In a sublime moment of the British comedy, Basil Fawlty wonders if the latest disaster in his Torquay Hotel is all in his imagination.
“Maybe it's a dream,” he says, and manically beats his head of the reception to test his theory. “No, it's not a dream,” he concludes. “We are stuck there.” And so on with the farce.
Here in the Scotland of the SNP I do my reality controls by closing my eyes and wondering if I could blink the setbacks of our nation.
Here goes …
Success seems likely because our perilous situation is so unlikely that there must be a chance that it is a nightmare that can limit an alarm clock or scrunching of the eyelids.
Our lives are governed by incompetents who, in practically any other nation, would have been on their ears ago.
Why not Scotland? Why do we stay here to let them do their worst?
I now open my eyes again … but no.
Scotland can be stuck to the SNP despite a litany of shortcomings in all policy areas
Prime Minister John Swinney has been a prominent figure in the long reign of the SNP leading the Scottish government
A futuristic new prison is still to replace Barlinnie in Glasgow and the SNP is really full of cheerful chat that it is an 'trauma-inspired' facility that 'light and space' uses to illuminate the need of prisoners.
Yes, and it really is two years behind schedule with costs that run almost £ 1 billion, making a hole in the pocket payers ten times as large as the size of the person told us to expect.
Not only that, when it is opened in 2028 (at the earliest), it adds only about 350 spaces to the estate, which means that it will hardly scratch the surface of the chronic overcrowding problem.
To tackle that, the SNP really gives justice – eyebrows through sheriffs in saving dangerous criminals prison and, where some time in the Pokey is the only appropriate decision, which gives perpetrators back on the street after only 40 percent of have served their penalties.
This cannot happen. It is a kick in the stomach for victims of crime. It is a social risk for the rest of us.
I close my eyes again. No, we are stuck there.
Our NHS publishes painkillers as sweethearts. Almost 2.5 million scripts for paracetamol were issued to patients in 2023-24, against the eye-water costs for the taxpayer of £ 8.53 per pack.
It is part of the free regulation policy introduced by Alex Salmond long ago.
The idea is that we pay the £ 8.53 – of which about half is absorbed by a 'dosing costs' – while the patient goes to the chemist, script in hand, goes to wait for the reception of the free pills.
Feet removed from the counter in boots, the same pills are for sale for much less than the costs of their sweeties. They are even cheaper in supermarkets, where packages cost around 37p.
What madness does the taxpayer end up with an annual bill of £ 21 million for drugs that would have cost £ 925,000 if they were picked up in a supermarket?
Maybe it's a dream? It is not. Transport news and delivery of the Glen Rosa, sister ship to the Glen Sannox, which was employed for seven years at the end of last month, is expected to be further delayed.
Part of the problem is that the nationalized shipyard Ferguson Marine had to steal pieces from the Glen Rosa to let the Glen Sannox sail.
The ships, which are over -budget four times, run on liquid natural gas. This reduces their carbon footprint. The way we achieve this can be enormously increased by their CO2 footprint.
We transport the fuel 8,000 miles over the sea from Qatar to Kent and then put it on a diesel tank tank for the remaining 460 miles to Scotland.
As soon as it is pumped on board, the ships can focus on reducing their carbon footprint by working on the environmentally friendly fuel that we have raised their CO2 footprint to protect.
I go for a main hump on my desk. Still no joy.
Did I mention that the Glen Sannox is sailing to the wrong mainland harbor? She arrives in throne because they have not yet started adjusting the right port – Ardrossan – to leave the ship in the berth.
Maybe you wonder why nobody thought he is designing a boat that would not require changes to Ardrossan.
Perhaps you are astonished that a kick still has to be lifted, despite the fact that the chance of doing this has been seven years longer than it should have been.
Try to blink it. It could work for you.
I, I open my eyes to see our government as a bloated general, miles of the front line – a wind bag drunk on right and struck by slowness.
It waves problems away from the table by ordering 'task forces' to deal with it.
The person who instructed it last month to tackle the emergency situation in our classrooms, the epidemic of violence, the escalating bullying and the resulting absenteeism is the 302nd such task force because it came to power.
It is a government of 'strategy' instead of action.
Since 2014, a new strategy has been unveiled every week since 2014, the think tank that can be found in 2023 in 2023.
The obvious refutation, I think, is Windfarms. Scotland is very good at approving.
So good that we have so much – which cover such huge parts of our beautiful landscape in heavy industry – that they can produce more than the annual electricity requirement in the country.
And many, much more are in the pipeline.
How much, one wonders, was passed on in a similar way as that of Green Volt, the world's largest floating wind farm, currently planned for 50 miles from Peterhead?
An e -mail from Scottish government officials arrives in the early hours in the inbox of the relevant minister and – despite 117 pages with technical documentation to continue – a decision is demanded by noon.
Four weeks after she gave the nod, a donation of £ 30,000 from a senior figure in the company behind the project is received by SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn's Local Party Branch.
Again, it can't happen. Except that it is.
Has a SNP -Minister really tried to invoice the audience for the £ 11,000 costs to have his children watch football on his iPad on vacation? Do someone else think that ministerial limousines were his taxi service for Aberdeen competitions?
Should the taxpayer now be stabbed for a legal damage law of £ 166 million because of the incompetence of another Scottish minister – no longer in post Lorna Slater – that was a moment it wasn't it?
It's all really enough. And the smart money is that there is a little more farcical in the Scottish parliamentary elections from 2026.
None of the above is a jot.
Everything will be pushed aside by the National Pipedream so that the SNP can keep getting away with it – that flagship ambition that relieves the failures of all others.
Independence is the pot of gold in a nation that is too full with rainbow hunters – and far from offering wealth, the hard -working people bleeds dry.
