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I'm someone who lives in an area of Scotland that the European Union classifies as 'remote rural', on a coast polluted by the effluent of Windscale/Sellafield/Leafy Meadows or whatever they're calling it today. It's not surprising that I'm interested in rural policy, land ownership policy and ecology.

I'm also someone who writes, both software and stories, so it's not surprising that I'm interested in so-called 'intellectual property'.

For me one key issue links these apparently disparate interests: the enclosure of the commons, the (all too often successful) attempt by powerful vested interests to seize communal resources and turn them into 'property'.

Representation anent Amendment 8 to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill -- Monday, 15 March, 2010
Our MSPs - or, specifically, one Trish Godman MSP - are at it again. Introducing legislation so regressively antediluvian it would shock the Taleban. How long will it be before sex in Scotland is simply banned altogether? Here's my response.
Draft response to Ordnance Survey consultation -- Tuesday, 29 December, 2009
The government are consulting on proposals to release a substantial chunk of Ordnance Survey data for free. This is my first draft of a response to that consultation.
Days when I'm proud to be Scots -- Friday, 21 August, 2009
We released al-Megrahi yesterday. On compassionate grounds. Against strong international pressure.
John Knox stirs in his grave -- Tuesday, 17 February, 2009
My party - the Scottish National Party - has introduced legislation making it an actual crime for girls under sixteen to have sex, and is now proposing to make it a crime to have images of 'rape'. These two matters are not distinct, they're linked.
Dear George, here's how to get your parliament -- Tuesday, 17 February, 2009
George Monbiot writes in today's Guardian arguing for an English parliament. Here I write in support of his effort.
Impartiality? -- Monday, 26 January, 2009
The BBC's excuse for not showing the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal is that to do so would 'damage impartiality'. But not to do so does - fatally - damage impartiality.
Sex, adolescents and the law -- Thursday, 2 October, 2008
In scotland, it is actually a crime for a boy under sixteen to have sex. That is the situation the SNP Government has inherited. The law commission have argued that it issexually discriminatory that only boys are targetted, and have suggested this law should be repealed. The Government have instead decided to criminalise girls, too...
Medals, counting and chauvinism -- Sunday, 24 August, 2008
The British media - the BBC inter alia, although they may not be the worst offenders - have been making a big deal about 'Team GB' coming fourth in the 'medal table' as if that somehow reflected credit on the second most obese nation in the world, the nation of lard arsed couch potatoes whose nearest approach to athleticism is the five- metre waddle from the double yellow line to the pizza counter.

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