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Reunions

Written by: John McCrae
Friday, 25th September 2015

A reunion tour of former pop stars Les McKeown (59), Alan Longmuir (67) and Stuart Wood (58), three ex members of The Bay City Rollers, will feature an evening in Glasgow’s Barrowlands. The three, now flabbier, balder and more wrinkled than they appeared in their heyday, posed today outside the concert venue, still be-decked in their famous tartan trimmings.

For a relatively brief but fervent period in the 1970s (nicknamed "Rollermania"), they were national teen idols, before changing personnel, loss of their hysterical fan-base and acrimonious in-fighting. There also followed various headlines involving sexual scandals.

The Bay City Rollers’ first hit “Keep On Dancing” was produced by Jonathan King. King was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2001 for sexually abusing five boys, aged 14 and 15, in the 1980s.

During their height of fame, they were managed by Tam Paton. In 1982, Paton was convicted of gross indecency with teenage boys, serving one year of a three-year prison sentence.
Another former member, drummer Derek Longmuir, was sentenced in 2000 to 300 hours community service after admitting possessing child pornography.

It is expected that a few women in their 60s, some gay men between 35 and 65 and a lot of drunken women on hen nights might attend. Tickets have yet to go on sale but there are rumours that anyone who phones the ticket hotline and can name three of the Rollers top ten hits will get free entry.

Dateline: 20th December 2048.

A reunion tour of former politicians Alex Salmond (104), Nicola Sturgeon (78) and Stuart Hosie (81), three ex members of Scottish National Party, will feature an evening in Glasgow’s Barrowlands. The three, now flabbier, balder and more wrinkled than they appeared in their heyday, posed today outside the concert venue, still be-decked in their famous tartan trimmings behind a faded banner that said “One Opportunity”. One, Alex Salmond, still wore the smug grin that never left his face during all his time in politics.

For a relatively brief but fervent period in the 2000s (nicknamed "Scaremongering"), they were national idols to a brainwashed minority, before changing personnel, loss of their hysterical fan-base and acrimonious in-fighting. There also followed various headlines involving lack of policy scandals.

The SNP’s first MP “Winnie Ewing” became a Member of the Scottish Parliament in the first session of the Scottish Parliament, representing the Highlands and Islands. As the oldest member it was her duty to preside over the opening of the Scottish Parliament, a session she opened with the factually incorrect words, 'The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened'. During the controversy that arose in the early years of the Scottish Parliament surrounding proposals to repeal Clause 28 (a law banning the active promotion of homosexuality in schools) she joined her son Fergus Ewing in abstaining, causing widespread condemnation and allegations of narrow-mindedness and homophobia.

Bruce Crawford, the MSP for Stirling and until recently the party's business manager, once misled the electorate saying: "After the 1979 referendum, Scotland suffered 18 years of Tory rule we didn't vote for."

The truth is the Scots weren't "given" Tory rule by anyone other than the SNP and if they suffered 18 years of Tory rule, it was because the SNP DID vote with the Tories and actually brought on their long years in power.

What Mr Crawford and his press officer choose to forget, or hope that no one will recall, is that it was the 11-strong SNP group in the Commons in 1979 that first tabled the no confidence motion in Jim Callaghan's Labour government which led to its defeat in that memorable debate three weeks after the devolution referendum.

Margaret Thatcher couldn't be sure of beating Callaghan until she saw that the SNP was on her side and once they had shown their hand, she then tabled her own no confidence motion, which, as leader of the main opposition party, took precedence over that of the SNP. She won by only one vote, with all the Nat MPs voting with her – "turkeys voting for an early Christmas", said not-so Sunny Jim.

In accusing the Unionist parties of peddling fictions about what an independent Scotland might look like it is a barefaced cheek that the SNP should maintain the biggest fiction of all – that they had nothing to do with the rise and rise of Margaret Thatcher.

Another former member, ex student Mhairi Black, was once caught on camera during a speech in Glasgow, in which she admitted she struggled to stop herself head-butting Labour councillors who she claimed had goaded Yes voters in the aftermath of the referendum.  “It took every fibre in my being not to put the nut on every one of them,” she could be heard saying.

It is expected that some men between 65 and 110 with blue dye on their faces, glengarry caps with huge feathers and kilts, a lot of drunken women on hen nights as well as most of Scotland’s mentally ill population might attend. Tickets have yet to go on sale but there are rumours that anyone who phones the ticket hotline and can name one of the SNP’s actual achievements will get free entry.

 

by D'Artganan
 
by D'Artganan

   

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