IF I had been a member of an AC/DC fan club in 1980, I would have resigned in protest at the band’s decision to replace one of Kirriemuir’s finest, the great Bon Scott, with a Geordie shouter called Brian Johnson. More than a decade later, I participated in a mass walkout at a Celtic match in protest at the way my club was being run. These days, my little acts of political rebellion and solidarity are restricted to trying to buy Fairtrade products and avoiding stuff made by certain US-based multinationals.

A helluva lot of stuff still gets through my right-on exclusion zone, though. I bank with a High Street behemoth which I regularly slaughter for its role in the 2008 credit crunch and for still insisting on paying massive bonuses to senior executives simply for having their licence to print money renewed each year.

The contents of my shopping basket probably give succour to brutal regimes where human rights are trampled upon without a moment’s thought. Maintaining a constant vigil on goods and products which do not fit my admittedly complicated political and ethical values matrix gets to be wearisome after a while. Perhaps one day I will download an app and load it with my peculiar list of items and companies which I consider to be verboten and morally dubious.

By the simple act of running my smartphone over the goods I am about to purchase I might therefore avoid supporting foul workplace practices and illegal arms dealers in the world’s dodgier republics.

Sometimes there is no escape. A recent request from a young relative to be taken to Edinburgh Zoo is still under consideration. How can I tell her that I have previously taken the Scottish Government and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland to task for agreeing to import two giant pandas from China and keep them in miserable captivity for 10 years thousands of miles away from the place they were reared?

Or that I have rebuked the tens of thousands of eejits who think it’s a great day out ogling the misery of these great beasts as their captors grow increasingly desperate to impregnate one of them for the sole purpose of increasing the zoo’s marketability. The wee soul only wants to go and see the nice animals for God’s sake.

On another occasion, I was so outraged by a series of articles in a magazine that I immediately wanted to “cancel my subscription”. On discovering that I didn’t actually have a subscription I briefly considered taking one out so that I could then experience the grim pleasure of cancelling it and adding some intensity to my flounce.

For a few years I was also a fully paid-up member of the National Trust for Scotland. Indeed I only discovered that my membership of the NTS had lapsed following the furore that accompanied the Trust’s appointment of Neil Oliver as its new president.

Oliver is a very fine and skilful television presenter who has found his niche making highly watchable bubblegum history shows about Scotland. He is often referred to as a television historian or television archaeologist, though I’m not sure he has researched and written any academic works that would justify being described as such. I doubt very much if his new role at the National Trust for Scotland will involve him actually engaging in professionally curating any of the Trust’s properties.

Oliver’s appointment, though, is worthy of some comment and not because of his often-stated and strident opposition to the cause of Scottish independence. He has made a lucrative career out of the rich and vivid tapestry of Scotland’s past. This includes violent upheavals and societal convulsions that have gouged out the Scotland that we now occupy. We would be much diminished without the drama played out over centuries that have brought us to this place.

All of the war, passion, sacrifice and human catastrophes during this time have imbued us with some of those characteristics we like to think of as uniquely Scottish.

Three years ago Oliver said: “I’m proud of Britain. I find this kind of internecine squabbling puts my teeth on edge. I would rather that it [the independence referendum] would just go away – or that it had never happened.” I would suggest that if it wasn’t for centuries of “internecine squabbling” Neil Oliver’s television programmes would be a lot less entertaining. Perhaps he will revise this view when helping his new employers to compile the brochures that tell of the troubled histories of many of their properties. The television presenter has also referred to Alex Salmond as a “round, wrecking ball of a man” and described a potential second referendum on Scottish independence as a “hate-fest”.

I suspect this may lead to a certain froideur in any future encounters he may have with members of the Scottish Government in his new role. Beyond this, though, there’s really not much here I can force myself to get upset about. Most of Oliver’s views have been conveyed in a newspaper column where he is expected to add a degree of invective and colour. Those of us who favour a Yes vote have long been irritated at the false outrage of Unionist commentators at the vividly-expressed views of nationalist supporters. We are hardly in a position to shout “red card, referee” when those on the other side of the debate deploy language and terminology that is equally as rich.

The National Trust for Scotland does a grand job for the nation in maintaining the treasures of our past and I wish Neil Oliver every success in his new and important role. I have found some of his views on independence to be a little ill-considered and perhaps even unwise, but some of mine have been too. In the context of his new role, though, they are meaningless. They certainly do not warrant the abuse he has received since the announcement of his appointment.

Let’s save our anger for the very real malfeasance, greed, profiteering and corruption that exists in our financial institutions and public bodies. Don’t waste it on a ceremonial appointment by our valued conservation body. In the meantime I’ll be seeking to renew once more my membership of the National Trust for Scotland.