I see that STV, Scotland’s only major commercial broadcaster, is not providing coverage of the election on Thursday evening. Quite surprising if you ask me. Most people turn to the BBC for election coverage, granted. But you expect ITV / STV to make an effort nevertheless.

I couldn’t remember, but apparently STV did have a programme in 2003. And ITV will have election coverage for Wales. BBC Scotland does have coverage going on all night.

No doubt STV’s decision is a result of having to look after the pennies. Instead of the election, we will be getting ITV conathon Make Your Play. Interesting that ITV and the BBC aren’t having any bother having local election coverage…

I have another problem with another STV though — the voting system being used for the council elections. In principle, I am a big fan of the Single Transferable Vote, and I was pleased when the voting system was changed from FPTP. But I have to admit to feeling quite underwhelmed by the result.

It seems as though the parties are being conservative. Presumably fearful of splitting the vote, parties are only fielding as many candidates as they can possibly hope to win. In most cases, this is one. And while STV gives voters more choice on paper, this extra choice has actually made me feel a bit suffocated.

In my ward, three councillors will be elected. Labour are fielding two candidates (not too long ago they would have fielded three, I am sure). Meanwhile, the SNP, the Lib Dems, the Conservatives and Solidarity have one candidate each.

So in this three seat ward, only six candidates from five parties are standing. By contrast, last time round, most of the parties would have had a candidate in each of the three old wards.

I have a lot of problems with this. For starters — although I am not suggesting that this is actually the case — it does look as though the parties have already carved the seats up between them.

Labour have two candidates, the Lib Dem will probably get in (although, as I said before, it would have been three Labour councillors not so long ago) and the SNP candidate probably has an outside chance. So where is the ambition from the parties? Why can’t Labour believe that it might win three seats, or even the Lib Dems or SNP believe that they could win two?

If there is some swing in opinion, it won’t be reflected in the ballot box, because neither of the incumbent parties have given themselves any chance of increasing the number of councillors. And none of the other parties have put in anything other than token efforts.

In short, the choice just isn’t there. I have six votes, and there are three seats up for grabs. But if I want to vote for three candidates, or even two, I will have to do a Toynbee and get the nosepegs — and sick bags — out.

Usually I vote for the Liberal Democrats because I think ideologically they are the party that is closest to me. Then it is a process of elimination. Labour are ruled out by default for being Labour. I don’t see myself voting for Solidarity, and I don’t find the Conservatives too appealing either.

So my second vote will probably go to the SNP candidate, which I don’t mind too much, despite my views on independence. But beyond that, it is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. And the Judean People’s Front.

I might have been a bit naive. I was imagining massive ballot papers with parties fielding two or three candidates each. Instead, the parties have decided in advance how many seats they are going to win, and have begrudgingly put forward that number of candidates. This poor showing from the parties is a bit bleak, and not the choice I was hoping for.

Still better than First Past the Post though!

That’s right. I, along with CuriousHamster, am starting a roundup of Scottish political blogs. It might sound a little bit passe, but this isn’t just bandwagon-hopping. There are several reasons why I think it’s time to start a roundup of Scottish blogs.

I was struck by a recent article written by Iain Macwhirter, The Scottish Media is Doomed. It paints a sorry picture. There have been massive job cuts in the current affairs departments of BBC Scotland and STV (Scotland’s only major broadcasters). Newspaper circulations are spiralling and Scots are increasingly turning to English publications for their news. (Neil McIntosh has some views on Iain Macwhirter’s post.)

And this is all happening at just the time when it shouldn’t be. The still relatively new Scottish Parliament is responsible for a lot of the legislation that affects the country, and power will now probably only ever move from Westminster to Holyrood. Yet the spotlight on Holyrood is getting dimmer. Surely more accountability is needed.

You think you know what I’m going to say. Scotland’s citizen journalists to the rescue, right? Uhh, not really. At times the Scottish blogosphere feels incredibly sparse. It’s not too difficult, with a bit of effort, to find Scots blogging about politics. And when you do, how often is it about Scottish politics? And when you do find them, there is little doubt that the Scottish political blogosphere isn’t quite as vibrant as the Westminster-orientated scene.

And where on earth are the representatives of the country’s second-largest political party, the SNP? Just about the only decent SNP blogger I can think of is Stuart Dickson, who was responsible for the excellent Independence blog, which sadly hasn’t been updated for a year. Indeed, the Scottish political blogosphere is almost as notable for the great bloggers who have fallen by the wayside. Remember Lost in Westminster? Lost is the word.

Maybe I’m just missing all the great blogging going on out there. That’s part of the reason why I want to start this roundup. I want to discover new blogs and hopefully get a bit more of a community going, with more discussion between bloggers of all hues — particularly with the Scottish Parliament elections gearing up in the coming months.

As I mentioned, there’s no way I’m doing this on my own. Not only is it a bit questionable of me to elect myself as saviour of the Scottish blogosphere, the roundup wasn’t even my idea! Of course there is Tim Worstall, king of the roundups. But Stuart Dickson and CuriousHamster already had a go at a Scottish Political Blogs Review over a year ago. That’s why I chose to invite CuriousHamster to contribute to the new roundup.

We’ve not yet sorted out all of the ins and outs of how we’re going to do this, but I see no point in hanging around. If everything goes to plan, the first roundup will be posted here on Sunday morning.

I’ve already been thinking about what posts I’m going to include but I’ll need your help aswell, particularly if you know of a good Scottish blogger who isn’t in my blogroll. If you want to nominate your own or somebody else’s post, please do email me at  . If you ever need it, my email address is always in the sidebar.

Eligibility? I don’t see much point in being too restrictive, so I’ll adopt the Craig Brown approach — the most tenuous link to Scotland will do. If you’re from Scotland, living in Scotland or just writing about Scotland, it will all be fine by me. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a blog. But the focus of the roundup will be on Scottish politics, so common sense should be applied.

Also, I’m hoping to make this roundup a little bit different to the usual “here’s a bunch of links I threw together at lunchtime” malarkey. I did say ‘hoping’. You’ll see what I have in store though, and remember that the comments box is there for a reason.

Scottish Blogging Roundup

Don’t ask me why, but recently I’ve been thinking about Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade. For anybody who doesn’t know, Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade was a popular television programme shown on Sunday afternoons on STV. Many generations will have memories of the programme — it lasted from 1966 until 1992.

Those who are aware of my age (20) might be surprised that I can remember Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade. Having found out that it finished in 1992, so am I! But not only that, I also have memories of a time when it was still called ‘Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade’.

I have a distinct memory of my auntie grumbling about the amount of cartoons on the programme: “They should call it just ‘Glen Michael’s Cavalcade’.” Later on it was re-named Glen Michael’s Cavalcade. This must mean that I can remember at least two series of it. Or maybe my memory is just playing tricks.

On Sundays my brother and I were always used to be carted around Glenrothes to visit relatives. I think Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade was just about the only thing that made these visits bearable, which is why I have such memories of it when none of my peers do. I’ve asked my brother if he remembers it. I’ve asked friends who are the same age as me if they remember it. Nobody does, apart from people who are much older than me.

Having said that, my memories of it are vague at best. The only cartoon I can ever remember from it featured a very short-sighted man. As I recall, the cartoon was a bit of a one-note joke. As far as I can remember, the man basically spent his whole time wandering around narrowing his eyes and bumping into things. I’ve never seen a frame of it since Cartoon Cavalcade ended.

But Glen Michael’s (Cartoon) Cavalcade was famously short on actual cartoons. Much of the programme was spent watching Glen Michael fooling around. I quite strongly remember him playing a Scotland Today newsreader where everything in the bulletin went disastrously wrong.

Glen Michael was also joined by some creepy characters that were not so much puppets as inanimate objects. One of them was an oil lamp called Paladin who didn’t move a muscle, but did light up and speak. Scary stuff.

The only thing I remember about Paladin is actually quite a strong memory of him / her / it being confused about anti-litter week. Paladin thought it was about somebody called Auntie Litter coming to visit. Paladin had to be reminded several times in between cartoons that there was no such thing as Auntie Litter. I bet you if I get Alzheimer’s disease, this will be the early memory that I always go back to.

Clearly, Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade was an intensely local thing. If you ask anybody in the central belt who was born before the mid-1980s, probably everybody would know Glen Michael. But ask anybody south of Penicuik and you’ll probably get a blank look.

Even on the internet, information about Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade seems pretty thin on the ground (anything that doesn’t have a video on YouTube is obviously neglected). What is there is conflicting. For instance, the entry on Answers.com says that the programme lasted from 1975–1985, although this is clearly not true as there is no chance I would be able to remember a programme that ended before I was born.

Wikipedia actually has a reasonably in-depth article which seems to be more reliable. It says Cartoon Cavalcade lasted for 26 years from 1966, which seems about right.

There are also a few blog posts out there — including this from those Consolevania chappies — by people from central Scotland reminiscing about the programme and collecting their threadbare memories. Best of all is this fine MetaFilter thread. If this programme was networked it would undoubtedly be hailed as a cult classic, the sort of programme that would be featured in an I ♥ the 1970s programme.

But there even seems to be confusion as to whether or not the programme even went out on Grampian. If it didn’t go out on Grampian, that would make Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade central Scotland’s best-kept secret. Although maybe it was just the rest of the country being a whole lot wiser than us.

But I have also discovered that, amazingly, there is a Cartoon Cavalcade video — you can buy it via Amazon! I probably won’t buy it unless it has footage of Glen Michael doing a swear word.

Even more amazingly, I discovered that Glen Michael is actually still alive! It’s difficult to imagine how such a legendary figure can disappear off the face of the planet without actually dying. It pleases me greatly to learn that, unbeknownst to the rest of us, he is still broadcasting to senior citizens via a regular slot that is as much as a secret to under-90s as Cartoon Cavalcade was to anybody outside the central belt. The programme is on Saga FM in Glasgow, a station which I didn’t even know existed. Despite being 80, Glen Michael looks a bit like a sober Terry Wogan in that photograph.

And not only is he still alive, but he is also still touring Glen Michael’s Cavalcade around primary schools! What a legend.

FilmFour is Free, you surely must have noticed.

Except that in the middle of the huge campaign to alert us all to the fact that the respected film channel is coming to Freeview, Channel 4 only went and decided to change its name. The new name is Film4. It’s not a huge change, but that only makes it all the more strange.

Apparently it is so that it will fit in with Channel 4’s other digital channels — E4 and More4. Curiously enough, there is no mention of Quiz Call. I suppose this means that Channel 4 will soon be changing its name to Channel4?

Ignore the fact that FilmFour was Channel 4’s first foray into the multichannel world. Ignore the fact that anybody who would care that FilmFour is owned by Channel 4 already knows it. None of this has stopped them from rebranding the channel, complete with fugly logo and all.

The logo does make you recoil at first. What on earth were they thinking of, replacing that classy logo with this blocky monstrosity? Chris Riley likes it. I just think it looks like Teletext. Mind you, it is starting to grow on me, so I probably won’t even notice it a couple of months down the line.

But there is no excuse for this logo which goes straight to the top of the pile of crap logos.

Now I was never a fan of SMG’s logo, but at least it wasn’t offensive like this one! Now I can see what they’re trying to do here. “Look, we own STV don’t you know, so we’ll use that ‘S’ in our logo.” Very good. Not that the S was very nice looking in the first place. But you can see what they’re thinking with that. But look at the bit after the ‘S’. What is with that ‘M’?

Film4 and SMG both seem determined to take us back to the 1980s. Please! Wasn’t it bad enough the first time around?

I always quite look forward to the World Cup, but when it actually comes along I usually don’t pay as much attention to it as I expected. But on the 31^st of May 2006, I can say that I am looking forward to the World Cup.

Of course, here in Scotland the big debate is: Who should Scots support? And is it wrong not to support England?

Once, a few years ago, my brother said something like, “There is nothing better than England getting beaten, but there is nothing worse than all the crowing about it at school the next day.”

I’m a bit of the opposite. I don’t really mind to see England win, but the media is just unbearable. Even the most tenuous link to 1966 is pounced upon by smug commentators from every angle. It is very tedious, especially when they are referring to England as “we” when there is no “we” about it for anybody who happens to be living in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, which is roughly 20% of the entire population. And the wall-to-wall coverage of Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal really is not needed!

The recent case with Mars is a prime example. Digbeth explains here. I didn’t believe it at first, but I have seen two of these billboards in Kirkcaldy. It really is terrible. They have clearly considered Scotland as an afterthought. Shoddy. It would have been better for them to just not advertise north of the border at all. Have they done the same in Wales?

STV’s trailers for the World Cup are also tragic. STV, the Scottish ITV broadcaster, has obviously taken the ITV network’s promo and slapped the STV logo on the end. This efficient tactic works with most programmes, but there is a slight problem in this instance: every single player featured in the promo is English! Honestly! Did they not think it through?! What would people in England be saying if a broadcaster produced a promo featuring nothing but German players?

When England is shoved down your throat all the time even when you don’t live there, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It is probably fair to say that the majority of Scots will not be supporting England in the World Cup. This year, the trendy team for Scots to support is Trinidad and Tobago, who have four players based in Scotland, one of whom happens to be called Scotland. Oh, and there is the small matter that they are in England’s group as well.

Jack McConnell got himself into a wee bit of hot water when he said that he wouldn’t be supporting England at the World Cup. But when Gordon Brown said he’d be supporting England he got even more stick from it, particularly from the SNP (who else?).

English people have been known to complain about the rivalry between Scotland and England. They protest that they are happy enough to support Scotland, so why shouldn’t Scots support England? Well, as David Farrer excellently points out in this post, that is completely missing the point.

Because, in footballing terms, it’s not a fellow team, but is perceived by Scots to be the number one rival. If Celtic are playing against Barcelona in a European match, do Rangers fans cheer on their “fellow” Glaswegians? Aye, right! Were Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham fans in tears over Arsenal’s recent defeat in the Champions’ League final? I don’t think so.

…Scotland aren’t (sadly) a threat to England. It’s no big deal for English folk to support Scotland in those circumstances.

Who says Scotland aren’t being represented in the World Cup though? We all know that isn’t true!

It is perhaps true that Scotland’s rivalry with England is a little childish. But then again, England has its own childish rivalries with Germany, Argentina, France, Turkey……