up and see ourselves the way everyone else sees us is the day when the polls will announce 70% support for Yes.



Surely it can only be a matter of time.

FAREWELL ALEX, YOU WERE EVERYTHING A POLITICIAN SHOULD BE.

I've had this thing happen a time or two over the last few years. Not many times. Three or four maybe. I will be talking with someone about Independence and politics generally. And I will say a thing which leaves the other guy all but speechless with shock. You know. Like announcing I am a long term undercover agency for North Korea or owning up to having a life size poster of Donald Trump on my bedroom wall.

So what could cause such a horrified intake of breath? A pretty straight forward statement really.

It's when I tell them the first time I voted after emigrating to Scotland, I voted for the Tories.

Boooomf!!

 There you have it. Click away now. Unfollow. How could he....?

How could he indeed? How could the Lancashire lad who watched his home turf smashed beyond all repair by Thatcher's wrecking ball have voted for her party? Was it some kind of breakdown? a midlife crisis? A dalliance with mind altering drugs....?

For Christ's sake Mark, just what the hell were you thinking!

Well the answer is simple enough. Of course I didn't vote for the Tory Party. That would be like supporting Man United in a Champions League final. Instead I voted for the man. Their candidate. For Alex. And you know what? I was both a privilege and a pleasure to cast my vote for him.

Let's just say if Carlsberg did politicians, then they would look a lot like Alex.

Time to go back. How far? I guess it must have been 2004. First Base was a two bit little charity and we were hanging on by our fingernails. We certainly didn't have many friends back then. The heroin tornado was raging at maximum intensity and every day saw more and more broken people coming through our doors. It felt like we were fighting on all fronts.

The local community despised us as do gooding incomers who were little better than 'Junkie Lovers'. In the days following an article in the local press where I always tried to tell things from the addict's point of view, I would be met with expressions of pure loathing. When I checked my shopping out at the supermarket, the women on the till would more or less throw my receipt at me. Back then, trying to point out the fact that the vast majority of heroin users were good people who had made a bad choice was much like trying to extoll the virtues of ISIS today.

The local authorities hated us every bit as much as the community. Back then, the NHS treatment services were an utter disgrace. They pretended to offer help when in reality their draconian, pitiless regime was almost Mugabe-like in its casual cruelty. We tried to flag up the appalling way people were being treated and ranks duly closed against us. We were branded as trouble makers. We were starved of funding. People put the phone down on us.

In fact, the only people who seemed to like us were the 1500 heroin users whose lives were being made such an abject misery.

And then one day the phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line said it was the office of Alex Fergusson. Well you can imagine the first thought to flash through my head. You must be bloody kidding. Mordor was on the phone!

Well obviously it wasn't THAT Alex Fergusson. Instead it was our local MSP. And the voice on the other end of the phone said Alex would like to come and see us to ask some questions about the heroin crisis. And I said it would be absolutely fine and we set a time and a date.

This was a major first for us. Nobody much came to see us in those days. Certainly not elected politicians. To be honest, I was astounded. And intrigued.

'Google' time. 'Alex Fergusson'. A South Ayrshire farmer who had been in Holyrood since 1999 when he made it in via the list. In 2003, he managed to win Galloway and Upper Nithsdale by a paper thin majority of 99. Christ, that must have been 'squeaky bum time' in the words of the other Alex.

However one word in the potted biography jumped off the screen at me.

Eton.

Ah. One of those. And straight away I pictured a vast country pile and guys clad from head to toe in tweed out on the moors dropping grouse from the sky. I reckon I probably have more of a balanced view of old Etonians than most Lancastrians. I had several mates from Eton in my University days. They tended to be lads like Sebastian in Brideshead Revisted. You know. Borderline alcoholics and mad as a bag of frogs, always happy to be cartoon versions of themselves.

But this was different. Eton. Landowner. Tory. Up went my hackles and I resolved there than then to lay an ambush.

I remember it was a baking hot day when Alex came to call with his assistant. We met in the reception area and my first impression was of a guy who was much more of a farmer than an old Etonian. He was dressed casual and when he shook hands it was clear he was used to a whole hell of a lot more manual work than I was. A big bear of a man with a beard and an easy smile.

I told him I had given our meeting a bit of thought. Maybe the best way for him to learn about the hard realities of the heroin crisis would be to get it straight from the horse's mouth. So we had asked a few of our clients along to tell him all about the car crash lives they were living. Six of them. And they were all upstairs waiting.

He never missed a beat. If anything his easy smile widened a notch or two whilst is bag carrier looked like he was about to hyper-ventilate.

Of course we had chosen carefully. Four females and two males. Not one of them backwards at coming forwards. Not one of them known for missing and hitting the wall. Each and every one of them with a whole bunch of stuff to get off their chest. Each and every one of them fired up and ready to give it to 'The Man'.

With both barrels. 

Of course we had read them the riot act and demanded they be polite. They got it and we trusted them to stay the right side of the line. But they were angry. Bloody angry. Rightfully angry.

And straight away Alex was making his way around the table shaking hands. I watched and I was impressed. Our clients tend to be hyper sensitive when it comes to people judging them. It is like the way dogs can always sense fear. Like the way a black person can always sense racism not matter how deep it is buried.

I saw the recognition in their faces. A slight surprise. A huge appreciation. There was not a single ounce of judgement to be found in Alex. 

He took his seat, rolled up his sleeves and got them talking. And boy did they ever talk. The meeting was only supposed to be an hour but it lasted for much longer than that. Our clients talked about it for months afterwards. The big bear of a man who seemed to understand. Who didn't judge. Who obviously cared. Our clients tend to be expert judges when it comes to people. They have to be. Their day to day lives mean swimming with sharks all day, every day.

They liked Alex. They trusted him. Believed in him. Rated him. Were impressed by him. Liked him.

So did I.

In the years following this first encounter, I often went to Alex with tough cases where the State was treating someone badly. And every time he was there for our guys. Sometimes he got a result for them. Sometimes not. But he always left them feeling better than when he found them. 

So yes, when I voted Tory in the 2007 election, I voted for Alex and I was delighted to do so. And I wasn't alone. All across Scotland the SNP took its great step forward. Not in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale. In Galloway and Upper Nithsdale Alex put his majority up from 99 to 3333. His vote share went up by 10%. He completely bucked the national trend. So I wasn't alone. Far from it. Right across his rural constituency the voters put a cross in the box next to his name. It wasn't because his rosette was blue. It was because his heart was in the right place. It was because Alex was everything a politician should be.

I bumped into him often during the frantic weeks leading up to IndyRef in 2014. He was out and about selling the Union and he stayed a country mile clear of the lies of Project Fear. Instead he used plain words to express his own affection for the Union and why he believed in it. Had he been at the helm of 'Better Together', the task of the 'Yes' campaign would have been a great deal harder. Many of the politicians I had come to know through First Base became ridiculously hostile during the campaign. Most stopped speaking to me. Many still refuse to pick up the phone when I call looking for some help for one of our clients. 

Not Alex. He was more than happy about the fact we were on either side of the fence. Me carrying the 'Yes' torch with such enthusiasm was absolutely fine by him. Of course it was. Alex was an old school democrat.

By this time, he had gone on to great things and he had served as Scotland's Presiding Officer with great distinction. Not that you would have noticed. There was neither an air or a grace to be found. He still Alex.

When I heard of his death yesterday a wave of sadness washed over me. One of the good guys has departed the scene. One of the best. 

You'll be sorely missed, Alex. It was a great privilege to have known you.      

THE GOVERNMENT IN LONDON SAYS WE ALL NEED TO MAKE PLANS FOR A HARD BREXIT. AS A FOOD BANK MANAGER, I GUESS THEY MEAN ME. I'VE TRIED TO MAKE A PLAN. BELIEVE ME, IT'S A BLOODY NIGHTMARE.

Well, I guess it was always going to happen. Two years on from the old people of Britain voting us out of the EU and we are finally here. Our great leaders are out on the airwaves summoning up the spirit of the Blitz.

Of course they are. It has become the default reaction. If anything goes well, you fly Spitfires and Lancasters over Buckingham Palace. If things go to shit, you summon up the spirit of the Blitz.

So take that Johnny Foreigner and see how you like it. Bomb us all you like, but it won't get you anywhere. Our British stiff upper lip can survive anything.

This week we dispatched our latest grinning idiot to Brussels in the shape of Dominic Raab and he has frightened all of those jumped up foreign types right to their garlic soaked collective cores.

Think you can threaten England do you? Well, do you? Well take this you utter bounders. If you dare try to push us around, well we will hit you right where it hurts. Oh yes. Try it and all sixty million of us will live on Spam. How do you like that!

I suppose we should be grateful in a way. Threatening the pesky French with a cross Channel frenzy of Spam eating and invoking memories of the Luffwaffe setting London ablaze is probably better than invoking the spirit of Hamburg and Dresden. Get my drift? Threaten us, and we will once again rain death from the skies and set the very air alight. Last time you tried it on, we killed three million of your civilians. This time..... oh yes this time. Have you counted your arsenal of nukes recently Frau Merkel? No? And why would that be? Well we all know the answer to the question don't we, Frau Merkel.

You don't have any nukes, do you Frau Merkel? Oh deary, deary me. And we have nearly 150. Quite enough to make the firestorms of Hamburg and Dresden look like a historical footnote.

Maybe not the best way to make friends across the water.

Anyway. What is possibly the most inept Government in the history of these islands has spoken. And we are expected to doff our caps and listen up, especially those of us in the colonies. Pay attention and do as you are told. 

A Hard Brexit is a coming and we must all brace ourselves and prepare. This time we are determined not to be taken by surprise. Once bitten, twice shy, right? 

Last time was a bit of a nightmare to be frank. I mean, it was understandable in a way. You see we Brits and Frenchies seemed to hold all the cards. We had three times as many planes. Twice as many tanks. Twice as many men. And military wisdom was crystal clear. An attacker had to outnumber a defender by at least three to one to stand any kind of chance. And let's be honest here, everything would have been fine if the bounders hadn't cheated and sneaked their way through the Ardennes. And of course it wasn't a very good look when a third of a million of our chaps had to skedaddle out of Dunkirk on a fleet of pedelos. 

Well, we certainly can't be doing that again. So we mast be ready. And being ready means lots and lots of Spam!

For a while these stories seemed mainly amusing. Yet more evidence of what happens when you hand the reigns of power to a bunch of over promoted public schoolboys.

Then I started listening to what the guys at the sharp end had to say. Like the boss at Immingham docks. Even if they can get a wagon customs checked in 2 minutes, in less than an hour there will be a one mile queue. 10 miles in 10 hours. 24 miles in a day. 48 miles in two days....

Shit.

And suddenly a whole bunch of nightmare facts came rolling in. Over 80% of the food on the shelves of Aldi and Lidl comes in through Immingham. With no UK Air Safety Agency, no insurance company will be willing to insure any flight which means no more food coming to the UK on planes. 

And slowly but surely my brain started to make some sense of it. In fact it was all pretty familiar. Once up a time our family business trucked 120,000 tonnes of cattle and sheep feed to all corners of Britain. From the Isle of Mull to South Wales and all points in between. At any given time, our mill in Lancaster carried one day's worth of stock. Another day's worth would be on board delivery wagons. To store any more would have meant another couple of hundred thousand quid onto our overdraft and there was no way in a million years our bank manager would have agreed that.

Once upon a time we had food mountains in Britain. Those were the days when memories of Hitler's U Boats were still fresh. Blitz spirit or no Blitz spirit, we were half starved to death by 1942. The fall of the Berlin Wall ended such concerns.

Now we about three days stock of food at any given time. One day's worth is on the shelves of the supermarkets. Another day's worth is in the storerooms at the back of the supermarkets. Another day's worth is onboard tens of thousands of wagons en route to the supermarkets. And after that? After that the grub is either in Europe ready to be loaded onto trucks or elsewhere in the world ready to be put on a plane or a boat.

Three days. Three days and the shelves are empty. 

And now the grinning face of Dominic Raab is handing out the bad news like some nightmare straight out of 1984. Oh we might have to starve a bit, but it will all be find in the end. We will call up the Blitz spirit and in sixty three years time we will sign a new trade deal with Paraguay.

And still I was a mere spectator. A rubber necker. Fascinated by the growing chaos and delighted by the growing certainty of an Independent Scotland.

And then it hit me. I don't have the luxury of rubber necking. I am one of the ones grinning Dominic is speaking to. I am a part of the food chain. First Base is in the Jesus business of feeding the 5000. Fair enough, it takes us a year to feed that many rather than a day. And fair enough, we've never learned how to do the bread and fishes thing. But even so. Every year we feed 5000 folk. Which makes us a player.

Dominic says it is our job to stock up. Go forth and buy Spam. He is saying the same thing to the supermarkets and the food processors. Stock up and invoke the spirit of the Blitz. And they are saying, OK Dominic, you grinning idiot, maybe you could come up with some more suggestions. Like where the hell are we supposed to put all these stocks? In our fantasy warehouses which don't actually exist? And how are we expected to pay for these stocks when our bankers have capped off all of our credit lines? 

It's what you get when a think tank lawyer tries to get involved in the food chain.

Anyway. I got real. I ran the scenario. 29 March 2019. Hard Brexit arrives and Immingham grinds to a halt. How long to empty shelves? Maybe a week? 5 April 2019. The corner shops have trebled all of their prices. The big supermarkets have all kinds of ex squaddie security on the doors. Dominic Raab is still grinning but he won't be walking the street any time soon. And nobody is laughing at the boss of Amazon UK any more as riots spread from Portsmouth to Inverness.

Project Fear has become Project Here.

And on 5 April 2019 there will be a whole bunch of hungry people, mainly those who are too hard up to afford to buy baked beans when they cost £2 tin.

And where do hungry people go in times of need in the early years of the twenty first century? To the local food bank. 

To us.

So Frankland. You call yourself a manger. You keep yapping on about what a brilliant coverage First Base now has with 25 collection points spread all the way from Castle Douglas to Langholm.

When we ask the public for donations of food and money, we bang on about how good we are when it comes to doing the whole emergency food thing. Well. That's all well and good when we're handing out a hundred parcels a week. Not so good on 5 April 2019 when there is a half mile queue waiting for our door to open.

Shit.

A plan? Our 25 collection points are dotted across an area which is home to 100,000 people. How many might be feeling the first pangs of hunger on 5 April 2019. A fifth? A quarter? And how long will the crisis last? How long before the PM hops it over to Brussels to grovel face down on the floor and beg to be let back into the fold? Two weeks? A month?

Well there is no point worrying about what to do if it lasts a month. If it lasts a month, we will all be living out our very own Mad Max movie.

Two weeks? 25,000 people? Well we can't do it. We don't have the money or the space. Just like everyone else. But we could play a part. A big part. We could supercharge our network. And maybe we might just manage.

So I called up Emma Harper MSP and laid it out. If emergency planning was a thing the Council are willing to do, they will have to come up with a warehouse and a serious stock of emergency food. What percentage chance is there of the unfolding Hard Brexit nightmare? Maybe 10%? 20%?

And if some kind of deal is shaken on and the Hard Brexit bullet is dodged, we will need to use up all of the food over the next year or so. So we'll need stuff we already use. Like tins of corned beef. Like packs of pasta. Like packets of biscuits.

And the more I think it through, the harder it gets. We will need the cops involved. Without some kind of police guard our back door will be put through in no time. Same with the doors to all our collection points. And how are we going to make sure the most vulnerable get priority? And who will deliver to those unable to leave their homes?

Believe me, it's a complete and utter nightmare. Emma says she will set up some kind of a meeting. Is this a bullet our cash strapped local Council will be willing to bite? I have no idea. The maths will be pretty scary. Bloody terrifying in fact.

Let's say we find a way to feed the most vulnerable of the people on our patch. How many is that? I'll be ultra, hyper conservative. Let's say 5000. 

5000 people for two weeks.

Two food parcels per week each. 20,000 food parcels. 

What items do we put in to make the parcel last for half of a week? 

I dunno. Maybe two packs of pasta - 60p, a tin of corned beef - £1.50, a pack of Rich Tea - 30p, and a bag of porridge - 70p.

Let's say £3

And will it even be physically possible to actually buy 20,000 tins of corned beef at a time when the whole country is quietly filling cupboards with emergency provisions?

£60,000 to keep 5000 people going for two weeks. 

Is the Council really going to stump for that? Maybe. I'm not holding my breath. We'll see I guess.

If nothing can be done, then our shelves will be bare before we even reach 5 April 2019. We will have to lock our doors and get out of the emergency food game for the duration. And then the doors will be stoved in and the hungry looters will be disappointed.

And then we will all get the chance to invoke the Blitz spirit.

For Christ's sake.

Come on Nicola. You need to get your skates on and give us a chance to get the hell off this sinking ship.         

OUT OF SIGHT AND OUT OF MIND IN THE DARKEST OF DARKNESS

It was half past eleven.

I was on my way back from paying a couple of donations into the bank. The first rain in weeks was easing from a slate grey sky.

I guess there was a kind of wry smile on my face. Umbrellas! At least five of them, bobbing down the sparsely populated pavement. You really have to love the ingrained pessimism. No rain for weeks and none forecast, and yet these guys had still picked up an umbrella before leaving the house.

When I was twenty or so yards shy of our front door, I saw there was someone there. A food parcel early bird or just a guy riding out the light rain? 

Today's made up name is Che. And yeah, there will be relevance in due course.

"Are you wanting the foodbank mate?"

Not so threatening. Well I didn't think so. And yet my words brought on a rabbit in the headlights look. And an a somewhat bizarre flash of fear. Me pushing sixty and a country mile from any kind of prime. Che at least two decades younger and fit as a butcher's dog. No kind of sense.

He answered the question with a kind of careful politeness and at the third attempt he made it to where he was wanting to go.

Yes, he was here for the food bank.

And he was sorry for being so early. And it was nae bother pal because he could go away and come back in half an hour. Honest, pal. Don't want to be any trouble.

It seemed to take ages to persuade him it was no trouble at all. But I got there in the end and we made our way inside. I made my to one side of the counter. He was on the other side, unpacking carefully folded papers from his coat pocket.

And all of a sudden he was telling me about the coat. His new coat. A gift from a local charity who were helping him out. And he was pleased with the coat. Really pleased. He told me it was the first coat he had owned since he was teenager. His first coat in twenty something years.

When you work in a place like First Base you pick up a sixth sense for people who have millions of words locked up inside and straining to get out.

Che was one of these people and the story of the coat popped off the padlock and out came the words. Like a burst dam.

Had I heard about MAPP? No really. Bits and pieces. So he explained as best as he could. It was a jumble, but I got the gist. MAPP is the control net cast over a long term prisoner released back into the world after years inside. Probation workers and social workers and charities and policemen and a forensic psychiatrist and a seven in the morning to seven at night tag.

A last chance saloon and even the tiniest slip would mean go to jail, do no pass go, do not collect £200....

Did I get it? I got it. 

Every second sentence included an apology. Look I shouldn't be bothering you with any of this... you've better things to do... you dunnae want to waste time on the likes of me. Like taking too much of my time would mean crossing one of those invisible MAPP lines. Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200....

Christ. A cat on hot bricks. 

"Come on mate, let's have a brew..."

At first he said no. A brew wasn't for the likes of him. And he shouldn't be wasting my time. And he was sorry, like....

In the end I prevailed. The first coat in twenty years came off and was duly hung on the back of a chair. I did the honours and he arranged his paperwork on the table.

Outside it had stopped raining and the craziness of the Trump visit and the latest Brexit meltdown was sending the airwaves into near meltdown. Inside all was quiet.

He took a smoke and slowly but surely wandered back through the story his years. His years in the darkest corner of darkness. His years in a world we never see.

Seventeen years old and off the rails. Drink and drugs and daft as a brush. Down south. Over the border. He never said where. An English Saturday night in the early 90's. All pissed up and buzzing and out of cash.

And there was a guy with a wallet in his breast pocket. A ticket to keep the night rolling. So Che made a grab for the wallet which was about a subtle as a Trump rally. A fight. An assault. An arrest. Bang to rights and two years.

No doubt there were plenty of sage voices in his ear. Just keep your head down mate. Go with the flow. Make like you're invisible. The time will fly by. You'll be out in twelve months. Out and still eighteen with the rest of your life to live.

But it didn't go that way. Instead, Che made a friend. The wrong kind of friend. A blood brother. 

The friend had been way off the rails for years. At ten years old, psychiatrists had poked and prodded at his brain to try to work out where all the rage was coming from. What they found came as a surprise. Che's pal had an IQ which was off the charts. The shrinks warned against boredom. Unless this remarkable mind was properly stretched and engaged, then this remarkable mind would go bad.

It went bad. 

Bad enough for prison. And Che's new blood brother had a creed. A driving passion. He hated authority. All authority was the enemy. A evil to be fought. 24 hours a day, every day. Without any kind of compromise. Without quarter asked for or given.

Che signed on the dotted line and they took the fight to the prison system. A bit like El Salvador declaring war on the United States. And like Che kept telling me, this was the early 90's when a different set of rules applied. The gloves were well and truly off. There would be no time off for good behaviour. Beatings and humiliations and solitary and yet more beatings.

A dark and brutal drama played out a million miles from public view. And one warder was in a league of his own. Of course he was. The 'in house' sadist. Because this was the early 90's and there was barely a rule book to tear up. 

And slowly but surely Che and his pal slipped beyond the pale. Beyond any kind of sensible decision. Brutalised. Committed to their hopeless war. Lost.

They got hold of the sadistic warder and held him hostage for twenty hours. And by now Che couldn't look me in the eye any more. He kept starting to get up. To reach for the new coat and run. He kept telling me I shouldn't be wasting time with someone like him. He kept saying sorry. And he kept saying how ashamed he was. Because he knew it was wrong. But in the darkness of the early nineties.....

Two years became eleven years. His pal was maxed up to life with not a cat in hell's chance of parole. The remarkable mind was to be kept far from the light forever and ever amen.

Is he still inside?

Yeah. He went down hill. More violence. More assaults. Time added and added until it was all the time in the world. He's not good now. So I've heard. The remarkable mind is broken. Smashed into a million pieces. The sorry tale of the Ming vase and the sledge hammer.

For a while Che stuck to the creed and fought on. Through the endless beatings and humiliations. He managed not to break. For a while. But slowly the smoke cleared and the futility of the fight swam into view.

He was out after eight years but there was nothing to ground him. No guidebook. No normal. Only drink and drugs and in and out of so may jails he lost track of them all.

Until this time. Until this last chance saloon and MAPP and every camera in the town watching his every move. Don't have any contact with any known drug user. Don't have any contact with any known criminal. And if you are even thirty seconds past seven o'clock...… And if you are even thirty seconds late for you daily appointment.....

An unfamiliar world in his first new coat in twenty years. A chance of a future, but how to find it? Forty years old and everything strange.

Sometimes the sentences would flow easily. Other times he would lose his thread and find it hard to work his way back to where he had started. Every few minutes he would jolt and spin round in his chair.

"Sorry. I thought there was someone there. Just paranoia. I'm paranoid all the time."

And what do you say? None of this was new to me. I have heard all too may similar tales of the dark places. There were the men from Long Kesh I met when researching 'Terrible Beauty'. Tales from the darkness told over slow pints in pubs on the Falls Rd and the Shankill. My Palestinian friend Ghazi, who was arrested and tortured twenty seven times by Assad's goons for the crime of being a school teacher and a poet. Busted up food parcel clients who fought the system and lost big time.

Too many beatings. Too much solitary. Too many humiliations. Too long in the dark. Out of sight and out of mind and so very lost.

It is how a life can turn. A few pints. A few pills. The idiocy of youth. A wallet in a breast pocket on a long lost Saturday night. One minute life is relatively normal....

And then all is dark. 

Maybe I am hopelessly naïve, but I actually have good vibes about Che's chances. He has discovered a well of decency which has actually been there all along. Many of the guys I have met who have spent months of their lives in solitary have found some Zen. Che has all the tools he needs to find his path. He has people skills which seem to surprise him. I reckon he'll find way more forgiveness than he is expecting to find.

He has a firm grip of the whole take each day as it comes thing. Hour by hour. 

I showed him how to use the calendar feature and his phone and his face lit up. With such technology literally at his finger tips, he could see a world where he wouldn't be late for an appointment. 

He says he'll keep calling in and I hope he does. I have zero training or qualifications. Only experience. A modest ability to shut up and listen. And never to judge. Never, ever to judge.

And sometimes not judging can actually be enough. 

Here's hoping.   

HERE'S WHY THIS ENGLISH BORN 'YES' SUPPORTER IS HOPING OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBOURS GO ALL THE WAY IN THE WORLD CUP.

International sport makes for really interesting litmus paper for any immigrant. So who are you going to support? The team from your new place or the team for you old place. And at times there can be all kinds of contradictions.

My brother in law Alan is sports daft to his toenails. To his eternal shame, is greatest sporting allegiance will always be to Manchester United. He was sucked over to the dark side as a young boy and I fear he will never escape from the demonic grip of football's very own version of Mordor.

When England take the field to play Sweden on Saturday, he will be well ensconced in a Lancaster pub, pint in hand, and ready and raring to roar on the Three Lions. 

But here's the thing. When the same three lions take to the field wearing cricket whites tom play the West Indies, Alan's Caribbean roots completely take over. He simply couldn't comprehend the idea of supporting England when they play the West Indies at cricket.

Over my twenty five year journey to Scottishness, I have dipped the litmus paper a few times. Like Alan, club football trumps any other allegiance. In my case it is Liverpool Football Club where I have been lucky enough to have been a season ticket holder since 1973. Unlike Alan, I am with the good guys. Let's just say we have a few pretty heated conversations, but it has never come to blows. Thankfully! Nobody in their right mind would want to come to blows with my brother in law Alan.

And now? Well the litmus paper tells me I have gone more or less 100% native. When England play Scotland at anything, I am instinctively in the blue corner. I cheered when Scotland beat England at cricket and rugby over the last few months. And I was completely and utterly gutted when Harry Kane got his injury time equaliser up at Hampden.

So do I still support England at anything? Well occasionally, yes. Absolutely in the Ashes. Reasonably whole heartedly if the All Blacks are the opposition on the rugby field.

Other than that? Not so much.

This World Cup? I am mainly indifferent. That said, I like the England team and their manager and I am made up by the fact that a third of the squad is made up of mixed race lads like my two sons. There are two Liverpool lads in the squad, so obviously I want things to go well for them. But I feel exactly the same for Bobby Firmino and Brazil, Degan Lovren and Croatia, Sadio Mane and Senegal and Mo Salah and Egypt.

When I sat down to watch England take on Colombia, I was pretty much indifferent. I couldn't help but warm to the in your face skulduggery of the South Americans and their fans were brilliant, especially when compared to the English fans who seemed to be mainly angry bald men running through a playlist of songs extolling the virtues of Brexit.

At least it made a change from the IRA.

When Harry Kane buried his penalty, I felt no urge to punch the air. I wasn't up or down. Merely indifferent.

Then came the penalty shoot out once again I wasn't remotely bothered either way.

And then our Liverpool captain, Jordan Henderson took the long walk and I was suddenly invested. For Christ's sake Jordan, don't miss...

He missed.

Bollocks.

And now I had skin the game. If England lost, the tabloids would lay into him like a bunch of rabid hyenas which would very possibly screw him for next season.

Well Colombia missed two and England scored two and all of a sudden a surprisingly open road to the final opened up for the Three Lions and their bald, Brexit loving acolytes. 

So how do I feel now? Well now my Indy instincts have kicked in and I hope they go all the way. Just think about it. Imagine the sight of every right wing bald man in every white English van flying the Cross of St George whilst at the same time flicking V signs at Pakistani pedestrians. How long will it be before someone decides the time is right to fly Spitfires over London.

Raging English nationalism is never a good look. On these islands of ours, the Celts know how to turn national fervour into something the rest of the world likes to buy into. Our flags and songs are tailor made for it. 'Flower of Scotland', 'Land of my fathers', 'The fields of Athenry'. All good stuff. 

'God save our gracious Queen', 'Land of hope and glory...'. Yeah. Not so much so, right?

Think about all those hard to get Better Together Unionists. Moral and economic arguments are never going to tip them over the line. Fairness arguments are never going to tip them over the line. Never ending Tory arrogance and nastiness in London never seems to nudge them any nearer to crossing the line.

But the sight of all those white vans and all those red and white flags hanging from the windows...

Well I reckon it might just do it. And just imagine if by some miracle England actually won the thing. Imagine how utterly insufferable they would be. The Spitfires and cheering Tories who have never been to a football match in their lives.

Oh yeah....

That would do it. I reckon support for an Independent Scotland would go over 60% in the weeks and months following and English World Cup triumph.

So this particular immigrant would very much like to see his old country manage the seemingly impossible for a very simple reason - this particular immigrant would like a passport bearing the name of his new place.

En - ger - land!  En - ger - land! ENG - ER - LAND!

But when it comes to flicking V signs at Pakistani pedestrians …. well I think I will have to draw a line at that one.