I am a keen watcher of UK BBCTV news programmes, but sometimes get furious at what is said by the broadcasters.

One bugbear is the weather forecasts. Here the presenters sometimes refer to "The North-East", but don't mean the North-east of the UK, but the north-east of ENGLAND. As I spent 25+ years living in north-east SCOTLAND, this frequently got me pricking up my ears, thinking they were talking about Aberdeenshire, only to discover they were referring to an area hundreds of miles south of where I lived.

Another annoying habit of the London weather presenters is saying "such and such will be happening from the word GO" - which has always got me saying "But when was the word GO said, and in what situation, and who said it???" To me it is an almost meaningless phrase, but it keeps recurring on the weather forecasts. A similar problem exists with "The North", which might mean Northern Scotland (which equals the northern UK), but might also refer to northern England.

For years I also observed the way places were indicated in the news. If it was a location in England, the placename would be followed by the name of the county, to make it clear where it was. BUT, if it was place in Scotland, it would be "Irvine, in Scotland", rather than "Irvine, Ayrshire",. if they were to be consistent. I suspect the practice reflected the newswriter's lack of knowledge of Scotland, rather than an attempt to denigrate. To me, it showed how poor their own education was.

Recently I have noticed an improvement, especially where they have used a local reporter in Scotland to tell the news story. Perhaps their newsfeeds are better prepared as well.

Things are hotting up as we get nearer the election date of 3rd May. Claims and counter-claims appear every day, and letters to the local papers push various policy lines, depending on which party the writer favours. Some are from Independent candidates, making their own points, a few are from individual voters, mostly moaning about the candidates!

I am a member of the Liberal Democrats, and I spent Thursday morning delivering leaflets with a couple of other members. We got quite a large area covered, working as a team. Only one person wanted to talk to the local councillor (one of our team), and he was glad to help with the inquiry.
We have borrowed an office in the town centre, above a local betting shop. It has large windows, which are now covered with large yellow posters for the party and its main candidate.

There are two elections happening: One is for the Scottish Parliament, and the other is for local councillors throughout the country - in our case for the Highland Council. The council voting is new, on a proportional representation basis: you mark candidates in order of preference - 1,2,3,...
The Parliamentary voting is different. There you vote once for your preferred candidate, and secondly you place a vote for your preferred political party. The party votes produce Regional MSPs on a proportional basis, supplementing the directly-elected winning candidate. This gives seats to parties which otherwise might have no outright winners. It works fairly well, giving a voice to smaller parties, and more influence for other major parties. It almost inevitably leads to coalition government, but that is good too, as it restricts any extreme policies as coalition partners won't allow these to go ahead.