If you ever wondered what a tall tree looks like lying on its side...

100 mile an hour winds in central Scotland today - power downs bridges closed, cars overturned on motorways, bits of roof flying around, and a 100 foot/30 metre tree uprooted on a main road.
I was driving along Ravelston Dykes in Edinburgh trying to avoid branches and other greenery the wind had blown on to the road when I passed a junction that was more than usually busy. The photos tell why. This is no Japanese tsunami or mid-West tornado, but to see a mature tree with a diameter of around a metre just flattened is enough to persuade me that Nature Rules, OK?
I spoke to the man who owns the house on the corner, who was understandably pleased that the tree fell away from and not into his garden
Hope to get to tomorrow with no reports of people being hurt.

Brave new electoral world

Two weeks since that election and the political map of Scotland has changed dramatically and, perhaps, for good.
The system that was designed to produce coalitions and minority governments has somehow contrived to provide us with an overall majority of 9 and a re-elected SNP government. As Mark Twain said in the phrase oft-quoted in politics, 'The people have spoken, the b***ards'.
The psephologists will be picking over the results for months, but in the real world the rest of us will be wondering what it means for our daily lives while the recession continues to affect our pockets and our jobs.

Election

The polls have just closed in Scotland, at the end of the fourth Scottish election since the Scottish Parliament was [re]established in 1999. Predictions were for the Scottish National Party to gain the biggest number of seats, but the electoral system almost ensures no overall majority, so it will be an interesting couple of days until all of the votes are counted.