BBC ALBA HOGMANAY TELEVISION BROADCAST 2025

Yesterday,  a week or two into the new year,  we saw for the first time BBC Alba's Hogmanay Television Broadcast of 2025 courtsey of a chip an old friend sent us.  Frankly,  we hadn't expected very much, perhaps because of Alba's dire Hogmanay Television Broadcast  of 2024,  or whatever, but,  as it happens, we were pleasantly surprised that this year's event was a much improved show all-round.

The lovely Ellen MacDonald - truly the beauty with the golden voice - and the five instrumental musicians of supergroup Daimh gave a  brilliant performance well into the night and they are our nomination for very best act of the show.  Up-and-coming singing star Emma Scalpaigh Macleod  had a brilliant night also and,  no doubt,  we will see a lot more of Emma - and her strong personality - in the future.

We remain unconvinced about the two presenters,  however.  As with 2024, we still see them as chatterbox-style presenters and lacking the gravitas that the first broadcast of the year demands.  Their style of presenting is much more suited to Rock Festivals and the like than hardcore New Year television broadcasts.

Let's hope for continuing improvement - but no more Robert Burns,  please.  The BBC should know by now that Burns verses never fit well into West Highland Gaelic settings.  He was,  after all,  a Lowland Scot (Gall) to his fingerprints.

We prefer our own stuff.

SANDIE PEGGIE v NHS FIFE BOARD and DR BETH UPTON

Admission. We fell asleep many times trying to make sense of the Judgement in this case amounting to a monumental 312 pages.  We gave up in despair.  The Judgement is both rambling in nature and untidy in form and no wonder.  The Tribunal obviously took the view that if one word was adequate to cover its deliberations they would multipy that by a factor of 100.  Verbal diarrhoea, it's called,  so that it is quite possible that the core of the legal arguments was lost somewhere amongst all that verbiage.

To cut a very long story short,  it is obvious that the Tribunal took a rather unfavourable view of the Claimant,  Nurse Sandie Peggie,  while taking a much more favourable view of the Second Respondent,  Dr Beth Upton.  Basically,  in upholding only Mrs Peggie's claim of harassment by NHS Fife Board - to which NHS Fife Board had no real defence - Mrs Peggie was successful only in the very minimum of her claim.  All other claims by Mrs Peggie were dismissed so that we may not have heard the last of this case after all.

Our own view is that much of this bizarre case  was utterly unsuited for arguing in Courts and Tribunals of Law as opposed to the application of sound,  common sense at the very beginning of the problem and long before it became an issue. Frankly, politicians were seriously at fault in passing legislation that could possibly be interpreted in the manner of the circumstances here. But, when it comes to Trans issues,  we don't expect politicians to show much grey matter,  do we? They follow the herd,  do they not?

That outrageous Scottish Government policy, basically that man and woman are interchangeable,  is one that,  in Scotland, has been applied with both vigour and vengeance by the Scottish Nationalist Government.  NHS Fife Board is,  of course,  a quango of the Scottish Government so  that that may explain a lot of what went abysmally wrong in this case for NHS Fife Board. While something going wrong happens all the time,  both for organisations and for individuals, the consequences in what happened to Mrs Peggie are verging on the criminal.

The only sanity we could find anywhere is the recent case of For Women Scotland Ltd where the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom gave,  as always,  a Judgement of superb intellectual  lucidity which,  sadly,  appears to have been largely,  if not entirely,  ignored in Mrs Peggie's case.  It has certainly been  ignored widely by the Scottish Nationalist Government for the simple reason that the Supreme Court decision turns on its head the Nationalist Government's desperation since it came to power  to pursue its agenda that a man and a woman are interchangeable.

Whichever way we approach it, we cannot agree with the Tribunal that the claims against Dr Upton should have been dismissed. It was Dr Upton,  a trans woman,  who triggered this problem in the first place by insisting on using a female-only changing facility when she was acutely aware of the problems her behaviour was causing. Her conduct could only have been deliberate towards her junior colleague, Mrs Peqggie,  and,  thus, actionable. Why on earth would a biological male wish to access a female-only changing room anyway?  That core question has never been addressed.

As for NHS Fife Board, it deserves utter condemnation for both its stupidity and its outrageous malevolence towards its employee, Mrs Peggie,  for whom it had a legal duty of care.  That malevolence,  and Dr Upton's poor conduct,  were glossed over by the Tribunal.  The Board was,  of course,  doing its master's bidding in the form of the Scottish Government but that's no excuse.  The Board is a legal entity of its own.

No woman should ever have to endure the indignity and humiliation suffered by Mrs Peggie in  having  to share a female-only changing room with a biological male in the course of her employment,  an important factor  that appears to have escaped the Tribunal altogether. Add NHS Fife Board's very obvious malice towards Mrs Peggie and Dr Upton's deliberately bad behaviour and one is left to wonder whether the Tribunal was simply out of its depth or just took a flakey in dismissing so much of Mrs Peggie's claim.

Finally, let's not forget Nicola Sturgeon,  former First Minister of Scotland and principal architect of the Scottish Government's Trans policy,  for this omnishambles.  Her dreadful legacy is unravelling.

It's a mad,  mad world.

TORCUIL CRICHTON MP (3)

Our MP,  the lamentable Torcuil,  has voted against extending Child Benefit on two occasions since elected in July 2024 and in accordance with this awful Government's instructions to  Labour MPs.  However,  now, in a total reverse-ferret and terrified of its abysmal poll ratings,  the Government has announced that it will extend Child Benefit after all.

Will the spineless Torcuil object to the increased rates? 

Keep watching!

BBC RADIO NAN GAIDHEAL

Utterly awful.  Should be renamed RADIO POP MUSIC and come with a Serious Health Warning. It is absurd that any public money should be wasted on this mind-numbing drivel from BBC Radio nan Gaidheal.

Like countless others, we wish to continue our Gaelic learning and education.  The only way to learn to an acceptable level is by keeping listening to Gaelic conversation and broadcasting.  

And most certainly not by listening to a Gaelic radio station spewing out Pop Music.  The two entities of Pop Music and Gaelic Culture are as far apart intellectually as it is possible to be.  They can never be reconciled.

Like most other listeners of Radio nan Gaidheal, we loathe Pop Music.  So why does BBC Scotland insist on shoving this rubbish into our ears day and night?  And why was the Gaelic Radio Channel established in the first place?  Was it,  perchance,  so that the BBC could  broadcast  Pop Music to the West Highlands?

It's not just the Pop Music thing that gets us worked up.  The standards in Gaelic Broadcasting have fallen badly in recent years even with supposedly professional journalists so that all too often what we get is a mixture of Slang English rather than pure,  Broadcast Quality,  Gaelic.  The television channel BBC Alba is the same,  or even worse.  Embarrassing.  This should not be allowed on air.

We used to have Radio nan Gaidheal on every moment that we could but,  nowadays,  it is with great trepidation that we press that ON button.  We simply do not know who,  or what,  is at the other end.

RACHEL REEVES MP (3)

Astonishingly,  after that disastrous Budget of a few days ago,  Rachel From Accounts remains in post as Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Of course,  Rachel and Starmer are interlocked - if one goes,  the other is on a very shoogly nail.

But Rachel remains in big trouble still.  Rachel publicly based her Budget on a Big Black Hole of anything up to £30billion GBP in the nation's finances.  However, it has now been revealed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) told her months ago that there was no such Big Black Hole and yet up to,  during, and,  indeed,  after the Budget Rachel persisted that there was.  The Leader of the Opposition,  Mrs Badenoch,  has called Rachel a liar saying she has no option but to resign office.

The reason for this deceit on the public is simple.  The thick as mince horny-handed sons and daughters of toil lobby fodder on the Labour back benches are getting very restless as,  come the next General Election,  their chances of survival are virtually nil.  To placate them in the meantime in return for their continued support,  Rachel simply had to increase the Child Benefit bill by a huge amount - pay those MPs off in other words.

We have long maintained that Mrs Reeves is the most stupid woman in the world.  She is doomed - and Labour's latest version of Russian-style Socialism is doomed with her.

THE COVID INQUIRY

Well,  that's that over and at a cost of some £200million GBP.  That the various governments of the realm did 'too little,  too late' we already knew. With Boris Johnson in charge down south and Nicola Sturgeon in charge in Scotland it was inevitable that it was always going to be a dog's dinner anyway.

Should the Inquiry not have been about whether Lockdown was both necessay and appropriate in the first place?  

That's the one question everyone wants to know.

THE ROYAL FAMILY (1)

As a matter of recorded history,  monarchs and their offspring the world over have long been a very unsavoury lot.  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is no exception.

As events unfold,  the late Queen Elizabeth II's perceived saintliness is suffering a mortal blow and quite rightly so.  We have never believed anything other than that she was highly typical of the breed and a cunning and conniving woman,  just like her mother Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon,  better known in later years as the Queen Mother.  That the late Queen Elizabeth chose to marry that awful man,  Prince Philip, and  the closeness of the Royal Family to the debauched Lord Mountbatten - mentor of the present king,  no less - tell us really all we want to know.

British newspaper proprietors and editors over the past 150 years are to blame for this dreadful state of affairs.  Instead of  investigating and publicising the outrageous conduct - including drug-taking aplenty - of the Royal Family over those years,  newspaper proprietors and their editors opted for the fawning sycophants' way in anticipation of  becoming associates of the royal tribe.  Utterly shameful.  Everything stage-managed to perfection alongside the newspapers as only the Windsors can do. 

No wonder we cannot trust or believe a word written in the Press to this day and no wonder that in this internet-enlightened age  newspaper sales have dwindled to a trickle.  Both the Royal Family and the Press are reaping what they have sown over a great many years.