Cornish woman inconvenienced at airport ...

As you know, I'm a London Gazette man myself but the Scotsman really is an appalling rag.

For my non-Scottish readers, there used to be two Scottish quality broadsheet newspapers, the Scotsman, printed in and preferred by Edinburgh readers, and the Glasgow Herald published in and preferred by, guess where.

You could arguably add the Aberdeen based Press and Journal to the list, the paper which famously, though probably apocryphally, headlined the loss of the Titanic as "Aberdeen Man Drowns at Sea". But if the Titanic were to sink again tomorrow, the Scotsman would report it as "Scots Reported Missing ..."

That's why I can't be doing with the Scotsman - it's so parochial and pathetically, cringingly Scotto-centric like the rest of the world cares in a way only surpassed by my other pet hates, the Scottish National Party.

The Scotsman's 1st April spoof was SNP proposals to build a new airport in Scotland to be called William Wallace International. Well its coverage today of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud's effects on air travel in northern Europe is scarcely more credible. Here it is and if you think this is me taking the mick again, you call me Susan if it isn't so and check for yourself here.

Scots keep world flying in fallout from volcano

Airline chaos is set to continue but international services are switched to Glasgow as cloud of ash moves south

By ALASTAIR DALTON, TRANSPORT CORRESPONDENT

SCOTLAND was last night handling some of the only flights in northern Europe as the Icelandic volcano ash cloud forced a continued unprecedented shutdown of the Continent's largest airports.

An Icelandair plane from Reykjavik lands at Glasgow airport yesterday.

 
There were no signs of a let-up to the chaos, with Transport Secretary Lord Adonis warning that significant air disruption would continue until at least tomorrow.

Seven British Airways flights from the United States and Canada are due to land in Scotland today, with others likely to follow if English airports stay closed.

First Minister Alex Salmond said Scotland offered a "window of opportunity" for flights to be diverted from elsewhere, easing congestion across the Western world.
 
However, the first European flights into the UK since the most far-reaching restrictions in aviation history were imposed on Thursday were three planes from Iceland's main airport, which has remained open despite the eruption.

Some 600 [sic] passengers aboard the Icelandair aircraft, which touched down last night in Glasgow from Reykjavik, included schoolchildren on trips who had been stranded.

National Air Traffic Control Services (Nats) reopened Scottish airspace under its control yesterday, as the huge ash cloud was estimated to be costing airlines across the world £129 million a day.

However, Nats last night further extended the ban on passenger flights over England and Wales until 1pm today, and this may be extended again at 9am ..."
 
Here I have to explain for the benefit of non-Scottish readers that the SNP's nickname is "the Nats". I'm going to spare you the rest of full verbatim drivel but I couldn't resist the following further snippets from the same article:-
 
"Europe's main hubs, where passengers change planes, remained closed, including Heathrow – the world's largest – and Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Copenhagen. Airspace was also restricted in Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic and most of Scandinavia. By contrast, some 1,500 transatlantic passengers are due to flood through Scotland's airports today, including three British Airways Boeing 747 jumbo jets landing at Glasgow from New York and San Francisco."
 
This reminds me of the Billy Connolly skit about teuchters coming to Glasgow and seeing a bus and saying "Look! A hoose wi wheels!".
 

 

Look! A coonsil estate wi wings!

 
"BA normally only flies between Scotland and London, having axed its transatlantic services from Glasgow more than a decade ago."
 
Eh? Run that past me again.
 
"Those caught in the disruption included the Duchess of Cornwall, who was unable to travel from Scotland to sign a book of condolence for the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski at a Polish cultural centre in London."
 
Just think, Camilla, it could have been a lot worse, hen ...