The General Registrar for Scotland have released the list of baby names from 2011. I have navigated around and between the mangled attempts at Gaelic names to bring you the best of the Adults of Tomorrow.

Welcome to the world:

Annalyze, Atlas, Awesome, Bee, Boo-Tiger, Camdyn, Candy, Capitolina, Cee-Jai, Ceilidh, Chrystal, Clinty, Coast, Colt, Cosmos, Cruise, Crusoe, D’arcie, Dallas, Darcee, Darn, Decklyn, Delight, Denver, Destiny, Diesel, Diesel-Joe, Divine, Drake, Dre, Eden, Eternity, Faith-Serenity, Forrest, Fox, Fynnlea, Griffin, Harmoney, Honey, Jaxx, Jersey, Jesuslovesme, Jewell, Juniper, Junior, Kaidance, Kajole, Karsyn, Kassidee, Kelvyn, Kennzie, Knox, Krystle, Laird, Legion, Lilly (a boy), Makenzi, Mama, Man, Marvelous, Maverick, Meadow, Minerva, Nirvana, Occeanna-Lake, Orly, Pixie, Phoenix, Porter, Preacher, Process, Pyper, Red, Reed, Reef, Riverz, Rocky, Rogue, Sapphire, Shantell, Starlit, Storm, Tailor, Talon, Trigg, Vanille, Venus, Willieboy, Wolfie, Wren and You.

May you be taken seriously at all times.

What the hell are these and why would I be interested in them?

Cakes. Always cakes.

The other night I steeled myself, read through my teenage journals and found this gem:

‘On the 2nd of February it will be 6 years since Richey Edwards vanished. And I’ve got an exam on that day. Ignoramuses. I can’t even be left alone to cry.’

I CAN’T EVEN BE LEFT ALONE TO CRY!

I hereby award myself first prize for ‘Best at Being a Teenager’.

Except I was a bit shite because, as I later noted, the 1st of February is Richey’s disappearance day. The 2nd of February was when Sid Vicious died, though, so I was still free to mope.

(image via Comically Vintage)

The News of the World demonstrating its valuable contribution to society over the years. They also have a collection of their favourite pictures of breasts.

Some people think that we should be feeling sorry for the beleaguered ex-News of the World hacks, but I don’t think it will do them any harm at all to have a stint finding out how people really live on JobSeeker’s Allowance (somehow I don’t think it will be the life of luxury you might expect from reading their articles). Then perhaps they’ll get new jobs looking after disabled ‘benefits scroungers’, or working in low-paid jobs alongside immigrants and/or single mothers. Welcome to our world, fuckos!

Royal Exchange Square

COMMUTERS! Don’t sit blocking the steps in Subway stations, forcing other commuters rushing to catch their trains to do ninja moves and swing themselves under the handrail to the other side of the stairs and run round you.

LIBRARY USERS! ‘SNIFFFFFFF… SNIFFFFFFF… SNIFFFFFFF… SNIFFFFFFF…’ isn’t a suitable background noise for people who are trying to concentrate. Blow your nose.

CASH MACHINE USERS! If the machine isn’t giving out money, tell the person in the queue behind you instead of making them go through the same rigmarole you did.

CASH MACHINE PROGRAMMERS! If the cash machine doesn’t have any money, design it to tell the user that at the beginning rather than wasting their time making them go through every step only to be told right at the end.

Up until now, a great many English people living in England didn’t really think about the Union. It was a vague concept in the back of their minds; there’s England, where all the stuff is; then there’s the place up north (not in The North, north of that) with hills and heather and industrial wastelands where people stab each other; then the place over to the west which also has hills, plus some sheep; and the bit which is joined onto Ireland where they have all the religion and bombs. It’s not an uncommon attitude, don’t worry. The same accusation exists within Scotland, with those who live outside the Central Belt grumbling that those who live within it ignore the rest of the country.

Now news is filtering through that some party has won an election in Scotland and they’re proposing that Scotland break away from the rest of the UK. From some of the more hysterical reports, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the proposals involve somehow tearing Scotland free from its moorings and rowing away into the Atlantic, never to contact tearful England again and leaving it to look after its two dependants, Wales and Northern Ireland, all on its own. Not that Scotland ever contributed to the UK family, the no-good cad.

Suddenly, English people who were only vaguely aware that there was a union, even going so far as to call the UK ‘England’ in many cases, are lamenting this potential break-up. Why are they upset? Is it the loss of ‘British culture’? British culture was never homogeneous. In addition to this, most of the things people think of when prompted by the words ‘British culture’ are English entities. Scotland becoming independent wouldn’t destroy ‘British culture’ anyway. It would still be part of the British Isles. It can’t literally tear itself away from the rest of the landmass. Scandinavia isn’t a country, yet still manages to celebrate its constituents’ shared culture; the same goes for the Balkans (despite the 90s conflict, obviously, but now isn’t the time to go into Western misconceptions about the area’s politics and culture). The countries inhabiting the British Isles wouldn’t just stop talking to each other, either.

Are they really so concerned about Scotland’s inability to survive in an economic sense? How much do they really know about the economy of the place with the hills and the heather and the stabby wastelands? A great deal of the English Unionist sentiment posits that Scotland and its people are entirely reliant upon England’s charity; a drain, even. In which case, why are they so desperate to hold onto their northern neighbours? Their case appears to be the same one English anti-Unionists put forward, such as the ever-charming Quentin Letts.

Are they weeping over the political break-up? Oh, honestly, who wouldn’t leap at the chance to escape Westminster with its inhabitants’ theft of tax-payers’ money for their ‘expenses’ and determination to dismantle the welfare state, plunging Britons into poverty? Amongst other things of course: torture, anti-immigration sentiment ranging from words to actual abuse towards immigrants, expensive, pointless nuclear missiles… and so on. The Scottish Parliament isn’t perfect, but why on earth would English people (or anyone) complain about Westminster then try to deny that Scotland would be better off with its own system which can better reflect the interests of the Scottish people without being controlled by that convoluted, unaccountable old London institution?

My perspective is based on impressions and observations and therefore is open to contradiction and argument. One thing I am sure of, however, is that English people can’t very well show little interest in Scotland then complain as soon as its movement towards autonomy gathers momentum.

After we’ve stopped laughing at this Daily Mail writer’s inability to construct a basic sentence, let’s try to answer their mangled question.

Well, it seems that the best way to protect children from ‘this dangerous obsession’ with their image would be to keep them as far away as possible from image-obsessed rags like the Daily Mail and anyone who reads them.

It’s astounding that you can’t see the difference between people choosing to run the London Marathon, being fully aware of the risks, and horses being made to run the Grand National, not being fully aware of the risks because THEY’RE HORSES. They weren’t just horses ‘at the end of the day’. They were horses at the beginning of the day, too. They didn’t morph from being fully-aware humans into equines. But then, you were probably bred to be a shallow, witless cunt, so what can we expect?

David Cameron and Paul from Essex: classmates who graduated with BA Honours in Statistics from the University of Lies.

Orkestra Del Sol – This is Honkstep from Orkestra del Sol on Vimeo.

1. Move to Balkans
2. Join gypsy/brass/folk band
3. ????
4. DON’T PROFIT, BUT HAVE A BLOODY GOOD TIME NONETHELESS