Think of this Mr. Salmond and all those Yes voters

[j.sabourn]

#188... Keith and a lot from the UK emigrated in the 1900"s for similar reasons. JS

[j.sabourn]

I may have misheard the tail end of the news but thought I heard that the Ukraine was handing over the Eastern parts to the Russian speaking Ukrainians for a 3 year trial period. In a lot of ways some could compare what England and Scotland went through in your 1700"s. The world of today lives in different time warps and countries in the so called advanced civilizations should realize this and know they cant be brought into our world at our say so, should be left totally alone to advance at their own pace, and certainly not allowed to import their brand of living etiquettes into our society. Still waiting for some weak kneed politician to get up and denounce that religion is at fault and to do something to protect his or hers own citizens. Scotland will choose whatever the Scottish people want, I must say however that what the British Parliament has done over quite a few years is to aggravate the British People as a whole, if those past 4 or so P.M.s think they did a good job, then there would probasbly be no need for a referendum. It is mainly due to their incompetence that we are now getting one. The EU must know for a certainty now that if Scotland goes so will England when and if we get our chance of a vote. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Apparently fish face wanted to give 16 year olds the vote to increase his chance of a win. Younge persons interviewed here in Oz, of Scottish descent or Scots on holiday all consider the idea of that a bit stupid. As one said what do those at that age know of wordly affairs> It does appear on the face of it that the whole episode has many sections where the public have not been informed as to how they would manage should the yes get up. Money and passports though simple in ideals are just some of the things that will be involved but to date spoken little of. The question is this mr FF. Where is your business plan for an independent scotland and why have you not put it to the people? Those who fail to plan , plan to fail.

[John Pruden]

ivan 183# we have our own parliament but we are still run by Europe on most things? I cant wait for the in/out vote on staying/going from the cash cow Europe? I do hope Scotland stays in great Britain ?jp

[j.sabourn]

All my maternal family are/were Scottish. I worked for a number of years mostly out of Dundee, Aberdeen, Montrose and various other Scottish ports. I never once came across this line of demarcation which has suddenly appeared. To me is just another Politicians deviousness on wanting to change things that worked and have always worked to my knowledge, if the Scots have had a rough time so have the other members of the UK. Watching that Salmon character on TV last night, he must be living in a fools world if he thinks the orders for Clyde built ships are suddenly going to be all of a sudden in big demand. What little they now have will disappear the same as the English yards have. Especially when in recent time the orders have come from the British MOD. I think he is a dangerous man for Scotland, however dont think the average scot is too dimwitted to see the possible outcome of going it alone. However once again its their own choice, I will start with Cappya help to building a tunnel under Hadrians Wall. JS

[Braid Anderson]

'Can anyone tell me,, If an extremist organisation was to attack and destroy a Scottish Oil Rig, who will they call on to help.??? '
Brian, they might call on Scotland's 10% of the British armed forces. Or maybe even the SAS, since it was founded by a Scotsman.

[Braid Anderson]

are you qualified to comment on our internal affairs with any deep understanding of them Pardon me for saying so Ivan, but quite frankly I doubt if most Englishmen have a deep understanding of their own internal affairs.

[j.sabourn]

There were occassional exercises in the North Sea where a dummy run was done by I think the SAS of an attack on an oil rig. More for the SAS benefit than the rig, was mostly done from helicopters. Any surface approach was supposed to be monitored by the stand by vessel, although what use that would be have no idea. What use an 8 knot ship would be against a fast patrol boat would be neglible. In busy shipping lanes where it was the stand by boats duties to warn off vessels coming close to or near the anchor buoys, semi submersibles had usually 8 anchors down although some of the crucible rigs had 12, the restricted area was usually 3 nautical miles. There has been near misses and I beleive actual contacts, there must be some dozy buggers on some ships that cant see a big object like a rig well lit up with lights. Although a lot of rigs dont now use the huge anchor buoys for recovery but wire chasers instead is probably one of the reason that they went slowly out of use, plus the fact they took up most of the room on the deck When laying these anchors from the supply/anchor handling vessels. You must remember these anchors were at least 18 tons apiece, plus the huge buoy, so was always pretty crowded on the deck until you got rid of the buoys unless of course the rig kept the buoys on his deck and passed down when you started to run an anchor. For a dedicated terrorist I cant see a rig being able to put up much of a fight apart from getting armed assistance from the shore in a hurry. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

are you qualified to comment on our internal affairs with any deep understanding of them Pardon me for saying so Ivan, but quite frankly I doubt if most Englishmen have a deep understanding of their own internal affairs.

Braid I know where you are coming from, but I felt it beholden upon me to reply to the comments made in defence of the realm of which I am an integral part and have served.

Also 'founded by a Scotsman' everytime I read something or someone comments about a UK institution/invention/solution/you name it, it appears it was always invented by a Scotsman/Welshman or Irishman, gadshooks and oddbodikkins we Englishmen accounted for nothing, soon Captain Cook and Nelson will not be English, who is going to claim them first!? Why is it that the Scots have not claimed Tony Blair or Gordon Brown and a few others like them

[robpage]

Because Burke and Hare are much nicer people than Blair and Brown , so they claim them higher up the famous Scots league . I don' know how Scots residents are feeling right now but I for one an sick of hearing about out . If the vote is YES on the 18th I am all for sending all the Scottish MPs in the house of Commons home on the 19th and putting the fences up , that should keep the Anglo Polish employed until next Christmas . Seriously though I believe the Scots will see the sense in staying united with the rest of Great Britain and Northern Ireland