Recently my ire was raised. I made the mistake of listening to the state radio station the Canadian Government forces me to pay for - Motto - Yesterday's News Tomorrow but Infantile American Podcasters Today. Anyway, there was some stupid TV critic yammering on about innocent people being killed to further a good cause. The good cause was forcing an area into a foreign country the majority of its residents wanted nothing to do with. Is this Canadian Government policy? Why am I being forced to pay to give ignorant stupid television commentators a platform for fascist ill-informed comment when they decide to venture into reality instead of made-up fantasy drama.

When I was 16 or 17 I had one of those little 50cc mopeds - a Suzuki AP50 if you're interested. One Saturday or Sunday I decided to ride from Livingston to Callander to look in on my Dad's old Uncle Don. But when I got to his house the woman who answered the door said he'd died a couple of years earlier but she had no details because she'd never met him. The thing is that when I got back to Livingston I was shown a family picture and the woman who answered the door was in it; older but definitely her. We knew Betty Wilson had been staying with Uncle Don. Why would she lie? To a large extent you can choose your friends but not your family.

These days I seem to be hearing more and more supposed subject experts on the radio whose sole qualification seems to that they are bloggers or podcasters. Quite often I'm unimpressed by their insight or mastery of the subject in question, or both. I hope they aren't selected simply because they are easy to find by going on the internet. I know when it comes to locating subject experts these folk are pretty low hanging fruit. Quick is cheap. But you get what you pay for.

It is illegal in Canada to deny the Holocaust happened during the Second World War. I don't think stupidity and ignorance in speech should be a crime. I don't think expressing an opinion or a doubt should be a crime. It is easier to identify nasty cranks quickly if I hear them deny things like the Holocaust. And what if it is decided to make questioning what others might regard as indisputable fact a crime? This is a very very slippery path.

You know, for a draft dodger Trump sure seems to love the use of military force. I heard him on the radio praising the most recent US war dead, following his attack on Iran, as patriotic heroes. And yet when the young Donald J Trump had the chance to serve his democratically elected leaders in the US military in the 1960s he was a no-show. A tenant of his landlord dad, who claimed to have a medical licence, certified Trump as disabled by heel spurs when his draft dodging days seemed to have finally come to an end. Not that that his disability stopped Trump playing team sports. Or that he can recall now which foot had this crippling injury. In his first term as president Trump did not bother to hide the fact that he regarded those in military uniform as mugs. He'd avoided military service; why didn't they have the brains to do the same thing? Let's hope the next German-Scottish president of the USA has better luck when it comes to crippling disability. By the way, is he still claiming Trump is a Swedish name?