I'm announcing that I am not going to the United States to promote my books. The reason? The US border folk will want to know my place of birth. I identify myself as a Citizen of the World. I refuse to be defined by my place of birth. And in any case I didn't live there until I was in my teens. I am not doing this to get myself interviewed on the radio. I am adamant that this is not a publicity stunt.

I was recently reading about the Battle of Rorkes Drift, immortalised in the 1964 film Zulu, and the book looked at recreations dating back almost to the time of the battle in 1879. British interest in the battle was such that performances, some involving real Zulus, were quickly to be seen at theatres, circuses and military tattoos. Some, particularly at the latter, simply featured white guys covered in boot polish as the Zulus. That all reminded me of my first and only byline in the old Glasgow Herald. While walking along Woodlands Road in the city I spotted a little card in shop window looking for black Africans and telling them to apply for work at Python Films. Some follow up revealed, yes, that Python. They were filming a sequence for the Meaning of Life featuring red coats and Zulus. I suppose Glasgow was the closest they could get to South Africa without leaving the UK. Anyway, come filming day the black extras refused to work. Many were medical students at Glasgow University and something about the portrayal of the Zulus upset them. An emergency search of nearby JobCentres was launched. So, if you look closely at the battle footage most of the Zulus are actually from the Indian sub continent and the ones furthest from the camera are unemployed white Glaswegians wearing boot polish and sandshoes.

Should people who work for foreign governments and undermine Britain while promoting the interests of a third country lose their citizenship? The question came to mind after listening to Kate "HawHawsdottir" Laycock on German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. DW is known to still recycle anti-British Second World War Nazi propaganda and combine it with present day material most probably scripted in Washington by the CIA. The coverage of the last major anniversary of the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift was a disgrace. The one token former RAF pilot included in the fawning US worshipping programme grossly misrepresented the British contribution of almost 25% of the supplies flown in. I suspect the DW scripts are American written because Cambridge-educated Laycock employs Americanisms such as Gotten and uses the word Protest without saying whether it's For or Against something. And for a supposedly German broadcaster DW has an awful lot of American presenters or people who learned their English from Americans. Maybe perhaps there should be consequences for folk who denigrate their former neighbours for foreign government money. And the US Über Furhers who seem call the shots at DW don't even know their own history - The first St Patrick's Day parade was not in Boston but in the then Spanish colony of Florida in 1601. Or perhaps HawHaswdottir might just check what she is telling her audience is true.

One of the red flags when it comes to science on the radio is the number of Americans interviewed for an item. The more Americans, the more dubious the science. Good rule of thumb. If they ever interview four Americans, then we'll be in Food Causes Death territory. The Autopsies All Found Food In The Stomach - Food Causes Death. The reason much American science, when conducted by Americans, is poor is that during the Vietnam War the university faculties suddenly had to expand massively to cope with demand for higher education from draft dodgers like Donald J Trump. People who otherwise would have no hope of teaching in university suddenly found themselves on campus faculties after all. And if you're taught by an idiot...... This is why I ended up giving up on history books written by American academics. That was disappointment as I was interested in a non-British take on events but what I got was often really poorly researched and fantastically chauvinistic.

Lived experience. Is there any other kind of experience? The word "lived" is redundant. We know little to nothing about the experiences of dead people. Perhaps maybe they don't have any. The use of Lived Experience suggests a fuzzy, flabby and muddled thought process. It is a red flag when someone uses it in a sentence on the radio. Experience shows that what follows will be weak. Just turn the radio off. The same goes when some ignoramus who doesn't know how to use the word "literally" comes on. It's a pretty reliable red flag indicating that what follows will be worthless.

I don't think any sane person expects everyone in an Elizabethan era television drama to speak Shakespearean English. But is it too much to expect the folk in some detective drama set in England before 1975 not to talk about being "across" something? I don't remember when that phrase sadly entered the British lexicon but it wasn't that long ago. Certainly not before the 1990s. Nor did British people use that horrible trite American euphemism for dying, "passing". Not a part of everyday speech in 1950s or 60s Gloucestershire. I can see why the casting director wants to make Gloucestershire after the Second World War look far more multi-ethnic and multi-cultural than it was in a bid to pander to the "We want to see people who look like us on television" crowd. But it's a lie. And lies should be avoided. Though I would hate it if such programmes turned into a nostalgia-based fodder for racists. The kitschy television adaption of the Hamish McBeth stories erased the village Asian shopkeeper of the original books and replaced him with a white guy. That probably wasn't racism but more an example of the mess made of the adaptation.

No-one, or no-one I would rate, would deny that the Taliban are very wrong to deny females a proper education or jobs in the professions. But a few thoughts. There's no war going on within Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. The education issue affects only a tiny proportion of women there. The fact that they come from the most privileged sections of society means that the Western Media, themselves bastions of privilege, identify with them and give their plight a lot of coverage. The vast majority of Afghan girls were, and are, never going to become doctors, airline pilots or lawyers and they are being hurt by Western sanctions. And I'm pretty sure the war against the Soviet Union and their Afghan Communist clients was in a large part inspired by their insistence on educational opportunity regardless of sex. The Red Army was fighting as much for girls' education as the US and NATO troops who propped up the corrupt Afghan government until recently. But we in the West supported the Mujahedin back then. What changed when it comes to the West's attitude to female education?

I've got a pile of really good books about newspaper journalism. The thing is I can't bring myself to read them anymore. The make me too sad. Journalism is pretty much dead. Most radio and television reporting was based on what was in the papers. Now the newspapers have tiny overworked staff and that shows in their poor content. And the folk who call themselves journalists these days are more interest in expressing opinions than ferreting out and presenting facts. The line between fact and opinion isn't blurred, it's non-existent. Without newspapers to ransack, radio and television are now pretty poor conduits for the information people need to take part in democratic government. News belongs to no-one but it's expensive to gather. No-one wants to pay for news and the interweb meant for a while they didn't have to. But then the flow of proper journalism died with the demise of print media as the online outlets hoovered up their ad revenue. It's a bit like why electrical appliances no longer have lives measured in decades. A washing machine or food mixer that lasts 30 years would be really expensive due to the high quality of the components. And manufacturers don't say tell you that for the price you want to pay you'll be lucky to get six years out of an appliance. So, we take a chance. Can we afford to take the same chance on shoddy news?

Imagine an airport where all three departing flights arrive at the same time, regardless of schedule for the morning, and passengers line up on the runway at the foot of a mobile stairway next to each plane. And unlike buses, there's no indication on the aircraft of their destinations. It's easy to join the wrong queue and I did. I'm referring to Kabul Airport in the mid-2000s. Maybe this was not a typical experience of flying out of Kabul with Ariana, the Afghan state airline. But I think maybe it was. The flight out of Kuwait was interesting too. All the passengers were herded into a waiting room miles from the main terminal, miles from the main airport even. Then just before the middle of the night departure time a door was opened and the passengers raced across the runway and up some steps at the back of plane. First up, first choice of seat. And from the coverings on those seats they had been salvaged from several different planes. I can't speak to the safety of the plane but I seem to remember that Ariana had been barred from European routes at the time. But I have no complaints, they got me to Kabul and back.

Some may be surprised at the Burmese Army's poor performance against the various ethic resistance groups in Myanmar. I'm not. The so-called Army has always been nothing more than a bandit gang. That's why it is more of a business operation and political dictatorship than a fighting force. Burma has always been a country of bandit gangs. During the Second World War the biggest allied itself with the Japanese. Then it changed sides. One of the leaders Bogyoke Aung San was told by a senior British officer "You only joined us because you saw the Japs were going to lose. To which Aung San replied "Of course". His daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, who would have been welcomed into the gang if she had only been born a boy, inherited her murdered father's willingness to be candid. Asked while in power if she would do anything to save the Rohingya, she said No, there were no votes in helping the Muslim Rohingyas. I find the honesty commendable but the mindset detestable.

Years ago I covered a reunion of pilots who had made emergency landings on Fair Isle, halfway between Orkney and Shetland. The guest of honour, the main attraction, was a German pilot who crashed on Fair Isle during the Second World War. His weather reconnaissance plane had been shot down by Spitfires operating out of Sumburgh on the south tip of Shetland. The weather planes and the bombers sent to knock out the northern lighthouses, including those on Fair Isle, provided a steady trade for the Spitfires. This German claimed to have been "only a weather reconnaissance pilot". Sounds kind of harmless until you realise he was part of the German war machine intent on killing my parents, their parents, and their parents and any member of my family they could drop a bomb on. And probably your ancestors too. Anyway, those forecasts weren't for the tea time news bulletin. They were to make the Nazi's job of killing British people easier. I think the old German pilot realised his plea didn't really wash with me because he wasn't too friendly or forthcoming. Luckily for me, someone from After The Battle magazine was also there and I was able to piggyback on his interview with a guy who was probably an old Nazi. The Luftwaffe attracted right thinking Nazis. Several members of his crew died as a result of the encounter with the Spitfires and were buried on Fair Isle for a while. Then the German Government dug up nearly all their dead from both World Wars, including men executed for murdering their fellow prisoners of war for not being good enough Nazis, and reburied them in a central war cemetery just north of Birmingham on Cannock Chase.

I have a long multi-coloured panel stripey scarf. It's not actually all the colours of the rainbow. I like it. But it's not any kind of a statement. Sadly, some people think it is. I had one particularly nasty encounter at a street crossing. There was a guy there who looked as though he wanted to ask me something but couldn't decide if I was the kind of person who would tell him the time or give him street directions or whatever. I asked if I could help him. This resulted in a tirade of abuse and fist waving. Maybe he was just crazy or perhaps he thought my scarf was saying something he didn't approve of. As I say that was most unpleasant reaction but there have been others, both negative and positive. I'm told if I don't want a reaction I shouldn't wear that scarf anymore. But it's my scarf and I like it.

One of the interesting things about Canada is some folk use US spellings and forms while others go for British. Most of the spelling is British. The few exceptions in the Canadian English dictionary that spring to mind are plow, for plough, and tire for tyre. A lot of the vehicle-related terms are the US ones, hood for bonnet, trunk for boot, etc and of course, automobile for car. I think that just illustrates the dominance of the US car industry in Canada. For a while the national news agency, the Canadian Press, insisted on using US spelling but I think that was just because they couldn't be bothered correcting the spelling in the reams of US pap they insisted in foisting on us. All of the above is pretty harmless. But when some folk do their dates in the American format month- day-year and some use the British day-month-year, confusion can break out. Imagine having a card that was supposed to expire on 1st February this year, 1/2/2025 and someone reading that in American sees it as the 2nd January and announces the card has expired. From now on I'll get them to write the month in full.

I recently got the bad news that the old Glasgow Herald's man in Inverness and former owner of the Inverness Courier, Stuart Lindsay, has died. Stuart was very good to me and I learned a lot from him. Not that I realised at the time how much I was learning from watching him in action. He was a class act and a first rate journalist. Nor had I realised how much I was absorbing by osmosis earlier as an office boy on the Herald in Glasgow from watching the reporters in the main Glasgow office at work. A bunch of mainly first rate young folk had been recruited in the previous couple of years to replace the somewhat fusty newsroom. Then I got to thinking about how lucky I was to start my reporting career in Inverness. The town was the base for the Highlands and Islands reporters from all the main Scottish media outlets. How many weekly reporters get to compete on a daily basis against so many good operators? And learn so much from those very folk? Overall, I got a lucky start. And one of the biggest strokes of luck was knowing Stuart.

A while back, a long while back, there were calls for Canada to boycott one of the Olympics. It could have been one of the Winter Olympics; Canada does better in them than in the Summer Games. Anyway, a Canadian contender was on the radio saying that there was no way the Government was going to stop her going to the Olympics. Fair enough, in a way. But only if she has repaid every penny of taxpayer money she's ever received in sports grants, etc. Then she's free to go for her dream of Olympic Gold.

A while back, a long while back, there were calls for Canada to boycott one of the Olympics. It could have been one of the Winter Olympics; Canada does better in them than in the Summer Games. Anyway, a Canadian contender was on the radio saying that there was no way the Government was going to stop her going to the Olympics. Fair enough, in a way. But only if she has repaid every penny of taxpayer money she's ever received in sports grants, etc. Then she's free to go for her dream of Olympic Gold.

I was appalled to learn that a Japanese campaign against nuclear weapons had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, there can't be many people who are in favour of using nuclear weapons. Why single out this Japanese group? What the award does is validate the feeling in Japan that the country is a victim of the Second World War. Does no-one there look back to what happened before the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The invasion of China, the mass rapes and murders committed by the Imperial Japanese Army? The prisoners of war and slave labourers worked to death building railways and working in the mines? Well, apparently the Japanese do. Army officer Masanobu Tsuji was actively involved in many of the worst atrocities. He even dined on the liver of a downed US airman. The Japanese elected him as an MP and put up a statue of him. What kind of people do that?

Well, it's the first blog of the year. And that means........ The Book of the Year is announced. There was a good crop of good 'uns in 2024 and it came close to having joint winners. Very close. The tie breaker between two very well written books proved to be whether a candid first hand account beat out a second-hand one in which the author did a great job of teasing the facts from the actual participants. If you want to find out the verdict, go to Book of the Year

I had to pass a driving test in the UK and again after I came to Canada. I sat my first test in Shetland. I remember there was only one long stretch of road in Lerwick which was regarded as safe for the Emergency Stop - pretty much outside the gates of the Gilbert Bain Hospital. There were only one or two places in town for the reversing around a corner. In Alberta there was no reversing around corners. Instead there was reversing into a parking spot in the space between two cars. In Shetland there were no roundabouts. But there was one outside the ferry terminal in Aberdeen. Eventually, due to the number of smashes involving Shetland drivers fresh off the boat, Shetland Islands Council built an unnecessary, at least from a traffic point of view, roundabout at the north end of Lerwick into the Gremista Industrial Estate. I would hope

It's the Festive Season. The time of year when charities try to put the bite on a person. At least two of the food banks here have moved from distributing boxes of groceries over to letting folk wander the warehouse and pick out what they want. Less food waste. I always thought that if you were desperate enough go to a foodbank that you would be grateful for whatever you were given. Apparently not. I remember three people in my block of flats coming home bearing boxes from the foodbank. All three were No-Goodniks. One of them decided if he could get free groceries then he could spend his benefit money on drugs and alcohol instead. He died from liver failure. Sadly, some foodbanks are only interested in trumpeting how much food they distribute. They don't care who it is given to - or the consequences.