So the Question is...

Should Scotland be an independent nation?

Yes or No

Yes the phrasing that the SNP wanted "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?" was ruled by the electoral commission as possibly leading and not neutral. So the shorter more neutral question above is now the one that Nicola Sturgeon has agreed that she will recommend is adopted for the referendum.

Scottish Electoral Commissioner John McCormick commenting on the issue of the all important question said  he wanted voters to have confidence in the result of the referendum. Adding:

"We have rigorously tested the proposed question, speaking to a wide range of people across Scotland.

"Any referendum question must be, and be seen to be, neutral. People told us that they felt the words 'Do you agree' could lead voters towards voting 'yes'."

The Electoral Commission have also agreed that the spending limits for the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns also be increased from £750,000 to £1.5m. While the caps placed on political parties spending on this issue remains as it was.

So now that the people of Scotland know what will asked of them at some point in 2014, it is on with telling them what the consequences of those decisions means.

The Question: Q2 - February 2012

It is time to get my thinking cap back on and come up with an answer to The Question as posted on Stephen Chapman's State of the Nation blog.

The question this month is:

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given? 


The cliche answer of course is to say just be yourself and to be honest that is pretty good advise. My parents were good at this never forcing me or my brother into anything but letting us do the things that we wanted to do and getting their support whatever we decided to do.


But as many of us know being ourselves and being honest about ourselves is something that at times others have issue with a take exception to. As someone who was bullied as a child I know how painful it can be to be different from others and be yourself. 


However, it is a supplementary piece of advise that someone else gave me that I think is the most important.

If people take exception to you being you, they have the problem not you. Carry on being you and work at changing their or people like them's perspective of what is acceptable.

I think that piece of advice probably explains why I've ended up as a Liberal Democrat campaigner taking on so many issues of equality. It is the fact that I am content with being me, but find that people do not seem to want to accept that me or other people are a valid option or deserve the same things as the perceived norm. But each of us is unique and don't fit into a box.


So that fact that I can switch from supporting rugby to watching the ballet in a couple of hours. Be a person with a faith yet be a gay man. Have been a sportsman and at the same time play more than one musical instrument as well as sing, means that often I don't fit into people's idea of how to box me. But I will carry on being me, if you have a problem with that look at yourself.


If you want to add you answer visit Stephen's blog and post you link in the gadget and read the others responses as well.

In which I Answer the Question

Stephen Chapman used to challenge us to take five pictures for the fifth of each month, but now he is trying to spark us bloggers in different ways with The Question.

The first Question, for this month, is:


What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?


The sportsman in me though tempted to select a sporting achievement, also realises that to be guaranteed success on the field of sport is something that is also somewhat unsportsmanlike. So all my dreams and aspirations in that area will have to continue to be through hard work and training, or things that have been attempted but are now in the past.

So in order to answer the question I think I have to look at a field that maybe just a little bit of the fear of rejection is actually putting me off getting on with in and carrying on. That also rules out the field of politics as I'm not scared of rejection there, in fact having stood on a number of occasions the failing to win has driven me on even harder in order to succeed.

So my mind gets cast back to a dream I had about 12 years ago when I was visiting Edinburgh in August. Yeah that month in Edinburgh where anyone with any artistic bone in their being is inspired by all the variety of acts that put on shows for a month long run in all manner of venues. That visit did spark the idea in me to write a play that would fit in to the ethos of what The Fringe actual is, but also be able in the way it was written to be able to transfer if it was a success.

You may think that the fact that I am writing about this dream is because there was no further progress in that area. Well actually that is not the case. There is about half of the play written, and every so often it does get revisited. As many of you who read this blog on a regular basis are aware I'm not afraid of putting stuff down in words, so why is this left unfinished.

I think it is because to hire a room in which to put on a production costs, the hiring and accommodating of a cast costs. Even though the later is at a minimum, I think there somewhere inside there is the sense that there might be financial failure even if the script is of top notch quality that somehow prevents me from even completing that script.

But I hear you say, surely there are other ways to get the script performed. Yes, maybe, but in my minds eye it needs to debut at the Edinburgh Fringe, it has a certain edginess to it that if it viewed by the right people will enable it to grow, and as a result maybe unleash the writer that has always been present in me.

Therefore if I could be guaranteed that I would not fail, I'd be hiring a venue in Edinburgh this summer, even before I have the script complete. Getting the company together, then getting on to finishing the thing off. Like Douglas Adams when it comes to literary creation I sometimes need an immovable deadline to get the final product out there, or else it will just whoosh past my head.