Exposed: The Lines 'Better Together' Didn't Use

Crippling export duties to bring Scotland to its knees

Confidential documents from the Better Together campaign obtained exclusively by Oh Dear. How Sad. Never Mind. reveal some of the reasons considered as to why Scotland should reject independence in the upcoming referendum.

Although no spokesman for either side has yet commented on the leaked documents, ODHSNM believes it is its journalistic responsibility to publish them, just in case they are not completely made up. 

1. If Scotland votes for independence, everyone in England will refer to it as “Pooland”.
2. No more Buckfast for you.
3. Not only can you not keep the pound, but under cover of darkness on September 20^th, SAS units will steal all the proper sterling currency within Scottish territory and replace it with those crappy Scottish notes that no one accepts.
4. Prince Charles will cry and set fire to all of his kilts.
5. It is only the constant vigiliance of secret radar installations based in North Yorkshire that stop hordes of Loch Ness Monsters from bursting out of their watery lairs and overrunning the Highlands. They eat oil, too
6. MI5 will leak naked pictures of Alex Salmond. 
7. Independence has been shown to cause increase incidences of impetigo, dwarfism and homosexuality.
8. Masked men speaking with Russian accents have been noticed gathering around Aberdeen, while Vladimir Putin was recently spotted wearing a Tam O’Shanter and ginger wig.
9. You have to keep Gordon Brown.

"For real - I took this picture", Alistair Darling is quoted as saying

It is unknown why these lines were never used, however the documents had four words scrawled over them in red biro:

 “Yes, but: George Osborne”

There. You see: I can do satire. 

Is This The Most Awful Drink Ever?

This is Fernet Branca. You may recognise the label, having seen it in a dusty corner of a bar’s back shelf, among that plethora of liqueurs you’ve never seen anybody buy or drink but which nevertheless seem perennially to be stocked “just in case”.

I have, of late, being trying these concoctions wherever I can. This started off with my and Elvira’s 2011 trip to Prague, where I discovered Becherovka – which is right now my favourite drink in the universe (I am also, I think, the only British Campari drinker aged under 70).

So, I embarked upon a voyage of discovery into what the Teutons call “Kräuterlikör” and the Latins call “Amaro” – spirit-based liqueurs flavoured with herbs of an essentially bitter nature.

The first thing I discovered is that this is not a conventional British thing to drink or express an appetite for. The only such thing you are likely to come across in your local boozer is Jägermeister – and the only reasons I can see for its unique position is:

• Jägermeister’s (relatively) colossal advertising spending; and
• The Jägerbomb – which adds Red Bull to the equation, so as to combine ridiculous amounts of alcohol, sugar AND caffeine in a single gulp.

Indeed, I was recently on a works drinks evening, when some poor drunken subordinate suggested a round of Jägerbombs. As the boss-in-attendance, everyone was very keen that I should be included in this round – but I insisted that – as a parent – I would not drink Red Bull in the evening. I have to sleep, you know, and I observe a strict regimen of uppers in the morning and downers in the evening.

So I asked, to the bemusement of the barman and my colleagues, for my Jäger neat. And then we all necked everything in our glasses, so that nobody really tasted anything.

On another works occasion, I was told I was the only person my colleagues had ever seen to sip Jägermeister from a shot glass. They probably concluded that this is because I am a huge ponce who thinks he’s “oooh so continental” but is in fact just odd.

Anyway, I went from Jägermeister to Becherovka to Unicum to Kuemmerling to Rammazotti, eventually pitching up at Fernet Branca. Where I came to a grinding halt.

After a few mouthfuls I poured a big glass of it into a potted plant. The plant did not immediately wilt in an amusing manner, but it probably did not do it any good.

Now, whilst drinking these other drinks I have frequently been told by others that they are disgusting and that how I can possibly stomach them is incomprehensible.

That is how I felt about Fernet Branca – which is apparently popular in some parts of the world. The article linked to here describes is as tasting like “black licorice-flavored Listerine".

Certainly, my immediate thoughts were of oral hygiene:

• Firstly, because it tastes like toothpaste and generates the same burning sensation and unwillingness to swallow as mouthwash
• Secondly, because my panicked brain declared “oh my god what the hell have you just put in your mouth?”

Now, I know that everybody hates their first beer, their first cigarette, their first whisky, their first Becherovka – and some people then persist and come to acquire the taste by bloody-minded perseverence in the face of their body’s strenuous objections.

But this was different.

When I tasted this I assumed a joke was being played on me. Perhaps that bottle has lain there, untouched, since before the First World War and it has, in fact, gone very badly off.

Later, when I read the article I linked to earlier, I realised to my stark amazement that IT IS SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE THAT.

I presume it has an eagle on the logo because Fernet Branca tastes like the semi-digested carrion this noble bird regurgitates to feed its young. 

I thought I could drink anything. I was so wrong and felt suitably abashed. Everybody has a limit, and I found something that is WAAAAAY beyond mine. It was a lesson – and not one I shall quickly forget.

By the way, I must add that I would NEVER normally throw away a drink, even if I believed it to be disgusting and over a hundred years old. Fortunately, we were on an all-inclusive package holiday at the time – so I made an exception, poured the Fernet Branca into the poor, unsuspecting plant and washed the foul taste away with a free pint of Disaronno.