BEFORE FMQs got under way yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon set out the next steps on the route map out of lockdown.

She made the long-awaited announcement that gyms will be re-opening on August 31. Hurrah! It’s good news for the minority of the population who have missed exercise and it’s FANTASTIC news for the majority who have been irritated by Duncan Bannatyne’s constant whining. As the First Minister spoke about the rising numbers of new daily cases of the virus, she stressed that life should not feel completely back to normal right now. If it does, she said, we have to ask ourselves whether we are following all the rules.

Nowhere is it clearer that life isn’t back to normal than at FMQs. Patrick Harvie was beamed into the chamber on no fewer than three giant screens. Behind him, in his tastefully decorated living room, there were three bottles of wine. Underneath those were three hanging wine glasses. This could just be Patrick Harvie being well prepared to receive guests, but it could also be a subliminal dig at disastrous Scottish Labour. Move along, Dickie. Harvie’s aiming for your third-place spot at the upcoming election.

Things got even weirder a few minutes later when Willie Rennie got up and asked a half-decent question for a change.

“Two months ago, the Justice Secretary told a committee of this Parliament that 20% of arrivals from abroad required to quarantine were being spot-checked. The actual number was zero. Yesterday, an official Government document showed the figure was still only 7%, but the Health Secretary told the chamber she thought it was 20%. Does anyone in the Scottish Government have a grasp of these numbers? Do ministers think it’s important to carry out spot checks or not?”

The First Minister replied that yes, they do have a grasp of the numbers and yes, they do think it is important to carry out spot checks.

“We committed to Public Health Scotland making contact with around 20% of travellers, up to a maximum of 450 per week, which at that time was considered to be a robust sample size.

“We’re currently exceeding that figure with around 600 contacts per week. As the number of flights increases we will require to take decisions to increase that capacity further.

“To put this in context, we understand that Public Health England take a random sample of 600 individuals from travellers entering England each week.”

An interesting question, a detailed answer. We learned something! Maybe this new topsy-turvy world isn’t without positives. It was so refreshing to hear an exchange between Rennie and Sturgeon that wasn’t about the constitution. Or why indyref2 is a democratic outrage but EUref2 would be fine and dandy.

But wait. What’s this?

Rennie has that glint in his eye. He’s either going to burst into song or try to cause some trouble. Let’s find out which.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for Dancing Queen. “If the First Minister focused a little bit more on the INTERNATIONAL BORDER than the ENGLISH BORDER, we might be in a better position.”

Oh Willie. You could have continued with what was a very competent line of questioning. You could have belted out some ABBA. Anything would have been better than that.

Here comes Sturgeon … “If Willie Rennie wanted to pay some attention to the actual decisions we were making, he would know his comment there about borders is completely and utterly ridiculous and actually, I think, beneath him.

“On this, I’m not particularly interested in borders or where they are, I’m interested in keeping Scotland as safe as I can do from an infectious virus. I’ll take whatever decisions are necessary to achieve that.”