Several years ago I was forced to read a history of North American Indians called The Inconvenient Indian by an American writer based in Canada called Thomas King who was marketed as indigenous. By the end I thought I Could Have Written That. So, I decided to look into King's credentials as an indigenous writer. He turned out to be a privileged Greek kid from California who had been told his deadbeat dad was of Cherokee descent. OK, but if he hung out with his Cherokee grandparents during the school holidays.... Nope, no evidence of that even. King has just admitted he has no Cherokee blood. He gave the impression this "revelation" followed a report from a family tree specialist he had commissioned. In fact, a US group that specialises in exposing Pretendians had called him up to answer some questions raised by their research. Now there is a big fuss here among the chattering classes. But I can't understand why. I'm a great believer in nurture being more important than nature. Was King supposed to have some deep rooted racial knowledge buried in his DNA that made him indigenous? That's surely pure racism. Turns out he was just a little Greek-American who decided he was an Indian. Good career move. A number of what I consider Professional Indians have said King's confession has not come as a surprise. So, why didn't they call him out? Put it this way, people in glass houses know they shouldn't throw stones.

I think maybe perhaps it's time the Royal Family decided to implement a ban on sex with citizens of the United States of America. It often doesn't turn out very well. Edward VIII stopped being Edward VIII so he could marry the obnoxious Wallis-Simpson. Constitutional Crisis negotiated but the abdication tainted with later Nazi overtones. Did he really mean when he declared Something Must Be Done during a visit to some economically distressed part of England that all the Jews should be killed? Then we have the present family rift following Prince Harry's marriage to the toxic Meghan Markle. Yet another American divorcee - will they never learn? Prince Nice-but-Dim simply married someone just like his mother. Now Prince Andrew is no longer Prince Andrew because of sex parties in America set up by Robert "The Bouncing Czech" Maxwell's daughter and her creepy boyfriend. Double trouble mixing with a Maxwell and teenage American girls.

Most folk like to get some praise. Some even seek it. But I remember when I worked at the Government of Saskatchewan and someone praised the daily news summary that I'd prepared for the morning meeting. They meant well. But I just knew that the colleague who prepared the summary on alternate weeks would interpret this as a criticism of her. And it was my life she would make more difficult as result. And I was correct. I sometimes wonder if senior management praise for the Campbeltown Courier's coverage of the Mull of Kintyre Chinook Crash led my then-boss to undermine me and make my job as editor more difficult than it had to be was an example of something similar. Only, she was motivated by fear that I would get her job and wasn't just being petty.

Censored

OK, time I think for what is going to become an annual Downer. It's around Remembrance Day and I think it's important to remember what soldiering is all really about and how badly things can work out for too many people. I've never been sure whether this photo from 1917 shows British or Canadian kilties. The photo is sometimes credited to The Official Canadian War Photographer. Sadly, the guy I was going to ask, Tim Cook at the Canadian War Museum, died suddenly a couple of weekends ago. He was a good guy. Anyway, click here to see the photo  – <a href="/index.php/14-titles/81-wardead" target="_blank&quot;">War Dead</a></p>