When Angry met Alex ... Sexy Socialists collide for the first time

Alex: Freebies, like all MPs.The picture, obviously, was for the Breast Cancer Campaign and #WearItPink, and it was Christina McKelvie who persuaded me (as First Minister) to do the picture. I thought it was great. To tell you the truth, they gave you a range of things like bowler hats and glasses which I thought were a wee bit too ornate. I wanted to be in touch with my feminine side, but not overpowered by it. That’s why I went for the beret instead of the Stetson or perhaps more effete fascinator.

Angry: We’re planning to auction off the original pink sunglasses you wore, which you’ve kindly signed, to continue to raise money for the Breast Cancer Campaign. It’s brilliant that the beret and glasses have become a symbol for charity, fighting cancer and revolutionising politics. It’s certainly a look that’s catching on!

Alex: I did a meeting in Forfar. There must’ve been 600 folk there, and I had forgotten my glasses, so I said to the chairman, “what is that in the back row?” I couldn’t make it out. He said “it’s a row of women sitting there with pink berets and glasses on!”

Angry: Of course 12 months ago things were very different. Today marks the first anniversary of the referendum. I feel like an angrier Salmond. How do you feel?

Alex: A bit better than I felt last year. In fact, the first time I smiled afterwards was when I saw your tweet. It was clean, too! I still say it’s one of the great tweets of all time. I looked at it in my helicopter, and decided to tweet back. It’s a bit like that film, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. That was the first time that I’d made contact with the parallel universe.

Angry: I appreciate my vulgarity might not gel with the political world – but does it matter when I’m so hilarious?

Alex: I was just kidding. I couldn’t criticise the political line (in your tweets), which is quite sound, so I thought I’d criticise your vulgarity. The great tweet was; “I never lost. I simply repositioned the location of victory”. That is a genius tweet, and it made me smile for the first time since the vote.

Angry: I’m glad I could cheer you up. Of course, I must now ask you where said victory is located?

Alex: In the hearts of women and men.

Angry: …even in Tories? Now, let’s go back a few years before that helicopter trip. In 2011, when the SNP achieved the initial landslide, did you see that as an endorsement of the party (and what it stood for) or as a protest vote like many pundits claimed?

Alex: No, I saw it in purely personal terms, as an endorsement for me. No doubt about it!

Angry: Ha! Why wouldn’t you have?

You were already a household name! However, the SNP wasn’t as established in the minds of the electorate. You’d have to concede at the time that public opinion polls at the time (regarding independence) weren’t even close?

Alex: No, it was at 28 per cent.

Angry: Why was the decision made to pull the trigger on the independence referendum so early? Looking back, do you think it was too soon?

Alex: Well, I didn’t exactly rush to the polls, did I? That was 2011; the referendum was 2014. I wouldn’t call it impetuous from that point of view. I thought 2014 would be a year in which Scotland had a number of events and issues that would bring Scottishness to the fore. Also, I wanted to watch the Ryder Cup. So I went between the Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup.

Angry: In an interview a few years ago, you said that you’d asked Bob Dylan if he’d play at the Commonwealth Games. Why didn’t he play at it?

Alex: I did! Well, Bob (as I’ll call him – I’ve never met him) is very pro-Scottish – he has a house in Scotland – but he doesn’t do many gigs these days.

Angry: Shame, really. That would’ve been quite a moment in Celtic Park.

Alex: Ach, I thought we did “no’ bad” in the opening ceremony. We didn’t get Bob Dylan, but we did get Pumeza! Freedom Come All Ye was my idea. David Zolkwer discovered the song at my instigation. I said: “I got to sing it once with Hamish Henderson, in a double-decker bus in front of 25,000 people in 1992,” to which he said: “I don’t think we’ll ask you to sing it this time in front of 60,000 people.

We’ll get somebody really good to sing it.” And, of course, he did.

He got Pumeza, who came from Nyanga, which, of course, is in the song. It produced what I thought was one of the great emotional moments of any opening ceremony.

Angry: It certainly was. But does that not suggest you were aiming for emotion rather than logic in terms of the referendum’s timing?

Alex: I thought that the autumn of 2014 was a pretty reasonable time for the referendum. It gave us time to get up from the 28 per cent, and if you think about it, we did – ten days too soon! We should’ve held it the week before!

Angry: So, polls considered, you’d have had the referendum even sooner? That’s interesting. The formation of the progressive alliance, solid approval for the SNP and continuously positive polls for Yes all happened after the fact.

Then again, as you said, it was pretty bloody close in the days leading up to the referendum vote.

At the time, David Cameron stated that Scottish independence would

“break his heart”. Did this give you a wee chuckle?

Alex: Incentive, I would say. Of course, to break something, you’ve got to locate it. I think it’s near his wallet.

Angry: I always felt like there was a missed opportunity for Kiki Dee and Cameron to do a version of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart for the No campaign’s theme tune. She hasn’t had a hit in a while. Could have been like Ally’s Tartan Army, but utterly horrific.

You mentioned wallets; the general public aren’t exactly rolling in the dough at the moment, yet the Royal Family are swanking about in diamond-studded hats at their expense. What segment of the electorate were you appealing to when championing Scottish independence while supporting the monarchy? Do you think that supporting such an inherently regressive institution clashes with the progressive ideals that you are otherwise associated with?

Alex: You mean like in Scandinavia?

Angry: I’m going to try really hard not to sigh at that response.

Alex: I mean, I’m just making the point, that by acclaim, Scandinavian countries are among the most equal, progressive countries in the world.

Angry: So, you’re saying that the monarchy is progressive, then?

Alex: No, no. I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that the Scandinavian countries, by and large, are constitutional monarchies. It follows, then, that it is not impossible to have a progressive constitutional monarchy. It doesn’t mean that the monarchy it progressive; it just means that you can have a country which is progressive aside a constitutional monarchy.

Angry: But isn’t the monarchy effectively the face of the country?

Alex: Is it?

Angry: Well, it’s the first thing you see when you enter the Scottish Parliament – a picture of the Queen and a huge golden mace. In an age of austerity, is association with the monarchy not flying in the face of what an independent Scotland should stand for? Why would we want to endorse such a thing? It’s like being an organic food campaigner and eating McDonald’s every day.

Alex: Let me put a case to you – the one that persuaded me. The Queen was the Queen of a lot of countries, right? Sixteen, I think. You wouldn’t say that any of these countries aren’t independent, would you? She’s also the Head of the Commonwealth. If you’re trying to get people over the line and vote for something, then sometimes it’s effective to offer that bridge to the past as well as a route to the future. I think that the 45 per cent vote would have been less if we’d run against the monarchy. One of the great things about trying to get a majority for something is that you need to learn not to downplay what some people might see as being very important, even if you think it’s of lesser importance.

Angry: Alright, let’s take it out of the context of the referendum: how much longer do you think the monarchy is going to last?

Alex: Well, when you’re an independent country, you can do what you like! The monarchy is not an obstacle to a socially progressive Scotland. I mean, when you’re trying to create a new chapter in history, you don’t deny the history that has taken place. On the contrary, you learn from it. You want to claim most of it. So, I don’t think that this issue was one of the controversial decisions in the independence White Paper.

Angry: Personally, I think a defining characteristic of an independent Scotland should be confining the monarchy to the history books, but let’s move on. The issue of currency – was there a plan to set up our own currency, our own central bank or even use an electronic currency like ScotCoin? Is Swinney into that kind of thing?

Alex: Did you say Swinney?

Angry: Yes.

Alex: Well, he hasn’t spoken to me for six months, so...

Angry: This could be an amazing example of life imitating art. Does he not like you? Do you not like him?

Alex: I’m refusing to answer that question! No, John and I have got on great – always have. There’s no tension.

Angry: …not even sexual?

Alex: Now, was the currency a key issue in the last few weeks of the campaign? No, it wasn’t. When we took the lead in the polls, with ten days to go, we still had the same currency options that we had when we fell behind in the polls ten days later. The currency issue was dead and buried after the second debate. All I did in there was take the opportunity to claw the feet from under Darling by listing them as options B, C, D and E!

Angry: I don’t think those on the ground saw it quite as black and white as that. At the time I was making gags about not switching to the euro due to Poundland and questioning how we’d unlock the trolleys at the supermarket if we couldn’t use Sterling coinage. Funny or not, they seemed to strike a chord, suggesting the matter wasn’t resolved for many.

Alex: The reason, politically, for putting forward the option that we did was that I was trying to avoid what happened in the last week of the campaign, and that was the scaremongering campaign through Treasury pressure on the banks. In the context of having a financial crisis only six years before, then things like bank withdrawals and the rest of it had a very strong presence in the public mind.

So I hoped that the Sterling policy would help forestall a scaremongering bank run. It didn’t, unfortunately, partly because the No campaign panicked and engaged in disreputable, dirty tactics and put extraordinary pressure on the banks and the media – outwith the people of The National, which we didn’t have then, and a number of isolated journalists who were willing to turn a blind eye to the United Kingdom Treasury – effectively blackmailing the banks into saying that they were going to relocate ... not their head offices, which is what the BBC reported, but their brass plaques!

To be fair to the Bank of Scotland, they gave a note to their staff that they had to properly make an announcement to the stock exchange, an explanatory letter pointing out the difference between having a head office a branch office.

Angry: So, weirdly, by championing a non-dramatic change instead of a more radical one, it allowed Better Together to manipulate the game from their end? As, effectively, we were still playing by central banking rules. You’re saying the error was giving the No campaign ten days to bribe, manipulate and scheme with corrupt institutions?

Alex: I was trying to avoid that happening. I didn’t manage to avoid it at the end of the day, basically, because we hit the front too soon. In a perfect world, in a universe created by Angry Salmond and Alex Salmond, where everything was perfectly ordered and synchronised, we’d have had that the Sunday before the referendum – not ten days before. If we had, then I believe we’d have won the referendum. But we didn’t.

Angry: Let’s not get too trapped in 2014. I’m interested to know, in your mind, what an independent Scotland would look like. Would it consider pioneering electronic currency alongside Sterling, for example?

Alex: Well, in the second debate with Alistair Darling, I said: “look, we can do this in several ways: we can have a currency union, we can have a one-to-one relationship with Sterling, we can have Sterlingisation, and we can have a floating currency; I mentioned all the countries that did all of these things. We could join the Euro; I mentioned (as best I could in three minutes) the advantages and disadvantages, but they all worked. So you choose what you think is best, but you could do any of these things. In the light of the scaremongering, I think I probably would’ve put more emphasis on Sterlingisation. Nobody can stop you from using Sterling. The Alistair Darling admission during the debate (“of course nobody can stop you from using Sterling”), well, that’s very interesting, Alistair!

Angry: Ha! How annoyed was he after the second debate?

Alex: It was the most animated I’ve ever seen him.

Angry: He looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Alex: He’d better watch in the House of Lords. If he gets animated he’ll end up getting carried out feet first.

Angry: You touched on this already, but just how unethical do you think Better Together were during the campaign?

Alex: I had a meeting this afternoon with an eminent Scottish business person, who is chairperson of an important Scottish cultural organisation, and he told me this afternoon that he was phoned up by a government minister, in the last week of the campaign, to tell him that unless he made a statement against Scottish independence, he would never get a public-sector appointment again. Ever. Now, to give credit to him, he refused to make the statement, but nonetheless. He just told me that this afternoon. So, yes, they were disgraceful, but people can always say “no – awa’ and lie on yer side!” Or, even better – which is what I would’ve done if they had said that to me in such a position – I would’ve gone to the Angry Salmond website and said “I’ve got a story for you!” And every day that they didn’t give me a public sector appointment! So, if anyone wants to blackmail me, it isn’t going to work.

Angry: This should be the approach of all decent-minded politicians: tell the fudricks to take flight and then give me a bell to announce it to the world. It’s unfortunate that not everyone in the game sees things this way.

Alex: My view on this is that if people who have never been interested in politics were able to resist scaremongering, then I think that well-to-do business people, who are well-set in the world, would be able to do it as well. I didn’t expect the UK Treasury to be ethical, or the UK Government to be ethical. Strangely enough, I did expect the BBC to be ethical. That was one of my mistakes...

Angry: I’m not sure that should be considered a mistake on your part.

Alex: As I said at the Edinburgh

Festival, in an interview with Paul Mason, I had a kind of blind spot. I thought that once we got into a campaign, it’d be like an election. In elections, broadcasters have been – historically – pretty fair, and I thought that this would be the same as an election. For some reason, I omitted to remember – as Paul pointed out – that the BBC is a unionist institution.

Angry: Yes, I suppose expecting the British Broadcast Corporation to see things from a non-British perspective would have asked too much.

Alex: The clue is in the name. So, that was a mistake. I should have reckoned on the “perfidity” of the BBC. The Robertson Report put it very well. It’s not how they report, but it’s what they report and what agenda they want to set. If the agenda is the Seven Plagues of Egypt are going to descend upon a poor, benighted Scotland, and here’s somebody on to say the order of the plagues, and here’s somebody from the Yes campaign to say “no, I think it’s unlikely that we’ll get locusts”. Then the BBC can say “well, we’ve got one for and one against”. But it doesn’t make it a balanced report because they’ve chosen the locusts as the subject and the plagues as a given. When the guy Robertson put that forward, look at what the BBC did: they tried to pressurise him out of the job! But the report was his report, and it was well said.

Angry: I think the BBC pleading innocent on such accusations has become as annoying as it is transparent. People have leapt to the defence of Nick Robinson, yet his actions would seem to speak for themselves.

Alex: What annoyed me about Nick Robinson was an e-mail that I got after the referendum froinside the BBC. It was an e-mail sent by the Treasury to the BBC a week before the referendum; 25 minutes before the Royal Bank board meeting sent Treasury figures to the BBC to get it on the 10 o’clock news. It wasn’t just the BBC recycling the Treasury line; what annoyed me was, even after I suggested that that’s what was happening, the BBC refused to report that story. They just wanted to recite the line, as opposed to “wait a minute, here we have evidence that the Treasury and the state broadcaster are in cahoots to create an agenda!”. Even to this day, they won’t see that as a huge story. Of course it’s a huge story. Unfortunately for them, that memo will continue to be evidence towards it.

Angry: Agreed. Myself and many other Sexy Socialists are regularly infuriated with the ineptitude of the BBC and its refusal to evolve into the 21st century. It’s perhaps one of the most exasperating subjects for me. But was it as bad as everyone said at the time?

Alex: Was everybody at the BBC bad? Of course not, no. If everybody in the BBC was bad, I wouldn’t have that memo, would I? Not everybody in the BBC thought that was a good thing for them to be doing, but that is what they were doing. And you know, London heavies like Robinson, who knows so little about this question (of independence). Why was Nick Robinson here in the first place? What is it about Brian Taylor that makes him incapable of presenting this to a wider public? Taylor knows almost as much as Angry Salmond about the Scottish constitutional question.

Angry: All there is!

Alex: Yet Taylor is pushed to one side by a London heavy who knows next to nothing about it because he’s not a London heavy.

Angry: Does it irritate you when media types refer to the referendum outcome as “decisive”? The fallout in the mainstream media seemed to be “unionists won – everyone move on!”. This seems rather crazy given how close the result was.

Alex: It struck me as very strange that people who had been panicking out of their wits a few days before seemed to forget how much they’d been panicking. Anyway, we knew that we’d win in the aftermath of the referendum just as soon as Cameron came sauntering out of Downing Street and made a right pillock of himself.

Angry: One year on and the SNP are stronger than ever, the Tories are despised, and the cast of Better Together – including Jim Murphy, George Galloway and especially Tony Blair – are more reviled than ever. Would you see this as a moral victory?

Alex: Well, if Blair was in jail ... that would certainly help!

Angry: There’s a growing demand to say the least, for jailing Blair. In fact I think I’m spearheading the campaign. What about the others? It was like a political version of Father Ted: Blair says something, Murphy blindly agrees and Galloway sits alone rambling: “Down with this sort of thing!”

Alex: It looks like Alistair has come up trumps. The rest, as you say, have been cast to the four winds: Jim Murphy is selling Irn-Bru in Ardrossan’s seafront as I understand it; things are not going well for Gorgeous George, and Tony Blair is being arrested by waiters across the country! I’m awaiting with interest the outcome of the Chilcot Inquiry. But Alistair’s done alright. Heading for the House of Lords...

Angry: If you ask me, that’s a bit like giving a dog a treat for defecating in your slippers. What about Danny Alexander getting a knighthood for services to muppetry? He said he didn’t want to take the peerage, but he’d take the knighthood.

Alex: It’s best to work your way up to it! But Alistair wasn’t made a Sir – he went straight there!

Angry: Just like Michelle Mone. She knows a lot about tits – she’s bound to fit right in at the House of Lords!I Aren’t these suck-ups just being rewarded for keeping Scotland captive?

Alex: “Holding Scotland fast” is the historical phrase. “Have Scotland and we shall hold it fast!”

Angry: Are we [in Scotland] going to get a second chamber?

Alex: I’m not convinced that a second chamber is necessary. I mean, it’s not really up to me; if people want a second chamber, that’s fine, but there are other countries that roll along without a second chamber. In my opinion, to avoid the necessity of a second chamber, you have to have a committee system that operates as a scrutiny of the government. But there is always an argument for having a second chamber. I don’t see much wrong with the idea – I’m easy, basically.

Angry: Some Unionists like to make a song and dance about a majority government in the Scottish Parliament being allowed to do what it wants with devolved issues, but clearly this is not the case. I mentioned a majority government there – that’s something Scottish Labour can only dream of these days. Looking back on them, how do you rate Lamont, Murphy and Dugdale?

Alex: I would say that Murphy is guiltier than Lamont or Dugdale. I rather liked Lamont.

Angry: She grew on me, I have to admit. She certainly seemed more credible than her successors. Murphy and Dugdale reminded me of Dastardly and Muttley; grand plans and grand schemes, all followed by grand failure.

Alex: You can always judge people by their resignation; I like to say that because I’ve done two! People have good resignations or bad ones. Johann Lamont’s resignation was a good one because she created a big stir and got to the nub of the issue – “we are a branch office”. That was a good resignation. Jim Murphy, on the other hand, was an absurd resignation because he decided that it was all Len McCluskey’s fault. What on earth has it got to do with Len McCluskey. I mean, if he’d said it was Angry Salmond’s fault then he’d have been nearer the mark.

Angry: Of course, nothing is ever Jim Murphy’s fault...

Alex: “I’m just blaming ... hmm ...

Len McCluskey! My resignation is a stand against McCluskyism!

“I’d like to say to all these McCluskyites out there that I may be resigning, but I shall fight and fight again to avoid Leninism in this party. I am upright here, standing a man alone against Len McCluskey!”

Angry: It says a lot that you are now judging Scottish Labour leaders on their ability to resign.

Alex: Well, how many did I have? There was Jack McConnell, Wendy Alexander, Iain Gray and Johann Lamont ... I think that Johann resigned before me. Jim Murphy was elected after me, so I had Jack, Wendy, Iain, Johann and a vacuum. Will Nicola Sturgeon see off four and a vacuum? Well, she’s started vacuum, Murphy, Kezia ... so she’s on two-and-a-half already!

Angry: The Labour train wreck has been somewhat of a gift for your party. The 2015 election result was pretty good – to put it mildly – for the SNP. Do you see this as a pronounced endorsement for the SNP and (eventually) independence?

Alex: I think, in the traditions of Presbyterianism, I would say that the polls are “no’ bad”. If you’re a political leader like Nicola, you’re staring at dizzying poll ratings – 55/58 per cent – and your last two opinion polls both showed positive for independence, you’d be pretty happy.

Angry: In the lead-up to the referendum, Sturgeon was almost as prominent a figure as you were. Do you think it’s right that a party should groom future leaders and position them in the public eye to avoid the vacuum of unknowns like we have seen on numerous occasions within Labour?

Alex: One of the key jobs of leadership is to prepare a successor. It’s also very much in the interests of the outgoing leader – you don’t want to be seen as the cause of catastrophe! You don’t want to be seen as ... Ed Miliband! You’d rather be seen as paving the way.

Angry: Is there anybody you’ve already pegged as having the leadership qualities and vision to become First Minister in the post-Sturgeon era?

Alex: I’ll wait for the betting market first! Once the betting market’s got going I’ll put up a few false favourites to try and influence the odds, and then I’ll plunge. But look, there are likely lasses and lads. I’m in a group now of 56 people who are, by my estimations, the most talented parliamentary group I’ve ever seen – bar none. Anywhere, anytime. So, I’m really privileged to be among such people.

Angry: I recently mailed a pink beret and sunglasses to Jeremy Corbyn. Why isn’t he wearing them? Personally, I’m blaming the Tory privatisation of Royal Mail...

Alex: I think Jeremy has obviously had to compromise as he approaches leadership. Now, the Jeremy that I knew – the real Jeremy – he’d have had that beret on like nobody’s business! I just think that it’s sad – even at this stage – that we’re seeing the first signs of him conforming by not wearing the attire that a sexy socialist would be delighted to adorn themselves with.

Angry: I suppose that leads me to ask what you think #SexySocialism is all about?

Alex: There was a wee bit of philosophical disagreement here. Not with the “sexy” bit, obviously, but with “social democracy”, which I’ve always thought was a more pragmatic way to approach sex. There’s always an argument for approaching things in a gradualist manner.

Angry: Nice and slow as opposed to hard and fast.

Alex: Really, though, I think it’s one of the great rallying calls of modern politics. Long may it continue!

Angry: Obviously, its origins are in Twitter. Give me your thoughts on what social media means for politics?

Alex: If you think about the forces that are laid against us, by and large, they’re the establishment. If we’d held this referendum 20 years ago, we’d have got hammered. If we’d held it ten years ago, we’d have got thumped. The avenues that are available to people now are much greater. It doesn’t mean that the playing field is level; it just means that it’s less tilted.

So, as time goes on, the established media and establishment have become less powerful. Generally speaking, our side have become more influential. So I think that the balance of history is working in our favour. And if I’d realised this earlier, I’d have put it back the referendum another year!

Angry: So, you consider the energy springing from social media to be the future?

Alex: I think that most of the good stuff’s on our side. With a few bumps along the way, it’s basically on the rise. It’s not just a rise in the balance of power for the SNP; it’s a rise in the balance of power throughout Scotland. Any developed democracy has a fundamental power shift, between those with power and those without, and the ability of people to organise and mobilise has gone up exponentially. So, whether that’s a fundamentally good thing, a sexy thing in itself or just had sex thrust upon it is just a matter that will occupy political philosophers for a generation or more. But it’s nonetheless the case.

Angry: I agree. I think for a very long time generations have been told that “the cream rises to the top” when this, by and large, is not the case. I think we’re now seeing a radical change happening through social media that looks to level the playing field and finally bring fairness to the game. Any final thoughts?

Alex: My new book’s out next Thursday – in paperback!

Angry: And with new chapters that cover up to the 2015 election campaign, I understand?

Alex: The campaign and the aftermath. It finishes on the night that Labour died, ie the night that they abstained on the Welfare Bill.

Angry: Personally, I still think that happened when Miliband didn’t catch the ball with the progressive alliance – but I’ll put that line of questioning to the present First Minister (hint, hint, if you’re reading this…). Regardless, Labour MPs would certainly be wise to purchase a copy of your book to learn what their mistakes actually were.

Alex: There’s a Gaelic edition, too, which I thought was important. And an audio version.

Angry: Do you speak on the recording?

Alex: Yeah, you usually speak on audio versions. I mean, I tried the silent treatment, but that didn’t work very well. Have you seen my new website? I’m thinking about starting an Angry Salmond section.

Angry: Well, if there’s room...

Alex: It’s the internet. The internet has a massive amount of room.

Angry: You’re bound to enjoy writing your “Week in Review”!

Alex: The “Week in Review” came about because when I was a young MP, in 1987, and I had just won the seat with a majority of 2441, I was determined that I would never lose the seat. So I thought “I’ll set off like a rocket” and I’ll go to every hamlet, village, small town in Banff and Buchan - of which there were 57. So I went to 57 surgeries in my little yellow caravan. In October of 1987, I was doing my last of 57 surgeries, in a car park in Pitsligo, and I was trying to get the radio to work to listen to the Hearts game.

I was in a really bad mood, and a woman came in, and the first thing she said to me was “we’ve not seen much of you in Pitsligo since the election!” I was a bit “pit oot”, so I said: “MADAM! I have been conducting 57 surgeries around this constituency! This is number fifty-seven! I’m here in Pitsligo, instead of being at Tynecastle watching the fitba!” And she said “I’m just saying, haven’t seen you much since the election!” I was pretty annoyed, so in high dudgeon I went back to Strichen, and Moira was there, and there was a roaring fire, and she had my tea out.

Angry: Every Sexy Socialist needs a Moira.

Alex: Yes, but I was still very annoyed.

I explained to her what had happened, and instead of saying “poor you” – as you might’ve thought she might’ve said – she said “well, of course, from the Pitsligo view of the world, the women is correct! They haven’t seen much of you since the election! The fact that you’ve done 56 other surgeries is neither here nor there!”

And I said “well, I don’t know what I’m going to do! I can’t do anymore! I mean it’s superhuman! Nobody could do any more, or work any harder, surgery-wise, than I was working!” And she said “well, you’d better tell more of them”. So, I started the “Week in Review”, which was two sides of A4 detailing everything I’d done and a diary of the next week, and I sent it out on request – you had to request it – to policemen, nurses, community council chairmen, busybodies, local worthies ... anybody I could think of.

It got up to about 600 in circulation every week until the last year or two, when my staff got too lazy ... or until I realised online was much more effective. The “Week in Review” on my website is the result of what happened with that woman in Pitsligo in October of 1987.

Angry: So, being angry can lead to positive things?

Alex: Yes, it does. Or it can lead to jail. It just depends how you channel it.

Angry: Words to live by.