Getting Unknotted

For some considerable time now the soothsayers have been in an exalted state of excitement concerning the imminent Wee Votie north of the Northumbrian border, which will determine whether or not the Caledonians will run themselves as an independent kingdom, thus disconnecting the close ties which hitherto have bound the kingdoms together.

There have been debates between politicos of rival factions; the chief protagonist on the side of independent-minded Picts has been their spiritual leader, the well-fed and immensely self-satisfied Angus McTrout. With a smugness trespassing the borders of severely delusional self-confidence, the Wee Chiefie has capably dismissed the contrary arguments with a majestic sweep of his overloaded and quasi-poetic rhetoric. Invoking the memories of a past which - if truth be told - never had the misfortune to happen, he appealed to a Golden Age of Caledonian supremacy, poets, kings, glorious battles, Pyrrhic victories, free oats, uisge beatha gently trickling in torrents through the burns and braes of the Sacred Land, along with other word-paintings of similar nonsense. Your Cat should point out that such tales owe more to the vast consumption of magic mushrooms, washed down by the aforesaid distillation.

The primary rivals and defenders of the existing arrangement in these debates have been Caledonian Redistributionists; Tree politicos have been notably absent, since on that side of the border their popularity  is matched only with that of a free range dog's colonic droppings on a butcher's bench. Since the Trees therefore have no reason to to engage in debate with the rebellious Picts, the Redistributionists have been obliged to take up the mantle; should the Wee Votie decide that Caledonia is an independent political entity, they stand to lose not an insignificant number of politicos from the Northumbrian Witangemot. The result of this would be utter tragedy, since it would thus guarantee that a Redistributionist majority will never happen in the future. Try - if you can - to imagine this Cat's heartfelt tears.

One sticking point in the debates - which, like a dialogue of the deaf - has involved irritable exchanges of attitude rather than arguments, has been the issue of the proposed new Independent Caledonia's currency. Since the separation would involve the severing of the purse strings from the Northumbrian exchequer, cold logic would decree that the Picts and Scots would have to establish their own currency - thus following through their independent zeal to its ultimate conclusion. This is evidently too much like hard work for the Wee Chiefie, who in his customarily complacent manner has instead that they will retain the Holy Groat, since they will continue to need supplies of the filthy Northumbrian lucre to maintain their existing dependence on magic mushrooms. And Caledonian currency would be worthless in the Northumbrian realm...