[Nigel Mace]

Your comment is as un-mannerly as it is ignorant, John.

You are well aware that the statistics on religious allegiance in the UK, are quite separate from place of birth and the percentage of the one, tell you zero about the other. My home area of Glasgow stretches from huge Victorian villas to streets of capacious Victorian tennements, and the range of inhabitants - as I seem to recall having had to inform you before - run from some of the wealthiest families to multi-occupancy flats, many inhabited by immigrant, or immigrant descended, families from the Indian sub-continent. Among the villa dwellers were sections of immigration, from '30s Germany and Austria, from Greek Cyprus and the significant Glasgow Italian and Polish communities. At one end of the road in which my parents villa stood (we were relatively impecunious interlopers, actors and educators) was what was then (1960s-70s) known locally as 'Holy Corner' - a Greek Thompson style church (Church of Scotland), a well-supported Orthodox synagogue and a Sikh temple.

In any case, we are natural accepters of immigration being a nation founded by precisely that. Our 'Scots' ancestors, you may recall, were Irish as well as Angle settlers (English) especially in the eastern lowlands and native Celts of various kinds whose Gaelic speaking peoples (plural please note) were spread unevenly from the Pictish north to even the, now residually Tory, south-west, while many of our islands were mostly Norwegian/Danish settlements.

And, no, John I do not 'care' about the percentage of Muslims/flat-earthers/Hindus/Jews/Presbyterians/Roman Catholics/Baptists/Episcopalians/Bhuddists etc. in Scotland. Their desire for religious affiliation is, quite properly, none of my business - just as it is none of yours. What I do know is that among our best SNP Ministers (political, not religious) and MPs, all supporters of immigration, we have representatives of several of these faiths - and several of them are indeed, it just so happens, Muslim.
Oh - and I have heard that another Muslim is the Mayor of England's capital too. So, well done there.

[John Whitworth]

Ah well, Nigel. Ignorance is doubtless the best defence. You don't know. You don't care. Scots are natural accepters of immigrants. They seemed, and doubtless seem, to have a problem with Irish immigrants, never mind anyone farther afield. Or was that the distant past? Not quite as distant as baloney about the Picts though.

As for independence inside the EU, the best of luck with that one.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Is anyone going to a "March for Science" on April 22nd? There is information about it at the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Also about the "People's Climate March" in Washington on the 29th.

I'm hoping to go to one on the 22nd. They're happening all over the world that day, spurred on by Trump, Pruitt, and other climate-change-denying white-collar criminals.

[Mark Blaeuer]

Andrew,

I've been planning for awhile to participate, at the event in Little Rock. It'll be the first mass demonstration I've been part of since the '80s (anti-nuke, when I was living in Colorado).

[Roger Slater]

Back to Trump, I think I've found someone who can explain the problem in terms that even John will appreciate. Here.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Thanks, Roger, that's my favorite Trump spoof so far.

[Jim Moonan]

Great parody of a president who is a mockery stuffed inside a caricature. (with apologies to Sir Winston)

[John Whitworth]

He sings nice, Roger. What he says really doesn't matter.

[James Brancheau]

So when does this go boom? (And can we wager? I'd like to make up for a bet on the election.)

[Andrew Frisardi]

James, you might have already seen this but an Irish bookie is taking bets on all things Trump.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is placing another kind of bet.